Review: Serious Sam Double D

One of my crowning moments in gaming occurred as a young teenager in the wilds of Southern Ohio. I had been late to the PC gaming party and as such, I felt like there was much ground to be made up. Upon getting my first 'big boy' video card, I immediately went on the search for that first game to jump into. Out of all the shooters, puzzle games and miscellaneous genres that were available, one game stuck out like a bloody sore thumb from the shelves: Serious Sam.

The title's mix of humor, slapstick gaming references, guns and massive amounts of enemies flying at the player at all times was a thing of beauty. In an era of game development when every company was more worried with getting darker, more serious and grittier, Sam was running in the other direction, all the while shooting a tommy-gun wildly into the air.

I am pleased to announce that Serious Sam Double D by indie developer Mommy's Best Games not only manages to infuse every ounce of what made the original Sam series so fun, MBG also does what other developers would struggle with: doing said infusion into a new genre.

Serious Sam Double D is best described as Contra or Metal Slug on steroids. Double D takes all of the great things about the side-scrolling, shoot-everything-in-the-face-until-it-dies design that has been done to death and drops a heaping helping of guns and off-the-wall wackiness that the Sam series has always done so well.

The design of the game is simple: direct Sam across a side-scrolling level and shoot everything along the way in order to reach the end of the level. Along the way, Sam will not only pick up new weapons, ranging from shotguns to chainsaws (all Serious Sam standards), but will also come across a new edition to the series: the gun rack. By finding gun rack pieces, the player can stack guns on top of each other (up to six) in order to launch a hail of bullets and destruction with just one shot.

There is some kind of unbridled glee and joy in the first time you shoot a machine gun and shotgun into the face of a flying, bomb-wielding monkey. I could not help but giggle at the absurdity of it all... I also didn't care, because it was just too much fun.

As you can see from the screen shots, Double D has a unique art-style. I can really only describe said style as a bizarre papier-mache that was put together by a deranged 10 year old in serious need of counseling. This goes double for enemy designs that range from the typical Sam fare of headless kamikaze and skeletons to newcomers such as the aforementioned flying monkeys, stripper zombies and pancake demons that explode.

I would typically want to ask how many drugs the development team were on in order to come up with some of the things in Double D, but to be honest the designs probably came from the sheer freedom of being able to do whatever they wanted -- no matter how silly or crude. Double D is un-apologetically fun and crazy, something more titles should try every once in awhile.

If I had any complaints about the title, it would be in the music department. The metal-core tunes that blast through every level do a great job of warning you of an upcoming envoy of enemies (a Serious Sam mainstay), but after awhile the noises all seem to blend together and can leave the player with a headache. Play with the music off once in awhile and enjoy the sounds of explosions.

This is a small gripe about a title that takes a tired genre and has some fun in the playground of destruction. With its multitude of levels, crazy challenge modes and plenty of achievements to keep the neurotic among us busy for days, Serious Sam Double D is a barrel full of exploding monkeys.

That is to say, it's insane, and some of the most fun you'll have for under $10.

System Requirements

• • OS: XP, Vista, 7
  • Processor: 2.0 GHz or faster (Dual-core recommended)
  • Memory: 1GB
  • Hard Disk Space: 500MB
  • Video Card: 128 MB Card, supports Shader Model 2.0
  • DirectX®: 9.0c
  • Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible sound card
  • Additional: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller or XInput controller