Finally, I’m getting the content I promised up. I was actually pretty busy with a bunch of stuff, and doing these two belated birthday/retrospectives actually took a little time. Luckily, I managed to snag some time this past weekend, and managed to complete what I promised you. For starters, let’s take a look at a belated birthday of Serious Sam, one of the more obscure FPS series, held aloft by nostalgia & (Relatively) recent revivals. So with that out of the way, here’s my (Belated) 5th birthday & retrospective on the man.....known as Sam. Enjoy!
Serious Sam the First Encounter/Second Encounter (2001/2002)
As far as the story goes, it’s rather thin, but serviceable. In ages past, an ancient alien race known as the Sirians had landed upon Earth, and helped the ancient Egyptians advance their civilization to new heights. However, this attracted the evil entity known as MENTAL, who wanted to conquer the known universe. The Sirians managed to push him back, but in the process were defeated as well, leaving behind much of their technology. Ages later, humanity finds this technology, and uses it to advance all, attracting MENTAL once again in the process. In a desperate move, the forces of Earth send “Serious” Sam Stone back in time to see if there’s a way to take out MENTAL once & for all. Again, it’s rather bare-bones, but it works.
Reception for the First & Second Encounter were pretty high back in the day. As it stands, the First Encounter has an 87 out of 100 over on Metacritic, and the Second Encounter an 85 out of 100. Both games received many awards, with the First Encounter getting awards for game of the year (GameSpot) & editor’s choice award (IGN), while the Second Encounter getting a Game of the Month award in February of 2002 from GameSpot.
Best Aspect? For starters, Serious Sam’s gameplay harkens back to the FPS heyday of the 90s. Though the first & second encounter were only released at the start of the 2000s, they’re both strangely refreshing to play. A hero with goofy one-liners, a rogue’s gallery of weapons, a venerable horde of enemies (Beheaded Kamikazes anyone?), simple goals & puzzles, etc. There’s health, armor, powerups, and secrets, which was still pretty much the standard back then, only the secrets were a little odd sometimes (Mini werebulls is easily one of the strangest). This formula was basically the same across the man game & it’s expansion, with the expansion adding extra guns, enemies, and levels. Speaking of which.....
Levels are another good thing about Serious Sam. Croteam did a good job designing the zones of each game. With the First Encounter, we’re given a variety of oases, tombs, and cities in ancient Egypt, with the final encounter with the boss at one of the great pyramids. The Second Encounter takes place over a variety of locals, such as the empire of the Aztecs/Mayans (Forgot which one), ancient Babylon & the Tower of Babel, and finally Eastern Europe during the Dark Ages, with the epic conclusion at a church & it’s surrounding grounds. Each zone feels unique & distinct from one another, and in the case of the Second Encounter, The areas in each theme are varied as well.
Finally, the graphics are a plus for Serious Sam. While it might not have held up well over the years (See below), for the early 2000s it was something special. Lens flare when it was sunny (Sometimes you’d get a little if the moon & starts were out), reflective surfaces, dynamic lighting, particle effects, you name it. The Second Encounter has the added benefit of new textures & effects, along with additional forms of lighting.
Worst Aspect? For only the 3rd time since I’ve done one of these, age is this game’s only detriment. While I wouldn’t say it’s as old & archaic as FPS games from the 90s, it still shares a lot of things from that time. On top of that, the graphics really have not weathered the ages well: dated & repetitive textures, models, particle & sound effects, etc. This is more obvious in the first game, where the Egyptian theme got incredibly repetitive towards the end. The Second Encounter didn’t have this problem, as each theme never outstayed it’s welcome. Finally, many of the encounters in both games often seem unfairly designed. I understand that Serious Sam is all about challenging fights, and it most definitely delivers, but there are encounters where it seems like it was specifically designed to screw the player over. Even on medium difficulty (My preferred mode) I had trouble, as enemies seemed too numerous, and there’s not enough resources to keep you alive.
Serious Sam. Definitely dated, but beneath all of that age lies an action packed FPS game. If you want something a little more challenging & lighthearted, you might want to pick this up. Next!
Serious Sam 2 (2005)
“Development of Serious Sam 2 began in mid-2003 with the decision to create the game on a new engine. Croteam planned to release the game in the second quarter of 2004, but this was later pushed to the second half of 2004 and finally to fall 2005. For a period of time, Croteam posted weekly updates, but these became bi-monthly, then monthly, and then stopped completely after August 2004, as Gathering of Developers shut down and folded into 2K Games, Croteam's publisher, wanted to handle the release of information from that point forward. In April 2005, the game was officially announced by 2K Games, at which point the release date was set as Fall 2005.
Shortly following the game's official announcement, Serious Sam 2 was featured as the cover story for the June 2005 issue of Computer Games Magazine, and was later showcased at E3 in May 2005. Shown at the E3 Expo was the official trailer for the game, and an early build of the game was playable on the show floor. A result of the E3 presentation was a 30-minute video preview of the game featuring gameplay footage while a question and answer session took place between fansite Seriously! owner and director Jason Rodzik and Fernando Melo, the game's producer. In the time following the game's official announcement, 2K Games released a steady trickle of screenshots showcasing the vibrant colors and wide-open spaces that characterized the previous games and helping to build up hype as the game neared release. A demo of the PC version was released on 21 September 2005, and a second demo was released on 17 October 2005.
On 11 October 2005, Serious Sam 2 was released for PC and Xbox, and a patch for the game was released the day before, bringing it up to version 2.064b.[27] Croteam stated that a substantial list of features were cut due to time constraints.”
Reception for Serious Sam 2 wasn’t quite as positive as that of it’s two predecessors. The average review score of the time according to GameRankings was 75%, although many other review sites & magazines had scores from the 70s through the 80s. IGN had given the game a 8.2 out of 10, and summed up the game as follows:
“Like its predecessor Serious Sam 2 caters to a very specific taste. Fans of old school action games that focus exclusively on shooting down wave after wave of enemies will definitely find that this game delivers. Still, the endless fragfest that is Serious Sam 2 occasionally runs the risk of becoming monotonous. What saves the title is the endless variety of enemies that come your way and the intense challenge that they offer. Throw in an engine that can handle it all with ease and a unique, colorful visual style and it's the perfect game for twitch-happy action junkies”
This part is taken from Wikipedia:
“One of the main criticisms of the game was that it was a lot less "serious" and a lot more "cartoony" than The First Encounter and The Second Encounter. An over-emphasis on reflective surfaces and oddly out of place pixel shading were perceived as being more about showing off the capabilities of the engine than about defining the atmosphere of the game. Lighter colors and a more upbeat soundtrack made the game feel less grounded in reality, contrary to the realistic Egyptian tombs and Mayan pyramids of the earlier games, and players complained that while the weapons of the previous games seemed to be massive and powerful, those in Serious Sam 2 were less so.”
I personally disagree with most of this, but I’ll get to that when the time comes.
Best Aspect? Things haven’t really changed since the First & Second Encounter. Your main goal is still to kill everything you see, but there are some slight changes. For one, the basic puzzles that were in the first game have largely been removed, saved for some situational moments. Tonally, Serious Sam 2 is far more comedic & silly than the first 2 games. Not that the first 2 games were funny, as there were moments for humor, but this game barrages you with jokes constantly. For the most part they work, but some of the more culturally-specific ones might fly past your head (There’s a couple soccer ones I didn’t get). Even a lot of Sam’s humor is more on the juvenile side, though there’s a clever joke once in a while, and many of the enemies are wackier than before (The werebulls became killer windup bull toys).
Secondly, Serious Sam 2 has a greatly enhanced graphics engine. Though the original Serious Engine was capable of a lot in it’s time, the 2nd iteration of the Serious Engine is capable of much more. The more advanced features of the engine included detailed refraction effects, high-resolution textures, high-dynamic range lighting, and light bloom effects. On top of that, there was greater animation when it came to the enemies, Sam, and the few basic NPCs you do meet. It makes this 2nd iteration of Sam feel far more alive than the first, and speaking of which....
Third & finally, Serious Sam 2 has one of the most detailed worlds I’ve ever seen in a FPS. Though the First & Second Encounter has places that were really attention grabbing, they could get boring rather quickly (Especially in the 1st game’s case). With this game? You are given a host of worlds to explore! From an African-inspired savannah in the first episode, all the way to a high fantasy kingdom in the 5th episode, to a neon-colored futuristic city in the final episode, not a single one of these places you travel to ever gets tiring, as the amount of levels in each keep things fresh & exciting. On top of that, many of the levels are inhabited by minor NPCs, which added further life to the episodes. Though many of them don’t do much, some will come to you in a battle with health/armor/ammo pickups, and outside they’ll speak a simple greeting. It’s little things like this that keep Serious Sam 2 in my head, and really shows that the FPS genre can be more than what it normally is.
Worst Aspect? It’s really a sliver of small things that give the game a blemish or two. Like I said above, the graphics have aged surprisingly well, but some little things show it’s age. Particle effects look dated, some of the enemy & npc models look a little blocky or jagged, and some textures might not look as good as they did back in 2005. Gameplay always felt a little easier than in the first Serious Sam games, as there always seemed to be a little extra ammo, armor, or health lying around. On top of that, there’s the extra life mechanic. On the console I understand why it’s around (No saves at will), but it’s strange to see it on the PC, especially since you can save & load (Quick Save/Load is a godsend sometimes). Some of the larger encounters can still be challenging, but even then sometimes you can find items that are conveniently abundant.
Serious Sam 2. Maybe not for everybody, but it’s perhaps the most energetic title in the Serious Sam series. If you like your shooter with a healthy dose of wackiness & zaniness, this game is for you. Next!
Serious Sam 3: BFE (2011)
Storywise, BFE is actually a prequel. Taking place before the events of The First Encounter, we find Sam in the heart of Cairo, fighting back against the forces of MENTAL. MENTAL’s army has almost driven humanity to extinction, but for those that remain, there is hope in a Sirian device known as the Time-Lock, which has the power to send anyone back into any known point in history. Unfortunately, it’s not currently, so it’s a race against time & extinction to get it back on, and have Sam go through to find a solution to MENTAL’s defeat. Again, BFE doesn’t have a beefy story, but there’s a little more depth to it than the first game, and actually has a sense of urgency to it that surprised me the first time I played through.
Reception for BFE was mostly positive. 7s & 8s out of ten were generally the norm across the board: Eurogamer praised BFE for what Duke Nukem Forever failed to deliver,but criticized the redundancy of the title's gameplay compared to its previous iterations in the series. Game Informer praised the game for its graphics and the heavy metal score while being true to its original concept, while Destructoid said "It's a lot of fun indeed. A lot of backbreaking, grueling, soul-destroying fun". I somewhat disagree with this, but I’ll save my thoughts on this for a little later.
Best Aspect? Yet again, the core gameplay of SS3 has stayed pretty much the same. Run & Gun, complete small puzzles, you name it. You’re given an arsenal that would make an 80s action star blush, and Sam is back (Strangely sporting sunglasses again) with a plethora of wisecracks & pop-culture references. I can’t speak about this any further, as I’d just be repeating myself.
Secondly, SS3 has perhaps the best graphics out of all the Serious Sam games. While SS2's graphics still manage to hold up to a degree, BFE is perhaps the most realistic. Ironically, we got a preview of sorts a year or two beforehand with remastered version of both the First & Second Encounter, using what was called the Serious Engine 3. BFE’s is known as the Serious Engine 3.5, but there really wasn’t that much of a difference between the two. What is obvious that both graphics engine share amazing textures, wonderful animated sprites, realistic particle effects, lighting effects that are also highly realistic, and reflecting surfaces that you’d swear are real. Once again, this ties into...
The world. In many ways, SS3's setting is simultaneous wondrous & repetitive. It’s repetitive in the sense that it’s a world that’s already been done before, but it’s wondrous because Serious Sam hasn’t been back to Egypt since his very first game. At the beginning you traverse the more urban areas of Cairo, but as you go further, you traverse the more familiar tombs & ruins that might be familiar to longtime Serious Sam fans. Thanks to the 3.5 engine, there’s a sense of life that permeates the whole game. Seeing dust float in a beam of light in an ancient crypt really makes the whole experience real!
Worst Aspect? Boring! So mind-numbingly, frustratingly boring! The gun battles, especially on the larger scale are fun, and the variety of enemies is as impressive as always (Re-imagined or Brand New), but something about the whole experience is bland for me. In many ways SS3 felt like a return to the first Serious Sam, and not necessarily for the best. The old Egypt meets modern Egypt theme was great, but then seemed to discard that for something maybe a little too familiar. In short, if I could understand why fans disliked Serious Sam 2, then I don’t understand why they like this one (Apart from some people).
3 other things I think are bad about Serious Sam 3. First, our hero is far more serious in mood than in any other Serious Same game. He still has jokes, but doles them out far less than any other incarnation. He also comes across a little like an ass. To be perfectly honest, the incredibly few characters that are added really don’t have much in term of personality (Sam included). Secondly, the decision to have the Sniper Rifle & Plasma Gun (Along withe the Cannon, although I might be wrong on that one) as secret weapons is odd, but once you get them they’re kept until you lose your guns towards the end (You can’t get the 2 back afterwards). Finally, DLC was added to a game that really didn’t need it, although I can’t complain as I never got it & I heard it was singleplayer based.
Serious Sam 3. A fun game in bursts, but will ultimately come across like a grind for some. If you like modern mixed with old-schooled, you might get a kick out of this. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can see why some people would enjoy it.
So that was my look at the series known as Serious Sam. A quirky & semi-obscure FPS series, it’s a lot of silly fun, and the fans make sure that it will never fade. Definitely a franchise to look into if you’re more of a fan of the beaten off path. Well, I’ll see you next week for a look at another classic FPS franchise. Until then, be sure to be serious once in a while.
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If you’re interested in playthroughs of each game, check out the links below:
Serious Sam (First Encounter)
Serious Sam (Second Encounter)
Serious Sam 2
Serious Sam 3
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