Review: Serious Sam 3: BFE

Serious Sam 3: BFE (Before First Encounter) is a first-person shooter for the PC. It was developed by Croteam.

Serious Sam blowing up some aliens outside of some Egyptian ruins.

The alien forces of the warlord Mental have invaded Earth and nearly wiped out the human race. In a last ditch attempt to save the planet, the remains of humanity have decided to activate an ancient alien time machine called a Time-Lock and send someone into the past to stop the invasion before it begins. “Serious” Sam Stone is sent to Egypt to fight through Mental’s forces and figure out how to activate the machine.

BFE is a simple shooter, all Sam has to do get to the end of the level while fighting off Mental’s army. Sam starts with a sledgehammer and a pistol, but finds stronger weapons as he progresses. Health, armor (which is basically a second health bar), and ammo are found in-level, sometimes hidden away. There are fifteen weapons total; four of them have explosive ammunition while the rest use bullets and lasers.

BFE’s main draw, compared to other first-person shooters, is the number of enemies the game throws at the player at once. Dozens of enemies will teleport in an attack Sam at the same time, and they will keep pouring in, until you have spent several minutes killing up to a hundred enemies. The game can pull this off without killing Sam in a shower of bullets because most of the enemies shoot slow-moving rockets or charge Sam directly, making it easy for the player to run around and dodge everything until Sam has picked everyone off.

These sequences are the best parts of the game. It’s exciting to constantly dodge and weave through hordes of enemies, switching back and forth to the appropriate weapon to fight off the current wave, picking them off one-by-one or slaughtering them all as they run into Sam’s mini-gun or grenade launcher.

Unfortunately the rest of the game has problems; big problems that outweigh those fun parts.

The first problem is the level design for the first five levels (the game is twelve levels long). The first five levels take place in destroyed Cairo, and have Sam running through boring grey streets that all look the same and are easy to get lost in.

Several times in these levels Sam mostly fights similarly boring grey soldiers who only attack a couple at a time and die easily. The only challenge the soldiers pose is that they do not make much sound and use fast ammunition, which means they can sneak up on Sam and shoot him before the player can dodge, which makes them cheap. There are also slow spider enemies that are a waste of time to kill. The only deviations from this are one area in a mosque and one boss fight that has several enemies.

BFE would have been better if these levels had been removed completely, even if it would make the game shorter.

The next three levels are an improvement.  The setting goes from boring burned-out modern Cairo to ancient Egyptian ruins. Croteam was a lot more creative with these levels, mixing outdoor arenas with ancient ruins and still standing buildings that differ in shape and size. Also, parts of them can be destroyed, so using walls and pillars as cover only works temporarily.

Enemies have more variety in these levels, but there are still problems. The game introduces stronger enemies that can only be killed with explosive weaponry, or at least take forever to die if really strong weapons are not used on them, but does not provide enough ammo.

The next three levels are when BFE is actually fun. Sam gets access to his strongest weapons and tons of ammo, and most of the levels go from one enemy-packed area to the next. Then Sam reaches the final level and there is not enough heavy ammunition again.

Many of the enemies are unpleasant to fight. As mentioned, there are the boring soldier enemies and the annoying spiders, as well as the enemies that are impervious to anything except explosives.

For some reason a lot of weapons kick up excessive dust when fired at anything. This is annoying and does not add to the game in any way. Otherwise the graphics are decent.

There is multiplayer, games like deathmatch and capture the flag. They work well enough, but do not do anything special compared to any other first-person shooter and do not warrant buying the game on their own.

While the last third of BFE is enjoyable, it does not make up for the rest of the game, which alternates between frustrating and tedious. It’s a real shame when compared to the first Serious Sam, which knew how to be exciting and fun.