Serious Sam: The First Encounter

Closest thing to a flawless game I've seen. About the only complaint I could make is that the environments are a little samey (something the sequel, from memory, manages to avoid). Otherwise an extraordinarily good game, albeit one that does nothing really new or innovative, just gets everything absolutely right.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a really, really good game. It's not incredible--it won't knock your socks off with its innovations or its deep storytelling. But it does provide tight strategic action, beautiful arenas to do battle in, a healthy dose of charmingly stupid humor, and an overall atmosphere of lighthearted fun and personality. Is it Doom? No. Is it Painkiller? No. But it is a very worthy entry in the "mob shooter" genre, and well worth your time and money. Basically, you play Serious Sam for one reason, and one reason only: to shoot hordes upon hordes of baddies in gigantic well-realized environments. The game's combat is more strategic and less visceral than that of Painkiller. Each weapon has a specific use, and smart management of these weapons during firefights (as well as mastery of circle strafing) is required to survive the hundreds of foes you have coming at you at one time. The encounters themselves aren't as varied as one might like, but they're soild enough that they remain entertaining throughout the entire game. Visually, this game was and still is a joy to look at. The Serious Engine renders massive environments with highly detailed textures and fills them with enemies and effects, and does so incredibly efficiently. Any computer will run this game fine, even if you're using an onboard videocard (such as a laptop). Like the gameplay, the art style is very well-done, but repetitive. The entire game takes place in various Egyption temples and cities, and although it does a fantastic job of varying things within this framework, sandy walls and dunes feel a little old by the end. Apart from the single player campaign, Serious Sam also features various competitive multiplayer modes as well as online co-op. But although the co-op portion still has a few servers running, the multiplayer is unfortunetly just about dead. That brings me to the subject of Serious Sam HD. You see, this game is availible on Steam with updated graphics, some added features, and a more thriving multiplayer community for about double the price you see here. For anyone who doesn't mind Steam and has a modern system, that game might be the preferable choice. Same gameplay, better visuals, and more options. However, if you have a lower-end system, want to save a few dollars, or just distrust Steam in general, you can't go wrong with the originals.

A classic arcade style shooter from the early 2000s and the golden age of FPS. I never tried it and was looking forward to catching up. The presentation of the game holds up pretty well in my opinion. It may be 20 years old, but visuals still look decent and sound is alright. Story is just for the backdrop. It gives some description of what you are doing, enemies you encounter and so on, but its not the focus of the game. Gameplay-wise its pretty simple. You go around killing things, all the while picking up new weapons along the way. The farther you go, the more unique enemies you encounter and the more weapons you collect. You dont need to reload weapons, aside from the pistols. Places where you fight enemies can be huge, which can feel quite impressive. Enemies feel varied and guns look cool. It all sounds fairly solid. However, there are some drawbacks. First off, you swap between weapons too slowly. Thats important, because different weapons are best used against different foes. Considering how relentless the enemy attacks you sometimes, the slow swap can be fatal. That also ties in with the bigest issue the game has and that is its level design. It uses a lot of cheap shots in the form of triggered spawns. Unless you know whats coming, odds are you are going to die. Sometimes even knowing the spawn it takes you several tried to get it right. Towards the later part of the game certain enemies are overused and become very annoying. In the game there are also a lot of moments when you need to fend off a constant spawn of enemies. Its not bad per se, but the spawns can be such that unless you are prepared for whats coming they will probably overwhlem you. There are things in the game that I liked, but the level design and questionable balancing also brought a fair amount of tedium. I dont regret trying it, but its not something I will go back to.

Serious Sam is a pure FPS game from the golden era of gaming before we got auto-regenerating health or unskippable, painfully pretentious cutscenes by devs. Weapons feel good and the enemy design is decent. And it runs okay as you go into the files and switch the resolution, though it still seemed to stutter for some reason and the sound was so terrible at times I thought my headphones were malfunctioning. It's good at what it does, but it's not my type of game. I've never been a fan of circle-strafing, enemies spawning in front my face, waves, tiny monster swarms, or running backwards. So the gameplay was pretty annoying. But if that's your thing, you'll probably enjoy it.

This game is amazing fun - constant Doom-like action in the beautifully rendered Ancient Egyptian landscapes. In fact the temples are so detailed it is hardly believable that the game is 10 years old. But don't admire this beautiful cartouche on the wall for too long - some beheaded bomber wants to say hello. Did it just appeared from the thin air? Most certainly so! And his friends are coming to the party as well! But you get out your trusted double barreled shotgun and they are history! This game is a throwback to the times of a simple 3d-shooter. No special skills required. So to summarize: - non-stop monster bashing - simple controls - beautifully rendered simple environments (I do not think you will need a walkthrough to find all the secrets). - will work even on the modest systems, including Netbooks (with some settings reduced - Intel Graphics adaptor really that bad!) - works in widescreen mode with a simple ini file edit (in ScriptsPersistentSymbols.ini set plr_fFOV=(FLOAT)100 for 16:10, (FLOAT)105 for 16:9, set sam_iScreenSizeI to the width, sam_iScreenSizeJ to the height) - tongue firmly in cheek :)