It's a little better in docked format, but handheld play really does feel like a no-go. Chugging performance and outright (and frequent) hitches make this a difficult prospect. This should be a very easy recommendation, but the performance is – at times – utterly wretched, to the point that we question the wisdom of releasing the thing at all.įirst Encounter runs at 60fps in both Switch modes, Second Encounter targets the same when docked and usually managing the same in handheld, but Serious Sam 3: BFE is a hot mess – played on the go, it can barely sustain a decent framerate the larger the area, the worse it gets. Unfortunately, the way these games are presented here is a very mixed bag, some of which is downright heartbreaking. Still, what is here represents the core of the series, and it's more than enough to be going on with. While we're dreaming, we'd love to see a re-release of the GameCube's brilliant Serious Sam: The Next Encounter, but that's probably never happening.

There are some omissions – the Xbox 360 version included the marvellous side-scroller Serious Sam DD XXL, and the under-rated Serious Sam 2 is entirely absent (Second Encounter is, confusingly, not the same thing). It's a hefty package for sure, going above and beyond what we expected for the price. You're getting Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD, its follow-up Serious Sam: The Second Encounter HD, Serious Sam 3: BFE and all their respective DLC expansions Legend of the Beast (Second Encounter) and Jewel of the Nile (BFE). This Switch incarnation of the Serious Sam Collection offers a generous assemblage of Sam content at a very nice price point. Yes, Croteam's long-running flagship FPS is a gleefully daft blaster that revels in throwing as many enemies at you as possible, creating huge, ridiculous battle sequences that can be genuinely exhilarating. In fact, they're extremely silly, and if they don't start behaving they're not going to get any sweets. The central joke of Serious Sam is that he isn't very serious at all. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

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