—what do you mean that's the wrong font? Oh, fine.
What: First-person run backwards and shoot
When: November 22nd on PC \ April 23rd on Macs
Where: Multiple PC digital services. It's a Steamworks title. PC retail available in selected European countries. 360 and PS3 versions TBA (which is to say not any time soon).
How much: $40 for the regular edition, $50 for the Serious Digital Edition. Preorder to get 10% off, and get another 10% off if you already own another Serious Sam game on Steam.
Shiny marketing bits: Preordering gets you a Fork Parker multiplayer skin. The Serious Edition has a bunch of other goodies blah blah just go look.
What does BFE stand for: Only Croteam knows for sure, and they aren't telling.
Is Undercode back: Hell yes Undercode is back.
Minimum System Requirements
CPU: Dual-core from Intel or AMD at 2.0 GHz
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7800/7900/8600 series, ATI/AMD Radeon HD2600/3600 or 1800/X1900 series
OS: Windows XP 32-bit (with service pack 2 or 3)
Memory: 1GB / 4GB free hard drive space
Sound Card: DirectX9.0c Compatible Sound Card
Recommended System Requirements
CPU: Quad-core from Intel (i5/i7-series) or AMD (Phenom II) at 3.0 GHz
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 480/580 GTX, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5870/6970
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Memory: 4GB / 4GB free hard drive space
Sound Card: DirectX9.0c Compatible Sound Card
Serious who? I've already got [insert Battlefield/Call of Duty here, depending on religious affiliation], I don't need—
No. Just stop right there. Stop. You see that thread title? You see that genre? Serious Sam is not one of your fancy modern military games. It does not need your quick-time events, NPC helpers, or experience points. Serious Sam is a proud reminder of the earliest days of the FPS when the one and only goal was to get from start to finish, the days when aliens and demons died en masse to the twin sounds of a shotgun blast and a heavy metal band.
Serious Sam is a game about shooting things. Lots of things. The largest levels of the first game had enemy counts upwards of a thousand, and Croteam claims SS3 has levels up to three times as large as those. In the vein of the best shooters about shooting things, it's all about damage avoidance, threat prioritization, and knowing when to use which gun. Fail at any one of those and it's back to the start of the level for you. Find some secrets on the next go-around to give you an edge, don't high-five the kamikazes, and for god's sake stop trying to crouch behind the walls, it doesn't help.
Serious Sam is also occasionally about being very silly, whether its the secret midget devteam squad, the so-obvious-it-hurts deathtraps, the so-bizarre-you-can't-believe-it's-a-deathtrap deathtraps, or just the good old fashioned candy gibs and flower blood hippie mode.
If running through the main game solo just isn't enough, there's also a pretty sweet Survival mode (think Left 4 Dead) and a big set of cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes carried over from The Second Encounter HD, all of which are available in 16-player online and 4-player splitscreen offline flavors.
I loved Serious Sam 1. Then we got Serious Sam 2.
Unlike Serious Sam 2 (and a certain other retro FPS franchise that crawled out of its grave earlier this year), Croteam figured out how to update the franchise in little ways this time without gutting it of everything people actually liked in the process. Everything about SS3 is closely patterned on SS1, and what is new doesn't get in the way of the fun.
There are iron sights on a few guns, yes, and a new sprint feature and a context-sensitive melee attack. They're there to give you the option to change up the gameplay some and add to the frantic action feeling, if you like. If you don't, there's an achievement for completing the game while ignoring the sights, the sprint, and the manual reload button.
There's also an array of new enemy types and a few crazy new weapons. Oh, and large amounts of the environment are destructible this time, both by you and by the alien hordes, so think twice before trying to trap the AI around a corner.
I'm a card-carrying member of the master race and I hate console ports.
When it comes to Serious Sam, the console port is the version on the consoles. Croteam is also shipping it with modding tools and dedicated servers out of the metaphorical box.
Trailers:
Teaser
Serious Chaos
Serious Weapons
Melee Attacks
Blood and Gore
Launch Trailer
Fork Parker's AWESOME SERIOUS SAM 3 VIDEO
Santa Sam
Headless Kamikaze - Screams of Glory
SS3: BFE Help Line With Rich Knuckles Episode One
SS3: BFE Help Line With Rich Knuckles Episode Two
SS3: BFE Help Line With Rich Knuckles Episode Three
Color Scheme Options
Screens:
Interviews and previews, as compiled by Seriously!.
GAF Says:
Sciz said:
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