Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem Reviews
Ammunition-fueled ATV trips, Mech piloting sequences and taking down squid-operated choppers levels of insane action can’t save Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem. No matter how varied the environments or silky smooth the gunplay and weapons may be this time around, it’s clear the franchise is in need of more of a shakeup. Blowing through waves and waves of extraterrestrial threats doesn’t take long to blur together and once more feels like going through the motions. It’s frustrating too; creating a game with the help of loyal fan modders is arguably as true as the franchise can get. Still, it struggles to impress. Maybe it’s high time the Serious Sam series take notes from its most recent setting: traipsing away on ice for a little while.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem delivers what you'd expect from a quality DLC. It offers plenty of content and fun and addresses some of the original's shortcomings. As a result, we can recommend it to all fans of retro shooters. However, younger and more demanding players will hardly be interested.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is funny because his name is Serious Sam, but that's it. In the end, it brings absolutely nothing to the original game, worse, it is downright less fun and too serious.
Review in French | Read full review
How much fun you’ll have in the bleak, frozen landscape depends on how much you are still smitten with mid-90s first-person shooter mechanics. Serious Sam would rather die than apologize for being what he is. Those looking for an evolution or some sort of next step in gameplay design may as well look elsewhere. All encounters in the game play out exactly the same way they have for the last thirty years. You can mix things up with weapon choices, co-op, and difficulty settings, but that’s about it. 2016’s Doom received loads of (justified) praise for finding a way to push this genre forward. Siberian Mayhem is clearly content to keep touring with the hits. While I won’t drag it for being true to itself, only devout followers of the church of Sam need apply.
If there is another Serious Sam, please try to build around the core mechanic, which has always been shooting monsters in the face with insane weapons. Previous titles such as Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter had fantastic level designs. Every level felt amazing, and it was fun from start to finish. The most recently released games do not feel that way, and please get rid of the strange art style where the game is trying to be more realistic than ever before.
If you have somehow enjoyed the base Serious Sam 4, you will most certainly enjoy Siberian Mayhem. It’s pretty much the same damn game, just with some slightly less terrible performance and some better level design. However, most of these changes don’t make up for a very superior overall package. If you didn’t like that game, this won’t be the one that will make you change your mind. For every fun action-packed encounter, there will be something else that is equally dull to bring the experience down a notch.
Even though Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem came out of nowhere, it offers exactly what we expect from the series nowadays. Shame about the hardware optimization that leads to frequent FPS drops despite the graphics not being up to today's standards.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Serious Sam - Siberian Mayhem is an insanely driving and cool action game that ends exactly when you already want to take a break from the constant screams of opponents, pieces of meat that fill up the monitor and special effects. Siberian Mayhem brings absolutely nothing new to the genre - in fact, the game quite successfully steps on the same rake that the original Serious Sam 4 went on. However, they managed to make a good game that is just fun to play.
Siberian Mayhem improves on Serious Sam 4 in several areas, except where it mattered most: performance. The expansion's poor framerates and tech issues are a shame when it has better level design and fun secrets.
Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem is simply a good run and gun game. There really isn’t much emphasis on story, and honestly, there really isn’t much other than exactly that – running and shooting. This doesn’t make it a bad game, it just makes it fun for a particular audience. For those that love getting chased, shooting countless bad guys, and being under pressure, this game does a great job!
Siberian Mayhem is an entertaining little jaunt for fans of Serious Sam 4. It’s a quick five levels to run through, and I wish it had been a little longer, but for all the new weapons and vehicles it introduces, it keeps the familiar Serious Sam formula fresh and fun without overstaying its welcome. Siberia doesn’t seem an obvious destination for those looking to escape the seasonal bleakness this Winter, but for fans of pulse-pounding action, Siberian Mayhem hits the sweet spot (with a cannonball).
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is more of the chaos, mayhem and classic one-liners, but some recurring issues from Serious Sam 4 reared their heads marring the experience. Whilst the environments looked incredible in parts and it still impresses me how they can support the sheer volume of baddies on screen at once, there were constant reminders of issues. Chapters 4 and 5 were standouts though with good levels of humour and bloody gory action, leaving me wanting more once the credits rolled.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is another action-packed oldschool shooter with tons of enemies and interesting weaponry. Although the gameplay is good, minor bugs and design mistakes can spoil your impression.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Inevitably, Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem doesn’t do much to attract newcomers to the series. It is what it is: an expansion designed to offer Serious Sam 4 fans more hair-raising combat encounters, with a sprinkling of new enemies and weapons. It’s disappointing that some of the technical issues that have plagued Serious Sam 4 since launch still persist, but if the idea of having an entire army of Headless Kamikazes running your way yet again gets you hot under the collar, it’s well worth the investment.
Full of secrets, desolate and still somewhat gorgeous – Siberia might be the home of bloodshed you were missing in Serious Sam 4. All for the low low(?) price of 30 quid.
If you loved the time you spend with original Serious Sam 4, this new expansion can be right up your alley.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Even as Siberian Mayhem quickly descends into chaos and sheer pandemonium, there’s always a final word to be had, or one last gunshot to haphazardly fire into the abyss. And when you inevitably fall to the forces of evil—because you’re just one person raking up thousands in terms of bodycount—you just need to try, and try, and try again. There’s little that’s particularly groundbreaking in Serious Sam’s brand of predictability, but there’s also comfort to be found. As Sam said, the fights are their own rewards, after all.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem adds directly to Serious Sam 4 without changing much. Despite being a standalone expansion, players should go through Serious Sam 4 first. Only after, should Siberian Mayhem be considered for purchase?
Serious Sam: Sliberian Mayhem offers the similar carnage and heart-pounding action of its predecessors, with some cool new weapons to boot.
If you're a longtime fan of this franchise, rest assured you'll enjoy the title.
Review in Persian | Read full review