Game: Serious Sam: The First Encounter
Year (s): 2001 (original), 2010 (HD)
Company: dev. Croteam
pub. Gathering of Developers
Engine: Serious Engine. Serious Engine 3 (HD)
Type: First-Person Shooter
What I Paid: Cheap-o!
Game Time: 12-14 hours, first play, on default
Obligatory Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpiu-VI7wQ
It's Time to Get Serious
I killed cyberdemons with a shotgun. I beat Quake on the nightmare difficulty. After that, games became increasingly interested on elements other than strafing and shooting. Plot, characters, musical scores, realistic physics, advanced graphics... yup, times were a-changin'.
Not for Sam, though. Serious Sam take it back to the basics, and then ramp it up several notches. No problem killing headcrabs? How about dozens at a time? A handful of cyberdemons? A couple hundred fiends? It's time to get serious.
Original versus HD
These are the exact same game, straight down the the sound effects. The only changes are visual, using new textures and a more up-to-date graphics engine.
This is Insane
Facing dozens of enemies at a time is pretty nuts. To add to insanity, headless suicide-bombers scream while they run at you. Without heads. The protagonist has an occasional amusing quip. These games don't take themselves too seriously.
Plot
A bad guy named Mental has a huge alien monster army attacking Earth, and only Sam stands in the way.
Combat
Definitely reminded me of the Doom's Thy Flesh Consumed and some of the harder Quake levels. Only one weapon has to reload. Combat is pretty straight-forward: don't stop moving. It's hard (partly because it's been so long since I've played a new old-school shooter) and in one spot I HAD to use god-mode Other than that, levels were challenging but possible, and beating one felt like an accomplishment.
This game supports up to sixteen players, which would make combat situations much more manageable.
Expansions / DLC
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter also exists in both original and HD versions, and follows Sam as he takes the fight to Mental. Serious Sam 3 is due sometime this summer.
Final Thoughts
If you remember playing first and second generation shooters, the gameplay here is nostalgic. If you've grown up on Halo and afterward, you probably aren't going to appreciate the simple joy of constant strafing.
2 comments:
I haven't played a ton of this game yet, but I did just buy it on Steam because of your review. It is exactly as you describe: old-school shooter. Tons of monsters with no AI, so ducking behind a pillar and peeking out to shoot at them is stupid and ineffective. It's a lot of dodging and shooting. The screaming headless guys with bomb hands are fun to blow up! Maybe it's just my weaksauce computer, but the new graphics engine still looks like it came from a decade ago.
while the HD engine is more modern, it still looks pretty comparable to UT 2k4. though, for this game, i don't think another five-year's graphical improvement would make any difference in the enjoyment.
anyway, it's definetly a throwback, and i'm glad you got it cheap. i hope you enjoy it.
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