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Serious Sam places gamers in the role of special-forces
veteran Sam "Serious" Stone. Sam Stone travels back in time to an
ancient Egyptian world with the mission of assassinating a great
evil: Notorious Mental. Mental has set forth to wipe out Earth
and all humans for sheer fun, just as it did with all of the
other civilizations throughout galactic history.
Players can defend the world in either single player or
multiplayer modes. Multiplayer modes support two to four players
in split-screen action on a single computer. In cooperative mode,
gamers can join forces against the hordes of enemies.
In Serious Sam, players will travel through beautiful and
realistic terrain, both indoors and outdoors. Serious Sam's
powerful 3-D technology, based on the company's proprietary
Serious Engine, offers directional lighting and realistic-looking
daytime scenes. In addition, the game's technology also allows
for multidirectional gravity, dynamic volumetric fog and haze,
and destructible objects. Players wishing to create their own
levels can use the free Serious Editor and Serious Modeler, which
are powerful real-time editing tools that include tutorials.
Review
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Serious Sam is not the best computer game we've ever
played, but it is the best $20 computer game we've ever played.
The 20-buck price point, usually the domain of add-on packs,
re-releases of old games, mass market "games" and unadulterated
crapola, has been redeemed with this one single release. Not only
has the Eastern European-based Croteam demonstrated the
possibilities of garage development, but it's also delivered
Gathering of Developer's first good game since the company
released Railroad Tycoon II back in 1998. For a game that was
spawned almost accidentally, Serious Sam is certainly
entertaining. Originally released as a demo for the Serious
Engine, the sweet 3D game engine that was the focus of Croteam's
work, the game rocketed to Internet stardom thanks to the
intervention of the geniuses at Old Man Murray. The demo might
have dropped off the face of the planet if not for the random
grab by OMM's Erik, who praised the game mightily, drawing the
attention of developers like Levelord and George Broussard and,
ultimately, the Gathering of Developers. Once again, the entire
gaming world owes Old Man Murray a debt of gratitude, as this is
one of the better 3D FPS we've played in the past few months.
But let's get something straight right off the bat. Serious Sam
is not the next incarnation of Half-Life. It is not designed
better than No One Lives Forever. It doesn't have the awesome
multiplayer component of a game like Unreal Tournament. The
engine, while good, has nowhere near the jaw-dropping complexity
of Quake 3. What Serious Sam is, in fact, is a fun, fast, cheap
game, heavily schooled by Doom and infused with a unique sense of
humor.
In Serious Sam, the player takes on the identity of the titular
Sam, who is, as the title indicates, very, very serious. He's
quite serious about blowing the living beejeezus out of anything
that accidentally wanders into his way, be it beheaded
assassins, skeletal cows or the occasional giant lava monster.
From the start, you're shooting at masses of enemies, picking up
ammo and powerups and generally looking for the next
key/door or button/door combination necessary to move on to the
next level. Plan on doing a lot of this, 'cause this is the
essence of the game, which is repeated throughout the next 14
levels, until Sam reaches the final climactic boss battle.
This game has seen the return of an unusual phenomenon that we
haven't come across since the old Doom days. The player is
required to annihilate so many enemies that you actually feel
"full" after extended battles. You're done; you've slain enough
demons, rocketed enough monsters, ned down enough bezerkers.
In one section of the game, the player must run around an
enclosed courtyard while literally 200 demonic frogs rain in from
all sides (you know there are 200 of the lil' bastards because
Croteam has included a counter for hilarious effect in this
section). The resulting action is nothing less than minutes spent
circle-strafing and firing off round after round into the
deepening mass of helltoads. After eventually finishing off the
last of the buggers, you'll need to take a break to rest your
eyes and your ed hand, which has spent 10 minutes clamped
around your mouse in a deathclaw grip. Later levels are even more
insane. The conclusion of the game has you fighting your way
through a virtually Herculean task of slaying that seemingly
never ends.
While we dinged Kiss: Psycho Circus for being too Doom-like, the
problem with that game was that it simply threw tons of monsters
at the player with no real sense of design. Serious Sam does not
have that problem. Croteam may not have the greatest level
designers -- most levels are hallways that connect to larger
rooms or outdoor environments that feed into courtyards, and the
game never leaves the Egyptian setting -- they have mastered the
art of level flow. They know just where to place their monsters,
where to hide triggers, when to relent on the tide of beasties
and just when the player is going to run out of ammo, or
patience. After 10 minutes with the game, you'll begin to
appreciate the sense of humor Croteam had when whipping this game
together. Eventually, you'll come to realize that the full
backpack of ammo and the -up hovering so invitingly in the
middle of a big, wide open courtyard are going to spawn a horde
of really, really pissed off critters the second you touch 'em.
And you won't care. In fact, you'll most likely laugh, ready your
best weapon, quick save and charge into the middle of the room.
Because that's the sort of mindset that Serious Sam engenders.
Sam's Beheaded Kamikaze is perhaps one of the funniest, iest
enemies we've seen in recent memory. Most of the time, the
Kamikazes make themselves known long before they're seen, because
the moment they spawn, they begin screaming and running at the
player in a straight line, detonating the bombs in their hands as
soon as they come within range. The player cannot outrun the
Kamikazes, forcing a self-preservation strategy of hunting them
down their moment the screams are heard. The rest of the monsters
in the game suffer from a disappointing sameness -- skeletal
demon, small hopping critter, larger - and rocket-toting
creatures -- and are lacking the Kamikaze's standout looniness.
The same, unfortunately, goes for Sam's arsenal. The only weapon
we saw that really spoke of creativity was the cannon, which
fires a gigantic cannonball that rolls across the screen, smiting
everything in its path.
Had Serious Sam been released in the $35-50 price range, there's
no way on God's green Earth that we would give it a Direct Hit.
Yet for $20, it shouldn't be missed. Grab this game on the way to
the checkstand; you will get every penny's worth out of it. --
DailyRadar Review
