Everything old is new again. Walking through Target is like walking through the fashion mistakes of my youth. The economy is supposedly roaring and on the verge of melting down at the same time. The music sounds more the 80s than actual 80s music. And now we have Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem
Developer: Timelock Studio
Price: $20 USD
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
It’s amazing how something so old school can feel so fresh, but I was coming off playing Halo Infinite and Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is basically the opposite. The only tactic worth mentioning is running around like a maniac shooting as fast as possible. The protagonist doesn’t have a deep and meaningful emotional life and developed backstory except for making jokes. There’s “health packs” and “ammo” instead of regenerating health and not only can you run out of both health and ammo, you can die and have to restore from an earlier save.
It’s kind of funny when literally every shooter franchise has regenerating health and even Doom worries about jumping. Then you run into “basically a 1994 FPS,” but it feels amazing and fresh and new. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO FIND HEALTH PACKS? is what I imagine a Millennial would say, dropping their avocado toast and their iPhone in their expensive coffee on their way to post a callout Twitter thread because THEY WON’T GET A JOB WE DRANK FROM THE HOOOOOOOOOOOOSE. Hashtag Serious Sam Is Canceled also Hashtag Buy Me A New Phone Plz.
Likewise when every hero has ~feelings~ and ~a bad childhood~ and Duke…we don’t talk about what happened to Duke, man…it’s good to have a guy that enjoys shooting things and making wisecracks and that’s it. Sam may be Serious, but he’s not, you know…SERIOUS, he’s just out to explore glorious Siberia and shoot some things, have a few laughs, maybe solve a mystery or something.
Speaking of Siberia, for those of you who wanted to know if it is authentic, I found this comment on the trailer.
So it’s like being there, you couldn’t ask for more Siberian authenticity. I even verified this by jumping into the freezing cold Siberian water, where I promptly froze to death and died, exactly as I would in real Siberia.
There’s skill progression where you can punch things to heal or learn to ride enemies or get even better at shooting the hell out of things. It’s got everything: screaming guys chasing you around, explosions, shotguns, secret areas, single player, co-op, achievements, workshop packages, even benchmarks. This is one of the few games where I ran out of swears yelling at all the things trying to kill me. Not one of them turned out to be an enemy I had to work with where we discovered humans and ungodly horrors have a lot in common, a lot more similarities than differences, and developed a deep brotherly bond. Mainly they screamed really loud. I screamed back. And then fired my shotgun grenade.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem may be a standalone expansion to the Serious Sam franchise/cinematic universe(?) but honestly it’s the most new feeling game in years, even if it’s not full of feelings. Hashtag Serious Sam Isn’t All That Serious.
The Final Word
The video game equivalent of being picked up in a 2000 F-250 by a guy blasting Skynyrd and yelling HELL YEAH BROTHER at everything you say.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
