Hands-On Preview: Serious Sam: Double D
If you’ve never played a Mommy’s Best Games game, or a Serious Sam game, then now’s the perfect time to start. Serious Sam: Double D is an indie title that fuses both worlds into a kind of irreverent stew of blissfulness.
It surprises me that Double D is the first ever foray into the second dimension for the franchise, to be honest. Serious Sam has always been about crazy enemy counts, adrenaline-fueled shootouts, and, of course, self-sacrificing headless (yet somehow still screaming) hordes, and Double D fits that description to a T. It’s also extremely reminiscent of Weapon of Choice, Mommy’s Best Games’ first title which can be found on Xbox Live Indie Games. This means that you can expect great-looking art combined with great animation to produce an experience not found often enough.
In a world dominated by three-dimensional assisting games that simply allow players to act out a part in an entirely scripted experience, Serious Sam: Double D is a throwback to a time when a game’s outcome was left entirely up to the player’s skill level, willingness to take some punishment, and patience to get better. Rather than give the player the illusion of being good, in order to successfully navigate through Serious Sam: Double D on anything other than the Chilled difficulty, one will actually need to BE good. What a concept.
To aid the player on their journey, a system has been concocted to match the game’s over-the-top personality called Gun Stacking. With Gun Stacking, the idea is simple, the player is given up to 8 slots to configure whatever tools of destruction he or she sees fit. Like that shotgun you’ve been using for the past ten minutes but found a Tommygun you’d like to use instead? Don’t worry, just stack that Tommygun right on top of that shotgun and use both. This can be repeated until up to five weapons are stacked goofily on top of each other forming a ridiculous, yet awesome looking pyramid of debauchery. Some other nice touches are the game’s raucous and rowdy soundtrack ranging from guitar-shredding to occasionally fittingly ambient tunes, and the ability to quick save at any point in time (even when playing with an Xbox 360 controller!) in true PC-gaming fashion. Also present is the absolutely under appreciated ability to speed the game up or slow it down from the start with options ranging from 50% all the way to 200% normal speed. The only complaints I could really lobby toward the game from the few hours I’ve spent with it would be that I strangely found myself running out of ammo at times, and a few too many enemies spawned right on top of me, disallowing me a chance to react.
I’d say Serious Sam: Double D is shaping up to be a great compliment to Serious Sam 3, but that would be selling it short. Even without being tied to a license at all, the game is outstanding fun, and surprisingly lengthy with 18 levels spanning 3 time periods, 62 secrets to find, numerous Challenge levels in addition to the main campaign, and tons of combinations to try with the Gun Stacker system. Look for Serious Sam: Double D to release sometime at the end of July/early August on Impulse and GetGames (and possibly other digital distributors) for $10.
