Gaming Pastime reviews Serious Sam: The First Encounter & The Second Encounter for PC. A quick glance at either the Croteam or Steam forums reveals how many gamers are having trouble. Only editing an obscure line in the game's configuration file seems to clear up the issues. It also still throws dozens of enemies at you in massive areas without the slightest bit of chugging. Now, you've finally got the real deal, a dead-on reworking of the original Serious Sam, right down to the ability to save instantly anywhere (with a quick tap of the Y button). And you won't have to deal with the tech glitches that can make this new game more frustrating to deal with than a gang of kleer skeletons. on December 3, 2009 at 9:07PM PST. Sam is the same, right down to his signature goofy quips, as well as his regular ragging on other games and action-movie heroes. release date: 11/24/2009. Monsters still growl and scream with the same samples used back in 2001, which is a touch disappointing even while you can't help but love hearing that familiar headless bomber shriek. Still, the graphics aren't quite up to modern standards in some ways. While you never leave this monster-filled Egyptian city, Serious Sam finds room for surprising architectural variety – underground rivers, dry canyons, yellow obelisks at twilight, dusty … Sure, in 2009 we expect innovation from even our craziest shooters. LGR - Serious Sam The First Encounter Review - YouTube This first Serious Sam game is still such a rush! © 2021 GAMESPOT, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. You can quibble over a few changes, like limiting rocket-jumping and getting rid of the zany gravity rooms that provided some memorably bloody moments way back when, but this is still a fun example of an age-old formula done to near perfection. Audio effects from the original game and The Second Encounter sequel have been used seemingly unchanged. Now this is more like it. Ah, there was Serious Sam 2 a few years ago, but that didn't have the impact as the original, despite being more ambitious. You'll miss out on the snazzy new graphics and a few extra frills, but you'll experience the majority of what the game has to offer. Serious Sam HD The First Encounter is a great game. The fantastic co-operative mode from the original game has been expanded to support 16 players as well, although now they zip through key moments in each level rather than play through the entire campaign. It's pure bliss for an old-time shooter fans who grew up on DOOM. If you already have the original game, there aren't any compelling reasons here to make you want to go back for more. Resident Evil Village Release Date Is May 7, PS4/Xbox One Versions Confirmed, PS5 Restock Updates: Check Latest Stock, Updates, And More, Xbox Series X Restocks: Check Availability Here, By You get to gun down the same bizarre cadre of aliens under the control of a villainous ET named Mental, both solo and cooperatively. The original 2001 Croteam game has aged so well that it doesn't really need this HD remake because its run-and-gun action and ludicrous menagerie of monsters are just as much of a blast to experience today as it was nine years ago. Starting the week off, with a review of Serious Sam, developed by Croteam. Both Windows XP and 7 were affected here, with the game locking up so frequently and even forcing occasional system reboots that it was unplayable. Unsurprisingly, playing with that many people results in incredible scenes of mayhem. Brett Todd Textures on building walls are sharper, skies over the Egyptian desert are postcard-worthy, monster models look slimier, and dust clouds look great as they're kicked up by enemies stampeding through the sands. GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. Voice has also been added to co-op, although the pace of the game is so fast that save for socializing it's practically useless. The number of supported players has been cut back from the 16 offered in the PC version of the remake, although this isn't a bad thing because games with this many players are insanely chaotic. Serious Sam returns in shinier clothes. Aside from a few small niggles like those moments where you're stuck circle-strafing endless numbers of irritating kleer skeletons, the game does nothing but put a big smile on your face. When Serious Sam first debuted on the PC in 2001 many gamers were quite enthralled with the title. You're called upon to slaughter gazillions of enemies with standard shooter hardware, such as rocket launchers, and not-so-standard shooter hardware, such as a great big cannon that might have seen duty at Gettysburg. Levels set in and around ancient Egyptian landmarks, such as the Temple of Hapshepsut and the Great Pyramid, are the same. The game scored a 4.0 on GamesRadar, which praised the game's grap… Also, the audio hasn't been changed at all. Nothing noteworthy has been added to the game, aside from some improved visuals, frivolous bonuses like achievements, and a depressing number of showstopping bugs. If you want to be picky about it, you can't really call this a remake. Serious Sam: The First Encounter Review It's a great looking, fun-filled game that has plenty of visceral thrills and absolutely, positively the biggest battles in any shooter to date. The crazy pace, the number of enemies, the wide-open levels that let you freewheel while killing bad guys--it may be a simple formula, but it's done to near-perfection. GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. About the only significant change with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is that everything looks much better than it did on the PC. Croteam has a trademark style of level design with Serious Sam … A new level or two would … First one to see the light of day is the HD version of The First Encounter on the PC, through Steams distribution platform. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. Now, you simply can't get up that high. Even when it was first released about a decade ago, Serious Sam was a throwback to the early FPS days of Doom … But the visuals don't change how the game plays at all. Serious Sam is the first video game (released in two episodes) in the Serious Sam series. For Serious Sam HD to be an essential purchase for those of us that have seriously Serious Sam-ed in the past, it needed something else beside the facelift. Like other enemies in the game, these demonic-looking frogs know no fear. This is a straight-up remake of the original Serious Sam in every possible way. If you played the original, you pretty much know what you're getting yourself … Gameplay is, of course, still all about shooting and speed. We ran into the main sound glitch noted online where the game crashes constantly due to a bug with audio sample rates. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter really drives that point home with a spiked gauntlet. A few minor gameplay tweaks add to the experience, too. Incompatibilities with video and audio drivers have caused trouble for many users. If you don't have the original game, the aforementioned bugs make it a safer if less desirable option than this HD remake. The indie sensation Serious Sam: The First Encounter is reborn in glorious high-definition for legions of long-time fans and a whole new generation of gamers around the world. But it still can't compete with most other modern shooters, with relatively clunky monster models when seen close up and jaggy level scenery, such as the braziers in the Egyptian tombs. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is a great purchase for both fans of the series and newcomers. About the only significant change with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is that everything looks much better than it did on the PC. Fast forward a few months and things now look a whole lot sunnier on the Xbox 360. There is a goofy story about "Serious" Sam Stone battling the alien forces of an insidious baddie called Mental, but it's easily ignored. Croteam obviously kicked this one out the door long before it was ready for primetime. The Xbox version retains the original games' off-the-chart intensity levels, and Serious Sam--which was always an arcade game at heart--feels right at home on Microsoft's powerful console. Scaling things up by adding more foes and increasing their strength relative to the number of players in the game helps here, but also adds to the chaos so much that you wind up getting killed by a lot of super-tough monsters you never see coming. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. You get the same goofy protagonist in Sam "Serious" Stone, a gravelly voiced tough guy in a T-shirt and jeans who looks and quips a whole lot like Duke Nukem. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter landed on Steam with a great big thump in November due to a ton of bugs that made the game impossible for some users to play, let alone enjoy … All in all, we spent at least six hours struggling with this annoying issue--which, coincidentally, is about the same amount of time it takes to finish the single-player part of the game. Resident Evil Village Release Date Is May 7, PS4/Xbox One Versions Confirmed, PS5 Restock Updates: Check Latest Stock, Updates, And More, Xbox Series X Restocks: Check Availability Here, By In the original game, Sam could rocket-jump to the highest spots in levels, scaling walls and obelisks, as well as occasionally accessing forbidden areas or screwing up event triggers. platform: pc, xbox 360 (xbla). on January 15, 2010 at 5:09PM PST. The insane plot about Sam "Serious" Stone battling absolutely stupid numbers of bizarre aliens controlled by some villain named Mental is the same. The version of the game released in 2002 for the original Xbox cut down the size of levels and added arcade touches, such as phone-booth save points. Intended as a response to the increasing complexity and sophistication of first-person shooters, Serious Sam took the lean, tense corridor-crawling and overwhelming monster encounters that defined early first … All of the bugs have been ironed out and the price has dropped to a more reasonable $15 (1,200 points), making this Xbox Live Arcade release a good way to experience one of the zaniest shooters of all time. Upgraded graphics give the game more visual punch, Feels dated, especially if you played the original, Some unwelcome changes, such as limiting rocket-jumping. Even if you're a serious lover of Serious Sam, it's impossible to recommend the HD remake of The First Encounter unconditionally. Achievements are now supported and multiplayer has been expanded for additional players. If you want a fresh hit of Sam Stone's insanity, you might be best off reinstalling the original game plus its sequels and save yourself 20 bucks. When Croteam first revived Serious Sam: The First Encounter on the PC in the fall of 2009, the game earned a fair amount of criticism for showstopping bugs and a price that seemed a bit on the high side for a remastered take on a nearly decade-old classic. And it's not as if the graphics are now cutting edge. So gunshots and missile blasts sound kind of tinny, especially in comparison to the remastered musical score, with its boomy bass lines. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is a visually upgraded and fully Steam supported remake version of the original high-adrenaline single-play and 16-player co-operative arcade-action FPS which was … You can play the game fine with sound disabled in Windows, but that isn't a reasonable fix. Serious Sam is pretty challenging, but too often it's because of these cheap gimmicks. Monsters like the headless suicide bombers, galloping kleer skeletons, stampeding werebulls, and the gigantic fiery demon bosses are the same. Everything feels retro given the unabashed dedication to re-creating the mood of such golden-age shooters as DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D, but this is still one of the best run-and-gun games ever made. Achievements are now supported. Still, if you have never experienced Serious Sam before, the HD version is probably the way to go (well, as long as you can get past the bugs). And so it is in Serious Sam HD… Up to four can also take the game on in the online-only cooperative mode, which takes players through the solo campaign. It might not be the most essential shooter of 2010 for the 360, especially if you played the original game on the PC way back when, although you will certainly have a blast with it if you appreciate mile-a-minute shoot-'em-ups. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, on the other hand, does not concern itself with such trivial nonsense and puts all of its effort into rendering as much gore and … If you can get the game to run, say hello to some seriously entertaining deja vu. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is a great purchase for both fans of the series and newcomers. So you get sharper level architecture, gorgeous skies, cooler lighting, more detailed monster models, and shinier weapons in Sam's fists. my serious sam: the first encounter hd review. 5.0 out of 5 starsA Polished Version Of The Original. At the very least, some new effects should have been provided, along with the option to switch between them and the classic sounds. Serious Sam: The First Encounter Summary : As Special Forces veteran Serious Sam Stone, you'll travel back in time to early Egypt to stop the dastardly Tah-Um, the very spirit of evil, … So you constantly wheel around strafing at an amazing collection of creepy aliens, including galloping skeletons in black fetish wear, shock troops who keep their heads tucked under one arm, emerald demons juggling fireballs, robot scorpions toting machine guns, and the franchise's now iconic headless suicide bombers that come racing at you screaming with a cartoon bomb in place of each hand. Split-screen multiplayer has been axed, along with deathmatch and dedicated servers. The problem is that there are no indications that an active internet connection, a Steam account, and access to the Steam server are required in order for … Just a few new frills have been tossed into the mix to upgrade gameplay for a modern audience. This kills some of the fun and changes how you approach parts of some levels, especially those places where you used to head for the high ground right away to get away from hordes of bad guys, like big werebull runs, in a couple of spots. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter does get entertaining once you get over the initial shock of how antiquated the whole experience feels, but running around shooting stuff in the most primitive of senses isn't going to be enough to keep most first-person … Removing the Deathmatch mode of play for up to 16 players that was a prominent part of the PC version of the original game is more annoying, although this might have been deemed necessary because the frame rate already chugs a fair bit in heavy action with a lot of enemies when just four players are going at it in co-op. Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2012. There is also some jaggy level scenery, such as the braziers in Egyptian tombs. 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