NF breathes a bit of life into the original Serious Sam engine with a handful of moderately effective modifications...
Nitro’s “guns akimbo” conceit was easily its most rewarding and entertaining feature. It didn’t take long to develop a knack for flinging each region’s tougher adversaries sky-high with a rocket and then volleying them about with several shotgun blasts until the trauma of the experience snuffed them like so many of Lennie Small’s soft and fluffy playthings. Trick shots are good for added buying power for new or upgraded weaponry, which in turn comes in handy when Golden Bell’s minions aspire to a Sam-sized mob rush. Victor can also launch his piggy-backing, jetpack-wearing wife aloft, where her zigzagging bombing runs provided some fairly effective relief from the onrush of larger, tougher crowds. When she wasn’t soaring above the masses of Golden Bell weirdoes, Maria was also incredibly useful in close-quarters combat; I can’t count the number of times she helpfully dispatched a lone assailant that threatened to gnaw off Victor’s leg as my attention was focused elsewhere.
Maria’s contributions to the cause remind me of the biggest mark against Nitro Family, and I don’t care if this counts as a spoiler: the game’s ballyhooed, top-secret reward for gathering enough semi-concealed credit cards is to grant Victor some clandestine sack-time with the lovely little blonde arms dealer who appears throughout the game. My reaction wasn’t any stronger than a quiet “tsk” and an admonishing “duuuuuuuuuude” in the direction of my monitor (it’s just a game, after all), but the idea of having the family-friendly protagonist step out on his hot wife is my idea of a really dumb, very flat joke. I also grew quite tired of some of the songs that repeat ad nauseam during each level, although peace was always just a simple Options adjustment away.
Players whose Serious Sam jones outlasted a total of three installments should definitely enjoy Nitro Family’s novel gameplay accoutrements and familiar far-horizon vistas. The titanic second-to-last level of the game – in which Victor and his too-trusting helpmate wind their way through the utterly cavernous (and equally perilous) streets of Las Vegas – is alone worth the price of admission. Thanks to a lot of mindlessly addictive trick shots and some mildly entertaining on-rails jaunts, Nitro Family adequately apes Sam’s formula while presenting players with enough new material to qualify the experience as time well spent.