Serious Sam: The First Encounter

First, this is one of those games you can just jump in and have fun with most anytime. These are the games I keep around for just relaxing and having fun - like Painkiller, Unreal, etc. The Serious Sam series is not to be missed. I won't repeat all the other reviews, I'm mainly posting just to respond to those who have said, hey, you can get the HD version for only $5.00 more (or whatever). First -- you can't get the HD versions DRM free and in your GOG library. A big plus in my book is to have all my classic games here on my GOG game-shelf and DRM-free. GOG is good to me, so I support GOG and buy here. Second -- screw the HD versions -- these are the real deal -- the original classics in all their glory. And they'll probably run on any laptop you have handy, big gfx card or not. So I say -- get 'em here and have a blast!

I confirmed that co-op, network, 2-player works for both First and Second Encounter. GOG lists multi-player, but no co-op in the game description. GOG has listed other games as co-op. Multi-player often means PVP or team versus team. So I wasn't sure. The original game certainly supported co-op. Serious fans probably already know this, but the default graphics options is limited. To get more options, from the main menu: 1) Options - Execute Addon - Extreme 2) Video Options - Rendering Options - Enable Widescreen 3) Video Options - Preferences, set to Quality 4) Advanced Options - GFX-AdvancedRendering Then set the resolution. Much better. I only wandered about in the initial areas, what I saw looked nice. Much nicer than the quality I remember being available when I played it years ago. If you just wanna shoot, set the ammo to infinite. Explore the menus, there's lots of interesting options. Certainly, the graphics are not as good as recent games. My 5 star rating is because I'm impressed how well the graphics on this 13 year old game scaled up to a modern computer. And it is just fun to shoot and run.

I think the biggest selling point of the Serious Sam games is the engine they run on. The Serious Engine was remarkable for the time, and actually, still is. Instead of the relatively enclosed nature of some other games that came out at the time, Sam offered HUGE environments with dozens of relatively detailed enemies on the screen. In fact, if you keep in mind the release date for this game, it really did have some pretty remarkable graphics, particularly in the gore area. Blood splatters everywhere are you kill hundreds upon hundreds or monsters. You also have some pretty cool lighting effects; pretty fancy for 2001. The gameplay is standard, but not bad. You don't need to reload your weapons (a la Doom), and you work under the "if it moves, shoot it" mentality (a la quake). The game has around the same tone as Duke Nukem 3D. Is this game worth it now? I don't know exactly. I like it, but the HD remakes, which have even better graphics and require only a slightly more powerful computer, are available on available on Steam for only 15 dollars, which I think I'd recommend over this version. That being said, Serious Sam is not a bad game at all, and it would make a great addition to your collection.

This was one of the first good co-op games, where two or more players can work through the game together. The engine is so good the graphics run very smooth on 1024 x 768 under Win-7 64 bit on my Acer netbook. Along with Syberia, these are two of the best games and ideal for portable gaming. Did try the HD version of SS but that needs a reasonable graphics card, so this version is ideal for older PC'S or laptops/netbooks. Game play is simple, just blast everything, yet there's enough to work on to keep you wanting more, so a well balanced game. Highly recomdended.