The end of the level had some of those skeleton Kleer’s jumping out from a window in a building. After dispatching them it was onto the next area which looked similar to the first, but was surrounded by a huge expansive orange and brown desert. It was clear to see the draw distance of previous Serious Sam games was still at play as enemies attacked from seemingly impossible distances. I played most of this level in co-op with a buddy - and its a good thing too - a few new enemies reared their ugly head including a new commando style character that shoots an assault rifle. We found ourselves dying quite frequently because of him.
In fact, I think that’s the one take away I have from Serious Sam 3: BFE. Even on the normal difficulty this game is hard. It’s old school in every sense. No regenerating health - instead you’ll scrounge for armor and health items. No being limited to only two guns - instead you’ll carry a full arsenal. And when you enter a seemingly quiet area and find it littered with all of the above items - you can bet your butt you’ll be circle strafing until those little glidy pads on your mouse wear out.
I was really impressed with just how smooth the split screen play was. Normally split screen seems to lower the detail of the game on each screen to compensate, but Sam 3 looked crisp for both players. The frame rates were solid and the gamepad worked well as a controller. I had no problem adapting to it for our co-op sessions after playing with the mouse and keyboard earlier.
The preview build wasn’t without it’s quirks, but it is a pre-release version of the game. There’s a definite coat of polish that’s needed, but what is there was an a ton of a fan, and Serious Sam fans won’t be disappointed. With four player split-screen co-op and 16 player online co-op through the whole game coming to the game Serious Sam 3: BFE will be added to my Steam library when it launches later this year.