Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter Review

I’m going to start this review with a bit of a disclaimer, if I may: if your looking for a thoughtful, story driven first person shooter that delivers equal parts plot (and the associated drama) and action, you might as well stop reading right now. If your looking for a mindless (and I don’t say that in a bad way) shooter that ratchets up the bullets-to-body parts ratio, your in the right neighborhood.

Serious Sam was first introduced to the world in 2001 by Croteam with a rather big splash, the original getting itself a nice cult following of hardcore PC gamers with its chaotic action and countless enemies swarming at you in ever increasing numbers. In the current iteration, Serious Sam is back: he hasn’t gained anything much more than a new coat of polish over the last eight years but the crew at Croteam seem confident that the game still has legs.

Graphically, the game looks good. Yes, it’s in HD. Yes, it’s better than the original, but that’s not really saying much. The environments are bland and repetitive and you’ll often find yourself thinking, “Didn’t I just go down this hallway?” while running the wrong way to a door you had previously come through and is conveniently blocked off. The art style of the game is similar as well – the models of your foes look like the doodles from your high school notebook (or at least the weird kid in the back’s notebook); half-man half-scorpions with Gatling guns, headless suicide bombers, organic robo-mechs with lasers and giant fireball shooting lizard things are all present and accounted for in the game. While it’s not breathtaking to the extent of something like Crysis or Modern Warfare, it has a redeeming, cartoon like charm to it.

Music and sound effects are your standard FPS, run of the mill explosions and gun noises. There are a few moments and sounds that make you twitch and look around, such as when you begin to hear a galloping skeleton horse (yeah, it has those too) in the distance while your in the middle of a giant arena with only a slight indication as to where they will be charging you from. The music is kinda funky and weird but ultimately ends up getting drowned out between the sounds of your gun going off and your keyboard and mouse clicking away furiously.

If you’ve played a Serious Sam before picking this one up, you know what to expect as far as gameplay goes. If you haven’t, I hope you’ve been doing your finger exercises. There is really only one way to describe the action in Serious Sam: chaos. It’s not that the enemies are smart or use any kind of tactics; it’s quite the opposite in fact. Enemies will often get stuck on their path to you on rocks and various other objects in the environment and it’s this type of tenacity that sets it apart, especially from most modern day shooters. Wanna duck into a corner to reload, gather yourself and hop back out? Sucks to be you then, since there really is no place to hide. Swarms of enemies will rush at you relentlessly as you waste away your ammo, a permanent indent being made onto your left mouse button as you click furiously to clear them all without dying. The closest thing you could relate this to is getting spit on by a Boomer in Left 4 Dead as the mobs of zombies rush to your location. The guns you are given aren’t anything special either; shotguns, machine guns, rocket launcher are your basic artillery along with a few others along the way.

There’s no competitive multiplayer in the game and that’s a bit of a shame – the intensely fast pace of the game seems like it would be a perfect fit for a “Quake Arena” type setup. There is co-op player for up to 16 players with a few options such as making the game harder by spawning extra monsters for each player on the board, but unless you have a stable of friends who are willing to play it with you, it’s not really worth mentioning.

If you didn’t get a chance to play Serious Sam, the original, over the past eight years then this is something you might wanna pick up if you consider yourself a fan of first person shooters. It lacks some of the polish the AAA titles of the past few years have shown us, but the sheer joy of blowing waves of enemies into tiny bits with a rocket launcher is something that connects with all of us. For those who have played Serious Sam, it becomes a lot harder to recommend. There are no new levels, guns, secrets – basically, nothing is new except the graphics engine. It may be worth a look if you can’t find your original install for Serious Sam, but even then the asking price of $20 might be a little too high for those who don’t have much to gain other than a stroll through a familiar park that has replaced the old light fixtures with shinier, new ones.

Despite all these issues, the end result of the game is overwhelmingly positive. It brings me back to a time when games weren’t about becoming engrossed in the plot line or building an emotional bond over your character. It was about getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible, with a few rocketjumps in between, while hordes of enemies swarm impede your progress. That’s what this game boils down to – simplicity. To quote Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.