

There's a similarly mixed bag when it comes to the weapons and enemies.įor the most part the classics work well, and some of the new additions, including a laser lasso and long-range explosive shotgun, are great. The ruins of Ancient Egypt are rocket-resistant for the first four hours or so there's always an indestructible wall to duck behind for a breather, which kills whatever momentum the game tries to build. Even worse, the entire fast-and-loose gameplay concept Sam is built on doesn't work in rubble-strewn alleyways and half-collapsed buildings.

To be fair, though, at least the classic levels play well-which can't be said for the Cairo half of the game.īy putting Sam in what is-geographic specificity aside-a war-torn Middle Eastern city, the developers have ensured that half their game is visually indistinguishable from 60% of the FPSs on the market. Whether the stone is new or weathered, Sam is still running around Egypt, blowing up Kamikazes and Harpies, making BFE feel more like a hi-res remake than a prequel.
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The second half of the game is at least an understandable mistake-clearly the developers thought that players would want to see some classic environments, but they don't seem to realize just how tedious this gets over a long series of similar levels. This choice in locales is an unmitigated disaster. The only purpose that the utterly inessential story serves is to set up the game's locales, namely war-torn Cairo and ruined, near-future versions of locales familiar to fans of the series. Although I can't be sure that there's anyone out there clamoring to see that storyline resolved, I'm certain that no one was asking to see the events directly Before the First Encounter, telling the story of how Sam got to the time machine he used to set up the rest of the series. While plot has never been the franchise's most important feature, up until now the games have been about Sam Stone traveling through the distant past, attempting to preemptively kill an alien named Mental who, prior to the events of the first game, destroyed the Earth.

This raises the question-are updated graphics enough to justify another trip into Serious country?īFE's story is a complete wash, largely due to the fact that it's a prequel. This boast is the entirety of the game's design philosophy-there is literally nothing complex or modern about BFE, other than its stellar graphics. The game's tagline "No Cover, All Man" proudly announces the game's throwback status, as if designing a game requiring strategies that go beyond "backpedal quickly while shooting" is somehow an effeminate act. Serious Sam 3: BFE wears its primitive simplicity as a badge of honor. LOW True ’90s-style coloured-key fetchquests. HIGH True ’90s-style high-octane run-and-gunplay.
