Serious Sam 3: BFE is the 2011 prequel of the original game, Serious Sam: The First Encounter (TFE). This game has you playing as Sam “Serious” Stone, a soldier in the Earth Defense Force (unrelated to the other series lol) who is dispatched to modern-day Cairo, Egypt for a mission. The gameplay consists of linear levels with generally large scale battles against many different types of enemies. The Serious Sam games are typically known for being difficult, and while this one is easier than The First Encounter, it’s still got some significant difficulty. The game was generally positively received, although some fans didn’t enjoy Croteam’s attempts to modernize the gameplay.
NOTE: This review is mostly based on the BFE single-player campaign on Hard difficulty.
-Solid large scale battles.
-Good selection of weapons.
-Lots of destructible props.
-Very solid graphics for 2011.
-Great soundtrack.
-The Sirian areas within the pyramids look incredible.
-Cheesy but enjoyable writing.
-Solid one-liners. There’s also some occasionally bad/outdated lines.
-Co-op campaign is fun. It’s pretty dead online, so bring friends.
-Tons of settings.
-Some of the gameplay additions are a bit questionable. Particularly sprinting and ADS for some weapons.
-The difficulty seems more fair and slowly built up compared to Serious Sam HD. Despite this, it’s still pretty frustrating at times.
-Performance is generally solid, but long pauses/stutters are sometimes present when saving or picking up certain mission items.
-Tons of hitscanning enemies.
-You can’t switch weapons while sprinting.
-The sledgehammers swinging animations are over the top and can cause motion sickness.
-The level deign is very repetitive.
-The flashlight isn’t manually togglable.
-Some hand-holding moments where the camera controls are taken away from the player.
-The final level is probably the worst in the whole game. Basically just endless spam of enemies and hitscanners with little to no cover for 90 minutes straight. For whatever reason, the lighting is also very de-saturated on this level specifically, making it look very bland.
Serious Sam 3: BFE starts off seriously strong. Sadly, it gets worse as it goes on and it has some issues, but it’s still a lot of fun. The co-op is a great time.
6/10
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