Serious Sam Double D XXL is a very loud and intense game, as you may have guessed from the title. It is an updated port of the original Serious Sam Double D from Mommy’s Best Games, known for their indie titles such as Shoot 1 Up and Explosionade. Serious Sam DD XXL is an officially sanctioned title from Croteam, and is a part of the “Serious Sam Indie Series.” Creative talent Nathan Fouts has taken the zany and outrageous action found in the Serious Sam universe and spliced it with a 2-D shooting action a la Contra, to mixed results.
The main selling point of the game is guns. Lots of guns. Guns that can be stacked onto one another to resemble something…ridiculous. The game allows you to “stack” guns of various types, ranging from the simple tommy gun to the rocket launcher. In order to stack your guns to deal maximum damage, you will have to find connectors scattered throughout the levels of Serious Sam DD XXL. Some are hidden in secret areas, while others can be found relatively easily. By stacking your guns, you will be able to take down ridiculously epic enemies, such as mutant dinosaurs, amputee chimps, flying kittens with flamethrowers, magma monsters on pogo sticks, and kamikaze dominatrices. All of the art is hand drawn with love, and some of the creativity is quite inspiring. The music is hit or miss. Some of the heavier metal tracks can really pump you up, while the softer ambient songs are mediocre. The title screen music is atrocious, however.
The game features three acts, with multiple levels in each one. There are tons of pickups for ammo, health, and armor. Brain controllers can be collected from enemies, which allow you to spend money with a strange shopkeeper. In shops, you can spend your currency on weapon upgrades for each gun, giving the player a surprising amount of variety with firepower. Aside from the common pickups, there are also developer tokens that can be found that will allow for specific challenge rooms.
Most missions are standard, with a few twists. Many stages feature use of the time-stopper, which might allow Sam to jump on rockets or kill enemies in slow-mo. Almost all stages force Sam to make use of his throwable jump pad in order to reach new heights. There are also three vehicle levels scattered throughout the game, involving patently absurd methods of transportation. Where Serious Sam DD XXL seriously shines, however, is when you have a full stack of guns and are blasting through hoards of enemies. Your Xbox, like mine, may grind to a halt from the mayhem. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t hit its stride until towards the end, when you have access to all of the amazing firepower. The game begins slowly, featuring a bit too many simplistic lever and door mechanisms that can detract from the exciting gun gameplay. Truly, Serious Sam DD XXL is a game meant to be played more than once. With a short campaign lasting three to five hours, multiple difficulty levels, a setting for game speed, and leaderboards, the game becomes more enjoyable on subsequent playthroughs when you have a bigger arsenal to play around with. Add in the unlockable challenge rooms and versus maps, and there is room for replayability.
There are a few unforgivable faults found in the game. Even though you will fight countless foes on your way through the levels, often times enemies can be flat out skipped if you just keep running and jumping your way through. Obviously you will miss many secrets and have a lower score as a result, but there were numerous instances when instead of having to fight my way out of a situation, I could have easily ran to the next checkpoint. Which brings me to my next criticism; checkpoints that are far too plentiful. There are many checkpoints in even the smallest of levels. At times, I swear I averaged a checkpoint every 30 seconds of play. Compound this abundance with the fact that you can walk back to a checkpoint and overwrite a save, and it becomes far too easy to clear challenging encounters. Once again, coinciding with the theme of a replayable game, Serious Sam DD XXL is the kind of experience meant for those who want to improve on their scores and not blast through to the exit.
On to the co-op, which brings a host of new problems. One of the biggest draws of this port of Serious Sam DD XXL was the fact that you can play two player co-op. Yes, there is drop-in two player co-op. No, your buddy does not get to earn achievements, even if logged in. Unforgivably, both characters have to share the same stacks of guns. I was shocked to find that when I went to change my gun stacks, it changed the stacks for my partner. The game also features customizable control options, and it just so happened that my partner and I preferred different layouts. We were surprised to discover that changing the layout for one player altered the scheme for the other. Unfortunately, these design decisions seriously hampered our enjoyment of the co-op. As you may have guessed, progress in the game is limited to the primary player. This means that if you get past the first act with a buddy, your friend will not have any of their progress saved nor will they retain any of their inventory. It is all about player one in this outing, and it can make co-op a drag.
Despite the faults, Serious Sam DD XXL remains an entertaining romp for consoles for the right crowd. The game is at its best when you are playing single player and are trying to top your scores, hunt for secrets, or just wreak havoc with a set of high-powered weapons. The game falls short in the platforming and pacing aspect, but you really have to play the game more than once for maximum enjoyment. There are also some unforgivable pitfalls in the cooperative mode. Serious Sam Double D XXL will release for the Xbox Live Arcade on February 20th for 800 Microsoft points ($9.99).
A review code for XBLA version Serious Sam Double D XXL was provided by the publisher.