Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem

With a spin-off, the first question that always comes up is: Does the story take place before, between, or after the previously released games in the series? In the case of Siberian Mayhem, the answer is a bit more complicated than usual, because the story cheekily inserts itself right in the middle of Serious Sam 4: According to the developers, the events take place between the last two levels of its predecessor (Serious Sam 4). According to this, Sam is still on the hunt for General Brand and has just made his way past the Thunderbird oil rig to head to Tunguska for the showdown. This odyssey was crafted jointly by the development teams at Croteam and Timelock Studios, who send you on a journey across Russia. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3767073768 On-site, you’ll find a variety of locations, ranging from snow-covered villages to a complex oil refinery and icy coastal areas. There, as usual, you’ll have to fend off Mental’s creatures, which will chase you from one hub to the next and overwhelm you by the dozens or even hundreds. Consequently, the series long-standing premise of “quantity over quality” is celebrated to the extreme in Siberian Mayhem as well. The extremely high difficulty level is noticeable right from the first mission, which should come as no surprise. For one thing, the standalone DLC is set toward the end of Serious Sam 4 for a reason and is designed to appeal to die-hard fans. On the other hand, co-developer Timelock Studios consists of former modders who surely had a blast designing all these nasty challenges and secrets. Right in the first level, you’ll find yourself in a relatively small, fenced-off area where you’ll be swarmed by hordes of aggressive Kleer skeletons and the secrets are sometimes playing in older levels of the Serious Sam franchise. True to the series, you’ll largely have to rely on health items to regenerate damage - much like in old first-person shooters from the 90s. You should also get into the habit of saving manually right away: the automatic save points are quite far apart sometimes, and the battles in between are long and intense. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3768317454 At least, aside from the completely redesigned areas, there are a few new weapons: First and foremost is the incredibly powerful crossbow, which even on Normal difficulty can slice through behemoths as massive as a bull or kill several creatures standing in a row with a single shot. I had such a blast firing the new weapons it's actually insane. You’ll also have to prepare for a few brand-new enemies. Also making a return are the unlockable abilities, for which you’ll need glowing, purple orbs. You'll know what I mean if you've played Serious Sam 4 first (which you should). With these, you can, for example, carry two handguns at the same time (any weapon at the end of the game) or restore a portion of your health whenever you kill an enemy at close range with a knife. The best thing about this is also: There are no graphical flickers anymore unlike the Serious Sam 4 game, which released in the big Corona 2020, so you can just enjoy the game. Final Verdict: 8.5/10 → Just sit back, relax and shoot preferably with a co-op partner and you'll have a BLAST (literally).

Good horde shooter, as always Serious Sam is. However the story ending.....as if they ran out of budget or time :D