Publisher: Devolver Digital
Developer: Mommy's Best Games
MSRP: $9.99
by: Nick "bapenguin" Puleo
I’ve been a long time fan of the stuff Mommy’s Best Games puts together. The independant developer has put out solid titles on the Xbox Live Indie channel and it seems their work has gotten the attention of some bigger players in the industry. Enter Serious Sam DD, a creation from the studio in partnership with Croteam to help promote the upcoming Serious Sam 3: BFE. The side scrolling game is similar in style to Weapon of Choice, another of MBG’s titles, but has a serious Sam flair.
While most of the platforming elements will be familiar to players, what sets this game apart is the sheer amount of chaos that ensues on the screen not only from the amount of enemies spawning, just like a normal Sam game, but how you handle things. First up is your guns. The normal arsenal is all there - but instead of just switching between a single weapon you can “stack guns” by finding hidden pieces laying around the levels. That means you can have a gun stack with 2, 3, 4 or more guns firing at once. Sure it looks ridiculous, but let the Gnarr you just shot with two tommy guns, a chainsaw and a rocket launch tell you that to your face.
The second piece to the chaotic puzzle is the fact that enemy bodies stick around and become part of the level. A giant pile of corpses become a great thing to climb to reach hard to get to places. The final piece of this puzzle are the enemies themselves. While Sam’s normal foes are all present, MBG have created some really unique bad guys as well like vuvuzela pancakes, angry rocket monkeys with explosive bananas, and suicide bomber girls that are 10 feet tall.
If there’s one gripe, it’s that the game would be even more ridiculous in co-op.
Like any game from MBG, Serious Sam DD just oozes style. There’s easter eggs galore with references to everything from video games to movies (Inception one was great). All in all this is a solid title that even without the Sam license would be a must have action/platformer.
Rating: 