serious sam hd: the first encounter review

And it's not as if the graphics are now cutting edge. Some even make the game virtually impossible to play. If you want to be picky about it, you can't really call this a remake. Also, the audio hasn't been changed at all. Sure, the game looks better than ever. 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 … Even when it was first released about a decade ago, Serious Sam was a throwback to the early FPS days of Doom … The insane plot about Sam "Serious" Stone battling absolutely stupid numbers of bizarre aliens controlled by some villain named Mental is the same. But perhaps the biggest change has to do with rocket jumping. About the only significant change with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is that everything looks much better than it did on the PC. Gaming Pastime reviews Serious Sam: The First Encounter & The Second Encounter for PC. 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, … Some jaw-dropping scenes include the apocalyptic end battle under the stars against a massive demon who seems to tower over the nearby Great Pyramid. Gameplay is, of course, still all about shooting and speed. This revamp may not be indispensible because it doesn't bring anything new to the table, aside from snazzier graphics and expanded multiplayer. There is also some jaggy level scenery, such as the braziers in Egyptian tombs. Incompatibilities with video and audio drivers have caused trouble for many users. Serious Sam returns in shinier clothes. © 2021 GAMESPOT, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. You won't find much that's new in Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, but this is one of those pure arcade thrill rides that can feel as old as time and still be an absolute blast to play. release date: 11/24/2009. 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. genre: first-person shooter. 5.0 out of 5 starsA Polished Version Of The Original. platform: pc, xbox 360 (xbla). Split-screen multiplayer has been axed, along with deathmatch and dedicated servers. First one to see the light of day is the HD version of The First Encounter on the PC, through Steams distribution platform. Sure, in 2009 we expect innovation from even our craziest shooters. Metacritic Game Reviews, Serious Sam: The First Encounter for PC, Sam "Serious" Stone, Earth?s stud warrior, is sent back to Egypt, 3000 B.C., to fight hordes of alien monsters in this … Insane battles against even zanier enemies are a Serious Sam trademark. Whether you have a gaming PC or Xbox Live, it's highly recommended that you pick this one up. The wacky gravity rooms that were so memorable for their zany cartoon moments and cracked you up even while you were getting killed are also MIA because, apparently, this effect isn't possible in the new engine. This is a straight-up remake of the original Serious Sam in every possible way. Now, you simply can't get up that high. Brett Todd Actually, there are more reasons to avoid the HD version of The First Encounter than to "upgrade" to it. Serious Sam 2 is mysteriously absent, perhaps because it’s the black sheep of the mainline games, while Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter and Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter … Even the first patch did nothing to rectify this problem. Croteam obviously kicked this one out the door long before it was ready for primetime. And so it is in Serious Sam HD… We ran into the main sound glitch noted online where the game crashes constantly due to a bug with audio sample rates. Slaughtering countless numbers of creeps in picturesque Egyptian settings is a serious business. 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. 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 … Well, it was ambitious only in a geographical sense, because the actual gameplay was exactly the same. 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. 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. Achievements are now supported. Just a few new frills have been tossed into the mix to upgrade gameplay for a modern audience. And you get to battle in and amongst a series of colossal structures in ancient Egypt, ranging from the Temple of Hatshepsut all the way to the breathtaking Great Pyramid. But you'd still have to look high and low to find another shooter with this much crazy action and attitude. 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. 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. 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. 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. You can play the game fine with sound disabled in Windows, but that isn't a reasonable fix. 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. Serious Sam is pretty challenging, but too often it's because of these cheap gimmicks. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. So you get sharper level architecture, gorgeous skies, cooler lighting, more detailed monster models, and shinier weapons in Sam's fists. © 2021 GAMESPOT, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. 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. 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. my serious sam: the first encounter hd review. GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. And a revamped Serious difficulty level has been added for masochists who couldn't get enough punishment in the old settings. Fast forward a few months and things now look a whole lot sunnier on the Xbox 360. Still, the graphics aren't quite up to modern standards in some ways. Livens up the original game with more modern visuals, Insane action with thousands of enemies constantly assaulting you, Outstanding enemy menagerie of unique freaks, Fantastic co-op option that lets up to 16 players battle together, Buggy to the point of being unplayable on some systems even after the first patch, Not enough enhancements over the original game, making it seem kind of unnecessary, Uses the same audio effects samples as the original game and its sequel. There are fewer examples of solid, instantly gratifying gameplay that you can buy for the money." Everything has been rebuilt with Serious Engine 3, the latest version of Croteam's proprietary graphics engine that is also being used right now in the development of Serious Sam 3. Brett Todd 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 … Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2012. A quick glance at either the Croteam or Steam forums reveals how many gamers are having trouble. 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 … 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. And this is not an insult. If you played the original, you pretty much know what you're getting yourself … If you don't have the original game, the aforementioned bugs make it a safer if less desirable option than this HD remake. Nothing noteworthy has been added to the game, aside from some improved visuals, frivolous bonuses like achievements, and a depressing number of showstopping bugs. Even moving to a gamepad hasn't slowed the game down because auto-aim and more forgiving targeting compensate for the loss of accuracy in giving up the sharper mouse-and-keyboard PC controls. Up to four can also take the game on in the online-only cooperative mode, which takes players through the solo campaign. Starting the week off, with a review of Serious Sam, developed by Croteam. 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. 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 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. Now this is more like it. Sirian Werebulls still steamroll you into the desert, but now they look better doing it. Serious Sam is the first video game (released in two episodes) in the Serious Sam series. Those who have grown up on modern shooters may find the primitive design and … About the only significant change with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is that everything looks much better than it did on the PC. Leave it on default, and there often aren't enough baddies to go around, making for some dull, easy matches. 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. 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. Sam is the same, right down to his signature goofy quips, as well as his regular ragging on other games and action-movie heroes. The serious level editor has also been dropped. It's all nice to look at, especially the almost-photorealistic desert cliffs, postcard skies in the wide-open sections of levels, rolling sand dunes, and the climactic nighttime battle sequence under the stars by the Great Pyramid. 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. Audio effects from the original game and The Second Encounter sequel have been used seemingly unchanged. The pace, the insane number of foes to battle, and the wide-open Egyptian levels may be simple and predictable, but it still does work. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter review Look out, evil: Sam is launching an all-out offensive By Jaz_McDougall 05 December 2009 Comments Serious Sam HD The First Encounter is a great game. If you already have the original game, there aren't any compelling reasons here to make you want to go back for more. Ah, there was Serious Sam 2 a few years ago, but that didn't have the impact as the original, despite being more ambitious. It's pure bliss for an old-time shooter fans who grew up on DOOM. Even if you're a serious lover of Serious Sam, it's impossible to recommend the HD remake of The First Encounter unconditionally. 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. Like the kids say, it's a trip. on January 15, 2010 at 5:09PM PST. Let's ignore the fact that it featured a really high draw distance for the time making it … 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. Still A Bloody Fun Game. There is a goofy story about "Serious" Sam Stone battling the alien forces of an insidious baddie called Mental, but it's easily ignored. 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. Featuring dazzling visuals and revamped design, gamers take control of the legendary Sam ‘Serious’ … on December 3, 2009 at 9:07PM PST. 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. 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. 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. 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. If you can get the game to run, say hello to some seriously entertaining deja vu. When Serious Sam first debuted on the PC in 2001 many gamers were quite enthralled with the title. They handle big areas and loads of onscreen enemies with nary a chug in single-player, but some of the monster models are a bit chunky when viewed up close. 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). Scored a 4.0 on GamesRadar, which praised the game plays at all remains... 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