Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope PC Game Review
Summary: A natural progression for Serious Sam into VR.
4.1
Serious VR
I’m going to be a bit controversial here… I was never really a fan of the Serious Sam games! There I’ve said it… it’s out there. I just didn’t see the point… they were promoted as Doom like but never felt like that to me. So when Serious Sam made the jump to VR I was curious… sure the game is from a lineage I wasn’t a fan of… but it looked good and I’d heard a few promising comments. So what the heck… time to strap in and stand my ground against the waves to come.
Anyone who’s been using VR for a while will be familiar with just how common wave shooters are. There are likely a few reasons for this… one is that they are reasonably simple to make in the sense of you don’t need to make huge levels, lots of scenery. Two is that you don’t have to worry about locomotion issues because the player can be essentially stationary. So the issue then becomes how do you make yours stand out from the others… or at least, how do you make yours compelling and fun? Having a franchise name certainly helps draw the punters… but what you do within VR is still going to make or break your potential for future games and fans.
Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope… is fun! There I’ve said it, it’s out there. Yes it’s a wave shooter… yes it’s pretty much the same concept as the other Serious Sam games… but for some reason that just worked for me in VR. Part of the appeal could be the whole ability to hold two different weapons and fire them simultaneously in different directions. Now that may not sound like much but if you think about the bulk of first person shooters we’ve had over the years… your shooting has been restricted to either straight ahead (original Doom) or where the cursor is pointing… which means you are limited to that single input. The setup of any major VR headset at the moment tends to come with two controllers which automatically means you have two independent inputs within the game world and boy does that make a difference. Just imagine standing with waves of enemies coming at you from the left and the right, with a single input you have to chose which side to focus on and fire… in VR you point one gun to the left and one to the right and pull the trigger, dropping enemies either side of you. It does wonders for making you feel more BAMF like.
Serious Sam VR also has upgrades and purchasable weapons. A great feature and one I kind of neglected when I was facing one of the bosses. I was firing away with rockets and lasers and still getting my backside handed to me… then I remembered I had artillery support and suddenly that boss wasn’t so tough… but oh so satisfying to see them drop. As with basically all wave shooters it really falls more in the casual gamer section of your game library, but as a pick up and play it’s a heck of a lot of fun. If you’ve got a friend with VR and the game then you can also play co-op.
So if you want a heavy dose of Arnie style action hero thrust into a world of danger but don’t strictly want a long engaging story, grab Serious Sam VR and lock and load!
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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