Serious Sam: Double D Review

Serious Sam: Double D PC Review

Of course, suicide bombers aren't the only enemies you'll meet as you slaughter your way through time. Most of the enemies will be familiar to those of you who've played the original Serious Sam games; Gnaars, Kleer skeletons and the aforementioned headless suicide bombers to name a few. There are also several new opponents for you to attempt to fill with holes, including monkeys with jetpack legs and banana bomb launcher arms who call themselves 'Chimputees'. Really.

Enemy behaviours are similarly varied, with some running straight at you to chew on your leg or blow themselves up, while others hang back and throw bombs at your barn-door-sized torso.

All of this naturally leads Serious Sam: Double D to feel fundamentally similar to previous games in the series, with much of the challenge and appeal coming from the sheer number of enemies in a charging mob. This also means that Double D, like older Serious Sam games, fluctuates between being intense and enjoyable and unfair and irritating. Sometimes it's just impossible to shoot the giant mutant space hamster because there's a wall of Kleers separating you from it.


The only respite from the relentless carnage comes from trying to hunt down some of the game's numerous hidden areas. These secrets display the humour of the game shamelessly; one of them contains a number of giant, headless, semi naked female suicide bombers dancing in booths, for example. Also concealed in these areas are new weapons and stackers, which enable you to build more ridiculous weapon combos and unlockable challenges.

These challenges can be accessed from the main menu, and they offer the opportunity to sate any murderous rage that might be bothering you with the opportunity to attempt to kill a specific number of enemies with a very limited weapon load out. While fun and occasionally very difficult, these challenge maps don’t offer a huge amount of additional life span for the game, because they fundamentally don't offer anything beyond the normal campaign.


Double D's biggest problem, however, is the controls, which felt constantly mushy and unresponsive, occasionally resulting in half-second lag between key-press and on-screen action. This wasn't an issue for the majority of the time, as standing your ground and shooting is a game-winning strategy for most of the adventure. This isn't the case with boss fights, however, and these become especially grating thanks to the way the quicksave button it mapped to 'R'.

While Double D's one-tone puerility won't appeal to everyone, the game does offer a refreshingly in-your-face scale of violence that will endear it to long-term Serious Sam fans. If you fancy a 2D action fix to help you wile away the hours until Serious Sam 3 arrives, then look no further.