Some reviewers just don't get Serious Sam

Some choice quotes from the Kotaku review of Serious Sam HD.

"Plot-wise..."

Plot?  Really?  Huh, okay let's just stop there.

"Back, Back, Strafe, Strafe, Shooting: That pretty much what you do all game."

Your point is?

"Why not modernize some of the gameplay as well?"

Oh for Christ sake, we're done here people.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Buy the game early and test their product for them before it finally releases!!  What a deal!!

"Reserve Battlefield Bad Company 2 and receive access to the PC multiplayer beta. Beta begins January 28th, 2010 and ends February 25, 2010. Available for online customers only while supplies last. Not available for in-store or in-store pickup orders.

Online Customers: A beta activation code and download instructions will be emailed beginning January 26th, 2010."

Better still, let's go all grassy knoll on this.  If they don't get a certain level of pre-purchases they will release the multiplayer in this beta state but never update it and instead release the entire development crew.

 

And then I see this blurb on Wikipedia:

The health system in the game will not include a health bar like in the previous Battlefield games, but will rather be a regenerative system in which damage to the player is displayed as blood on the screen that will slowly disappear as the player's health is restored.

Gosh if only there was some way to integrate a person with magical medical skills to assist his team in their objective. I would call this person a medic but that seems too obvious.  What happened to you Battlefield 2/2142?  You were such a beautiful thing and now look at you all emaciated and trimmed down like a crack addict.

Top 10 games for 2010?

As if best of lists for last year weren't bad enough, MSN put out a list of the top 10 games for 2010 that should be released.

Let's be reasonable here:

Starcraft 2 is never coming out so long as Blizzard is milking WoW.

Bioshock was garbage (Bioschlock AMIRITE?!)

Mass Effect 2 -- I never thought I'd want to kick a kitten or puppy out of anger, but then I played Mass Effect. The inventory system was ass, the NPC teammates were douches, and holy shit was that Seth Green's voice?
 
Let's man this list up a little bit

Rage -- id software, you drive around blow shit da hell up and race against friends. Think Borderlands but with id's graphic engine.

Serious Sam 3 -- Oh come on, do I even have to start explaining this?

Bulletstorm -- By the same people who made Painkiller so you know there's going to be some shit gettin' shot.

DCS: A-10 Warthog: It's the little jet that could.. could kick your ass with a 30mm canon that is! Ooo-rah!

Brink -- Same people that did Quake Wars.

MechWarrior -- 60 ton mech combat is coming back!!  

Aliens v. Predator 3 -- Hey AvP2 was 1/3rd of a great game since the alien part rocked serious ass. The other two parts were pretty good so I guess that makes 2/3rds of a great game acutally.

Bulletstorm

People Can Fly gaming studio made the fantastic shooter Painkiller back in 2004.  Now Gamespy reports that with Epic Studios buying People Can Fly, that their next project might be released in 2010 with the project title of Bulletstorm.  I can get behind a game with a title denoting copious amounts of lead and limbs flying across the screen.

Serious Sam HD Review

YES, YES, HELL YES.  I lost my copy of Serious Sam years ago so when Croteam announced that they were re-releasing Serious Sam with new graphics onto Steam, I knew what had to be done: play the hell out of this and then write a review.

If Serious Sam was a porn, it'd be composed of Ron Jeremy and John Holmes tag teaming some virgin.  In this case, the virgin consists of your coddled and pampered gaming skills which are now soft and mushy since over the past decade most game developers forgot what frantic action means and have tried to shoehorn frivolous garbage like plots and "deep" messages into their shooters. Or, they have limited their technology to only allow a few targets on the screen at a time while trying to ooh and ahh the gamer with the fifth iteration of their lens flare graphic sub-routine with trilinear filtering or some other bullshit and then have the audacity to call it an important and a great step forward in gaming while charging us $50-$60. To the developers and publishers then: who the hell do you think you're kidding!?  These aren't tests of skill, they're tech demos of your computer nerd wankery. 

Croteam, the wonderful Croatian developers behind the Serious Sam series, realized all of that was nonsense and so took it upon themselves to remind game critics and other developers what really matters in a shooter:  Finger cramping Action with a capital 'A'.  While id Software may be a direct reference to what Freud called the instinctive part of the mind, Serious Sam is the id unleashed against your computer, your brain, and your gaming controls.

If you playing Serious Sam for the first time then you need to realize a few things.  You have been treated like a baby by current generation shooters.  You need to forget about some things you probably take for granted in current shooters such as:

1. A few creatures at a time -- This is called "SERIOUS SAM" not "Some guy named Sam."  You don't send a guy named Serious Sam into battle which could be handled by any person with a rocket launcher.  You better get ready to rock out with your cock out cause you hit the ground running in this game.  Literally, your character is dropped into the screen and after about five steps you're presented with bad guys.  Headless creatures, skeleton creatures, herds of bulls, multi-armed machine gun wielding scorpoions, all have a present for you: your head on a plate. Consider yourself lucky if have anything less than 15 bad guys on the screen at once attempting to kill you.  A more normal average is about fifty at a time.

2. Cover -- The only cover you'll have in this game is if you go hide under your bedsheets. Maps are normally simple geometric patterns with some pillar or tiered walkways with doors that don't open until everything is dead.  Don't even think you can hide from anything for any long period of time once the action starts.

3. Thinking a problem through -- Having trouble getting past some creatures and want to out think the bad guys? You might as well try to out think a lamp post.  The monsters in this game have only one thing on their mind: KILL PLAYER.  It doesn't get any more basic than that.  The creatures are like the creatures from "Aliens" without the moments to pause before slaughtering everything in sight.  The only real thought you need is "do I use the shotgun, chain gun, or plamsa canons on this creature?"  Protip: the answer is "Yes, hell yes, and sure!"

4. Outrunning the bad guys -- Sorry, the bad guys are faster. No stealth or night vision goggles will save you here either so you can't sneak up on them.  The creatures have the ears of a bat and can see everything.  Sorry you sneaker-shooter fans you have to come out the shadows or out of the closet or wherever the hell you are and fight like men in this one. 

5. Rambo it -- Don't make me laugh, you'll be overrun by the mob so fast you'll be rage quitting after the first level if you try stand your ground.  You'll be backpedaling and side strafing more than a traffic cop in Mexico City.

6. Thinking the game will play fair -- You recall how people complained about the "Monster pop out of closet syndrome" used in Doom 3 a lot?  Serious Sam does that every 20 seconds or so from all directions and even in areas you already cleared. It knows you can't do anything about it except try to survive (note: you won't survive).

7. Maps or compass rose to stay orientated -- Whatever, man.  Here's how to keep your sense of direction: are there bad guys that way? Yes? Then go there and kill them!

8. A story with an edgy or deep plot -- Now you're just being a emo pussy, maybe you should go read some Jane Austen.  You want to know how nonsensical and crazy this game is?  Go into the options and put it in Hippy mode.  I kid you not there is a HIPPY MODE.   If that doesn't scream out "I WILL HAVE FUN WITH THIS GAME" then you are the most unhappy person on the planet.  Shit there's even a CHILD mode. Shoot the bad guys and they spew candy canes and sunshine out of their ass.  Fun for the entire family. Can you say that about Modern Warfare? I seriously doubt it.

9. Alt fire modes -- God dammit you're some skirt clutching mama boy aren't you?  Just super glue your index finger down on the MOUSE1 and rip that skin off later when you're done with the game.

10. Auto-aim -- I swear to christ the next shooter I see that even offers a PC gamer the opportunity to use auto-aim I'm going to go to a computer con and kick them in their privates.  Keep that console crap outta my PC games.  Yeah, yeah, consoles make more money and are ported to PC and not vice versa but there are LIMITS to what one will endure. 

So what are you left with to beat this game?  Your skill, that's it.  How fast can your mind move the keys, how fast can you circle strafe, back pedal, and dodge single minded monsters who attack from all directions in relentless waves in an enclosed area that, while immense, provides very little respite from the thundering horde of creatures.  That's right, this game is your gut check, your man card check, time to see if you really got something swinging down there.  Do not be surprised if your fingers cramp into lumps of dead flesh from the constant movement and firing that you will endure in this.  I am assuming of course you're playing on HARD mode or higher.  Anything less results in your attempt at manliness being null and void.  Go watch Lifetime channel.

But wait don't cry yet and go back to Call of Duty, you don't have to go at this alone. Included is a simple to setup cooperative mode which, as of this writing, should soon have dedicated server support.  But even without dedicated server support, running a co-op game online for up to 16 players is very simple to get going with no port forwarding or other such nonsense needed (I'm looking at you Borderlands!)  In fact, play in co-op mode as much as possible and having friends along for this ride is the recommended way to go.

In terms of the game engine, the new Serious3 engine is top notch with good looking textures and all that yadda yadda stuff. On top of the usual though, what's most impressive is the scale of the game world. While most games might limit you to a square kilometer or two, this game engine scales to miles in all directions.  For example, do this: take your rocket launcher and find a distant object and shoot at it.  In most games the distant objects will either be fogged over or the rocket will explode before it reaches the target.  In this engine, the rocket will go on, and on, and on FOREVER until it gets there.   I won't even spoil the scale of the bad guys either but when you're smaller then their big toe you know this game means business. SERIOUS business. Ha ha.. See what I did there?

Is this simplistic? Of course. Repetitive? Well duh!  But it is fun just as it was in 2001 and the extra graphic eye candy is a nice treat. The easy to setup cooperative gameplay and fun core game mechanics make this the second best shooter ever created by mankind*. For $20 you can't go wrong at all.

* The first is Return to Castle Wolfenstein, in case you're wondering.

Well that's a first

My Borderlands review generated enough comments (a whopping two people commented) that it garnered the attention of spammers who tried to put some spam in the comment section.  Movin' on up to the deeeeluxe apartment in the sky.

Borderlands Review

When I finished Borderlands and considered the experience I realized that this game really didn't offer too many new and exciting innovations in terms of gameplay mechanics that I had not seen before in the past decade. 

But, considering that they have merged two genres of gaming together almost flawlessly and made it a better experience then most games that try to give you *one* genre of gameplay, it is quite easy to say that Gearbox has made a great game which is worth your damn time and money.

By now you have read and absorbed all the other reviews for this game so that leaves me in the fortuate position of not having to explain the story or background or cel shading graphics or any of that filler material.  Plus, since I don't get paid by the word or column, I don't have to worry about that so we get to cut out the fluff and tell you what is good about this.

MANLINESS
First off let me ask you something? Do you like manly things like guns, fightin', and driving?  Well if you do, more than likely you aren't a gamer and actually have a productive and adventurous lifestyle.  However, if you like and enjoy those activities in digital format then Borderlands gives you all of that without four letter words like "plot" or "deep story" getting in the way and in fact that's a good thing.

Well, there is a story but like most good game companies that are making a shooter, they don't let it lord over the entire experience. There's a story, it helps move things along when you're ready, but you don't have to move along it if you don't want to do so nor do you have to sit through 20 hours of useless NPCs telling you their dull life stories so you can fully understand what's going on (Note to Mass Effect: SCREW YOU AGAIN for that crap!)  The quests in Borderlands are not so much story progression points as they are start and end points between killing lots of things and looting the corpses of those now dead things.   And don't be coy about it, as a gamer that's what you really want in a game like this that's a hybrid of a shooter and a dungeon crawler like Diablo 2:  stuff to shoot (the shooter part) and the looting of gear (the Diablo 2 part).

As for the manly stuff that might let you compensate for whatever shortcomings your grandmother says you have, there are plenty of different things to let you forget your inferior manhood and back zits. I suppose it is here where I could go on about the weapon inventory system that is a bottomless pit of choices that would make Charlton Heston cream in his cold, dead pants. Or I could discuss the branching skilltree system that while a little simplistic still allows a good range of choices for the four different class archetypes. Or I could carry on about the achievement milestones which grant extra XP after your grind out enough kills or other accomplishments which of course will cater to those who want to just grind on this game till their calves are sore. 

Instead though, I choose to discuss the melee aspect of this game with the Brick character. Brick is simply a wall of muscle who has two main skills: curb stomping assholes and laughing about it.   Oh sure you can arm Brick with weapons, and guns, and explosives but you could also go lift up your skirt and show all the boys your naughty bits like the easy skank you are then.  No, with Brick you fight the way God would you want to fight on a distant planet full of creatures and prisoners who all want to either eat you or tear your skin off and then hang your skeleton on their wall: with your bare damn fists and a steroid induced rage.  Pistols?  That puss Dirty Harry used those.  Rocket Launchers?  Do I look like I want to wuss out like Rambo did?  And machine guns? They're for people who fight like girls. Like Ripley. Feh, give me my fists and the right skill tree selection and Brick started punching people so hard they dropped money out like a pinata. I was smellin' like a vault from all the cash. When I grew tired of that I'd punch their head clean off their shoulders. I honestly believe that if he and TF2 Heavy got in a fight, the world would not survive.


CO-OP

More importantly the folks at Gearbox got the co-op 95% right (-5% for port redirection. Really guys, come on).  After you get past that little hiccup though you get a great four person co-op experience.  First, the joining of games and getting into the action is quick and painless with you being able to setup friends lists, private sessions, or hop into a public server and take your chances.   Second, the integrated VoIP is actually quite good where previous games have been a bit hit and miss with the VoIP lately.  However, where's the push to talk button!! I sometimes don't need to hear people coughing and by sometimes I mean always Finally, and I consider it most important, if you have friends who are behind you in levels it is easy to get them caught up.  Just park them at an entrance to a tough zone, go clear out an area and the ridiculous amount of XP they will garner will let them join you in the action fairly quickly.  After just a few hours of play we jumped a friend about 15 levels.  While not really "honest" gameplay it still worked and unless someone pays for our copy we'll play how we want thank you very much.

This game doesn't really offer anything new or groundbreaking but what it does do is merge some of the best things to come out of several different genres from the past decade into a solid single player and co-op game.  While the replay value is probably pretty low for anyone who doesn't have OCD and just has to have a better weapon then someone else, this is offset by the ability to jump into random games with people just to blow off some steam by squishing, exploding, or otherwise dismembering creatures and getting some new shiny gear as a reward.  You really can't go wrong with this purchase.