Serious Sam 3: Don't Think, Just Shoot

Pretty much everything in Serious Sam 3 wants to kill you. The kleer skeletons pounce at close range and toss chain bolos from afar, the ape-like Gnaar try to eat you, and the headless suicide humanoids with bombs for hands want to kill you so badly they can't resist screaming while they charge. The action starts in Cairo and within minutes you'll be sledgehammering enemies in the head. The plot and dialogue aren't meant to be taken seriously; aliens are invading, and Sam fights back with a bunch of one-liners, bullets and rockets.

Serious Sam 3: BFE is by far the prettiest Serious Sam game, and boasts a realistic art style. Weapons models and environments, from the sprawling sands of desert battlegrounds to the dark halls of alien-infested basements, are rendered with a life-like look, as opposed to the colorful style of Serious Sam II.

It's still goofy, but in many parts Serious Sam 3 veers into horror game territory. Early on in the game you'll head underground into catacombs armed with nothing but your flashlight and a meager assortment of weapons. While in the depths you're forced to illuminate passages to reveal alien eggs and skittering, spitting monstrosities. Later you'll trudge through ancient ruins in large, near pitch black spaces. Though the light-hearted aspect of Serious Sam is retained as you're assaulted by mobs of absurd enemies, Serious Sam 3 feels not quite as overtly silly as it used to be.

The franchise trademark large open areas where enemies spawn in and you're forced to sprint around frantically while backpedaling and circle-strafing still exist, but in other sections you'll crawl through underground tombs and battle monsters in smaller, narrow areas like city streets. This kind of level variety may help alleviate some of the feeling of repetition that tends to set in after clearing one large, open battle arena after another.

Each battle zone has plenty of places to hide, including tall support beams within ruins as well the crumbling buildings scattered around outdoor areas. Some of the terrain can be broken apart, so if you're hiding behind a wall while an enemy fires rockets, expect it to tumble to bits after a few hits. Staying alive during a fight still proves to be extremely challenging because Sam's enemies are interested in nothing other than killing you as quickly as they possibly can.

To fight back you get a sledgehammer, which can be slammed into heads or swung around in a wide arc in front of you. There's a pistol with unlimited ammunition, two shotguns, an assault rifle, rocket launcher, remotely detonated explosives and more. You still pick up health and armor shards littered across the environments, sometimes out in the open and sometimes in hidden alcoves you won't find unless you take the time to look around. As series fans would expect, there is no health regeneration, so finding these types of power ups is especially important if you want to outlast enemies.

As for the mechanics of combat, there isn't very much to it outside of shooting a lot and finding more ammunition when you run out. For a few weapons, like the pistol and the assault rifle, you can aim down the sights, which has a side effect of severely limiting mobility, so I didn't do it very often. Many of the enemy types can be instant-killed with a melee strike, which against single targets is extremely effective and gruesome. You'll rip off heads, pluck out eyes and tear out hearts and then toss the grisly trophy at the next enemy you see. While it almost seems like an exploit one-on-one, in groups this type of approach isn't advisable, because during the eye gouge or decapitation animation Sam is vulnerable to incoming fire.

Sprinting, turning, firing and reloading are all fast, as befits the manic gameplay style. Nearly all the encounters I played so far gradually induce a sense of panic. They start with simple enemies like beheaded soldiers that fire slow-moving projectiles. You might feel relatively safe after killing a few, but then raving packs of kleer skeletons jump in, or you may hear the signature scream of suicide bombers converging on your position, or bulbous rocket-shooting monsters lumber into the scene, or arachnoid enemies with lasers and guns show up. You never really know, and the lingering anticipation of the gradual flood of murderous aliens keeps the game exciting despite its relative simplicity.

Serious Sam 3 is bloody, brutal and difficult. It seems to keep a lot of what made the franchise popular to begin with, while providing more variety in the level progression and a realistic style to the visuals. The final build, now scheduled to be released on November 22, will include cooperative and survival modes, and will hopefully serve as a glorious return to old-school shooter insanity.

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