Why people consider Serious Sam/Painkiller as Old School Shooters?

So my fellow gamers and all my friends here i was thinking something.

I think that when i see old school FPS. lot of PC gamers consider Serious sam and Painkiller Doom/Quake like Shooters which they are not. not in any shape or form. I did played painkiller, serious sam and couldnot finish them because they become very repetetive and same close arena which is very very restricted. I mean look at this

They tried to be Doom but ABSOLUTELY FAILED AT BIENG! Painkiller was serious sam clone and not Doom clone!!!. No level design, almost no exploration, just linear and close combat arena shooting same enemies over and over again. they did greatly improved with hard reset and shadow warrior. i love hard reset but it was still very restricted while shadow warrior reboot was better than all those and 2 looks like its in right direction

Now look at games like Doom/Quake/RTCW/Half life. these games are what I Call True Old School Shooters. you can explore, you can find secrets, large level design. Half life was different breed but without Doom and Quake there would be no Half life. Doom Reboot step in right direction and did everything better than above games that trying to be Doom but failed at bieng. its great that flying wild hog greatly improved shadow warrior 2 to not to make serious sam clone like painkiller before.

I like SS more then DOOM.

I think they are both somewhat old school and both very fun.

Although I haven't played a lot of Painkiller.

They really shouldn't be, old school to me is like doom, duke 3d, shadow warrior.

Serous Sam has old school elements

- Key hunting

- Secrets

- Light on plot, almost no cut-scenes

- Fast action

- No perks/Upgrades

- 10+ weapons carried at once

- Boss battles

- Varied enemies that operate different

What is lacks is id's (old id's) intricate level design that showed real craftsmanship that is practically non existent today. The upside, is that we have huge, wide open expanses with a hundred of so enemies on the screen at once.

The game has issues though, the pacing is terrible - they try to pad the game by slower down the player, and the shooting is very weak. Serous Sam 3 has pointless iron-sights and replaces beautiful colorful cartoon environments with bullshit designed to appeal to Call Of Duty goons.

Thankfully (unlike Doom - which has little to no regard for pc) it's extensive modding abilities allow the game to be tailored, filtering out major weaknesses such as the weapons.

Yeah thats the old school elements. sprint like console while you cant shoot and aim down the sight. its as old school as wolfenstien new order except wolf new order has more dept than this.

you answered your own question my friend. that is why serious sam is not old school shooter. Doom 2016 still has Large level design and Excellent Pacing which serious sam lacks.

also boss battles in serious sam suck. every level feel EXACT SAME!!!. with bioshock infinite tier shooting mechanics. Doom 2016 is best old school shooter since FEAR 1 (last true old school shooter because Crysis and Stalker are different category).

@ghosts4ever said:

@uninspiredcup said:

Serous Sam has old school elements

Yeah thats the old school elements. sprint like console while you cant shoot and aim down the sight. its as old school as wolfenstien new order except wolf new order has more dept than this.

@uninspiredcup said:

The game has issues though, the pacing is terrible - they try to pad the game by slower down the player, and the shooting is very weak. Serous Sam 3 has pointless iron-sights and replaces beautiful colorful cartoon environments with bullshit designed to appeal to Call Of Duty goons.

you answered your own question my friend. that is why serious sam is not old school shooter. Doom 2016 still has Large level design and Excellent Pacing which serious sam lacks.

also boss battles in serious sam suck. every level feel EXACT SAME!!!. with bioshock infinite tier shooting mechanics. Doom 2016 is best old school shooter since FEAR 1 (last true old school shooter because Crysis and Stalker are different category).

But Serous Sam is better than DOOM.

Aside from everything mentioned above, it also has resource deprivation. Doom (being a console game) throws health packs and health at the player every-time an enemy is killed.

Not very old school sadly.

not even better than wolfenstien new order (which also suck) let alone masterpiece that Doom reboot is.

Serious Sam is Very very repetetive, abysmal shooting, bad pacing, bad boss battles. it was only fun for half hour.

Compare to this

Even a blind can tell which is more faster, which is more varied, which has better level design.

above is Real old School FPS

below is call of duty in egypt.

While I agree the running and stupid, pointless iron-sights is out of place, it's definitely more rooted in old school design than DOOM. While attempting to criticize Serous Sam 3 - it appears the Call OF Duty leveling up perk system and abundant resources are being ignored.

Overall - both games compromised for a modern audience, one can be fixed.

i agree but doom did best of old school mix with modern.

last generation was very dark era for FPS fans as everything (including even psedo old school like serious sam) are COD clones.

this generation developers are taking games back to roots.

I think Tc likes Doom.

I never did, Serious Sam always felt lame to me. Albeit I will admit Serious Sam 3 is actually a lot of fun, the first 2 always made me think of them as poor man's Duke Nukem 3d. Painkiller isn't really old school, as that type of shooter was still a thing in 04, it just had some of the more violence ass violence you'd expect from things like Blood, Sin, Kingpin, in the framework of what Half Life started with more straight forward level design.

The satisfaction was still there though, because the weapons were fun as hell, and the enemy variation was top notch.

The levels for Doom/Doom 2 and Quake/Quake 2 were maze-like corridors the player can access anytime while in that level. To me, part of being old-school is having similar level design. It's what sets the older games apart.

Hard Reset and Pain Killer were pretty closed in comparison. In Hard Reset for example, pass through a door or fence, and that's it. No going back.

Painkiller got boring for me.

Because they play just like old school shooters. Your opinion is not fact. Many people, myself included, enjoyed Painkiller (I haven't played any of the SS games though, probably should).

The Stake Gun alone made Painkiller outstandingly fun.

It is DOOM