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SERIOUS SAM
Serious Sam is the title of a series of first-person shooters created by the Croatian company Croteam. Originally released for the PC market only, Serious Sam's rising popularity resulted in the porting of the series to a number of different platforms, including the Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and Sony PlayStation 2 among the others.
The series follows the adventures of hero Sam "Serious" Stone and his fight against the forces of the extraterrestrial overlord Mental who seeks to destroy humanity.
Games
Serious Sam is well known for its relentless action provided by a few, simple key elements that quickly became trademarks of these games: large amounts of enemies, huge open areas settings, dozens of hidden secret rooms and a gameplay that was quite purposefully modelled around Doom's style of play.
The levels in the games are massive, depicting vast plains, deep valleys and the exterior/interior of the monuments of different human civilizations. What is common to all locations is the large number of spawned enemies, that forces the player to extended battles with more than a few foes at a time: since Serious Sam tends to move away from the traditional dark cramped hallways common to many first-person shooters, fighting can take place on large sections of a level, without limiting the player's mobility. Also, the games' draw distance is long, allowing both the player and the monsters to spot and fire upon their respective adversary even at extreme distances. Not only the levels abound with monsters, but there's also plenty of different ones the player is called to face. A peculiar note about the monsters in Serious Sam is their size: certain creatures are very large when compared to the player's character and it is not uncommon to come across monsters three times the height of the hero, not to mention the "boss" monsters whose sheer size can even reach up to ten times the player's (or more in one particular sequence).
Monster fighting makes up most of the game without any trace of the complex puzzles introduced in the FPS world by games such as Half-Life. Throughout the whole games Sam's only help is "NETRICSA" (NEuro-TRonically Implanted Computer Situation Analyser), an advanced computer AI surgically inserted in the hero's head. NETRICSA serves as an in-game strategy guide, cataloguing encountered enemies and powerups, providing at the same time bits about the background story and hints on how to cross the levels. There is also a considerable amount of replay value in Serious Sam games, brought about by the many secrets and several multiplayer modes. While there is nothing innovative about Deathmatch, cooperative gameplay is something not commonly seen in modern first-person shooters. Besides network/online play, Serious Sam also allows for split screen action supporting up to 4 players and this is an even rarer multiplayer feature for PC games these days, although very common in gaming consoles.
So far the following video games have been released:
The First Encounter
The First Encounter was the first game in the series which had been in the making since 1996 and had a video showing its early gameplay in 2000. Apparently The First Encounter was originally developed by Croteam as a demonstrator for their engine and this is the reason why some countries saw its initial release priced at less than half the value of other games in the genre.
The game introduction reveals what happened before the game actually takes place: in ancient times, Earth was involved in a conflict between Mental and the Sirians, an alien race that left many of its artifacts to be found by humanity. In the 22nd century Mental's forces return to Earth bent on eradicating humankind: as a last resort the usage of the "Time Lock" is decided: this Sirian device can send back through time a single individual who can, hopefully, defeat Mental and alter the course of history. Because of his bravery in fighting the monsters, Sam "Serious" Stone is chosen to use the "Time Lock". As the game opens, Sam appears in ancient Egypt: his travels from one Egyptian monument to the next, all the way fighting against the monsters Mental sent after him, make up most of the story of The First Encounter. During his wandering, Sam is able to activate a hidden Sirian communicator that summons to Earth a starship from the depths of space. Sam goes to the Great Pyramid for a rendez-vous with the ship and, after a titanic battle against Mental's general Ugh-Zan III, he is whisked on-board the Sirian starship.
The Second Encounter
The Second Encounter starts right where the previous chapter left off, with Sam travelling to Sirius on the starship. Unfortunately Sam's vehicle is accidentally hit by the "Croteam crate-bus" and plummets down to Earth's surface. Serious Sam crash lands in South America in the Mayan age. However not all is lost, since the Sirians left a back-up ship on Earth. Since this vehicle is located in a different age from the one Sam finds himself, the hero has to uncover the locations of a number of Sirian time-gates that will help him reach his destination. With this objective Sam storms through South America, then travels to Mesopotamia and finally to medieval Europe where the starship is located. Finally, in front of the Cathedral of Holy Blood, Sam confronts Mordekai The Summoner, the last obstacle to overcome on his path to the Holy Grail. After a time-consuming battle with Mordekai's minions, The Summoner is finally silenced forever. In the cathedral, Sam lifts the Holy Grail, followed by his confession of his sins in a booth... to Mental, during which he reassures Mental that he's coming to get him.
Other than the more varied locations, The Second Encounter features some additional weapons — a chainsaw, a flamethrower, a sniper rifle, and the powerful Serious Bomb — and a number of new monsters that Sam has to face. This game has also seen the release of an expansion titled Serious Sam: Dark Island, featuring some new levels for single and multiplayer mode.
Gold Edition
Serious Sam: Gold Edition is a special Serious Sam release featuring all the contents of The First Encounter, The Second Encounter and the expansion Dark Island. The games are on separate CDs (in the UK version at least) and are identical to their individual releases, although the Sam character model for The First Encounter has been modified to match the one used in The Second Encounter.
Serious Sam The Next Encounter
Next Encounter is a console exclusive version of Serious Sam that was released for the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Gamecube. The weapons in Next Encounter are all remakes of those from the PC games (e.g. the revolvers are renamed to pistols), also support for vehicles and totally new levels have been added. In line with the PC releases, Next Encounter retailed at a budget price of 19.99 (USD). While this game was not produced by Croteam, under stylistical and technological terms, it is still identical to the other games in the series.
Serious Sam II
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The third game in the series was officially announced by Croteam and Take-Two Interactive for both the PC and the Xbox in April 2005 and released on October 11, 2005. A PC demo was made available on September 21. Although Serious Sam II is actually the third game in the series, the first two games are widely considered to be two halves to one larger game, and thus Serious Sam II might be considered as the true sequel to The First Encounter and The Second Encounter.
Engine technology
Croteam created their own engine for use in both First Encounter and Second Encounter. Named the "Serious Engine", it is designed to cope with extremely large view distances and massive numbers of models, unlike most FPS engines which are developed for a limited draw distance and only a few animating models (i.e. enemies) on screen at a time: it is very efficient, capable of maintaining dozens of moving enemies (often stampedes) even on a modest system challenging the well known Quake, Unreal or Half-Life engines. The "Serious Engine" can render through both DirectX or OpenGL and, while it does not support pixel or vertex shaders, it is optimised for DirectX 7's hardware transformation, clipping and lighting. The "Serious Engine" has been also available as a licensed engine from Croteam.
The next, more powerful iteration of the "Serious Engine" has been developed for use in Serious Sam II and, quite predictably, it has been called "Serious Engine II".
Humour
While the Serious Sam games are at least as gory as other shooters, the tone is lightened through humor, often in the form of one-liners by Sam himself (who is regarded as a comical parody of Duke Nukem, another video game hero) and a series of implausible weapons and enemies, including Santa Claus in The Second Encounter. The game's style of humor is fundamentally a self-parody: the basis of many jokes is the game itself or other well known FPS. As an example, the first level of The Second Encounter features a one-liner by Sam after killing the second enemy in the level: "Hey, didn't I kick your ass two rooms back?" This is a parody of the common remark made that all bad guys in games look alike. Also, there may be some contradictory elements in the series, as the hero often breaks the fourth wall while saying his lines. The other main source of humour in the games are the secrets: although mostly consisting of hidden powerups, occasionally humorous secrets can be found, for example freeing from an Egyptian tomb the Croteam members, who all seem to be extremely short and have giant heads.
Enemies
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Weapons
In order to deal adequately with the hordes of monsters Mental sends against him, Serious Sam needs a large number of weapons. Most of these are based on real life equivalents, albeit with signficant variations, while the rest consists of imaginary equipment. Weapons marked with an asterisk (*) can be found only in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
- Military Knife: this combat knife is a mêlée weapon only and one of the two weapons Serious Sam starts a game off with. While it can't be thrown at enemies, it does a large amount of damage if the player can get near enough to them.
- Shofield .45/TMAR: the Shofield revolver is a .45 caliber pistol equipped with a "Techno-Magic Ammo Replenisher", a device stolen from Mental's forces. Owing to the TMAR's technology this pistol does not require the player to pick up any ammo for it, although it does need to be reloaded. The Shofield can also be used in akimbo mode, provided the player finds a second.
- Bonecracker P-LAH Chainsaw(*): the "Bonecracker" is the second mêlée weapon in the game. It uses a fuel-replenisher unit, similar to the TMAR of the Shofield, that produces the fuel needed by the chainsaw for 10,000 years. It's concept is likely reminiscent of Doom's chainsaw weapon.
- 12 Gauge Pump Action Shotgun: the single-barreled shotgun is one of the basic weapons in the game. Its effective range is quite limited, as well as the amount of damage it applies.
- Double Barrel Coach Gun: the double-barreled shotgun is basically the more powerful version of the shotgun. It is one of the slowest firing weapons in the game, owing to the long time required for its manual reloading. As in real life, the Coach Gun is quite ineffective at long range, due the scattering of the pellets in the shells, but it causes a massive amount of damage if fired point-blank to a target.
- M1-A2 Thompson Submachine Gun: a modified version of the Thompson submachine gun, which has been chambered to fire the modern 5.56 mm cartridge, making it compatible with the ammo required to feed the XM214-A. The Tommy gun is very accurate and its sustained fire rate allows the player to apply a high amount of damage, albeit he will expend a large amount of bullets.
- XM214-A Minigun: arguably one of the most powerful weapons in the game, the minigun fires 5.56 mm bullets and is one of the "trademark" guns of the Serious Sam games, along with the Serious Bomb and the SBC Cannon.
- XPML21 Rocket Launcher: a standard rocket launcher, that uses 150 mm Inferno missiles as ammo. It is fully automated allowing the user to fire rapidly, however care should be taken to avoid collateral damage owing to the rockets' splash radius.
- MKIII Grenade Launcher: this grenade launcher is an infantry weapon with adjustable launching speed, that uses 40mm High Explosive rounds. It's grenades will bounce from walls and explode on impact with live target or after a short amount of time.
- XOP Flamethrower (*): an experimental flamethrower which uses HV napalm to generate a sustained stream of fire to damage its targets. Everything set on fire by the XOP will briefly burn even when it is no longer exposed to the weapon's fire.
- RAPTOR 16 mm Sniper rifle (*): this sniper rifle is the most accurate long range weapon in the game, firing 16 mm kevlar piercing bullets. It is equipped with a scope capable of 2x, 4x, and 8x zoom and a laser sight, albeit the latter seems to be mostly an aesthetic addition as it serves no purpose in game.
- XL2 Lasergun: a futuristic energy weapon, the XL2 uses X7 power cells as ammo. It features four barrels firing green laser beams in quick succession, giving the weapon a quck fire rate, capable of causing large damage to the enemies.
- SBC Cannon: the second most powerful weapon in the series, the SBC Cannon comic design (developed by human engineers after captured examples of Mental's artillery) hides its deadly power. Launching devastating rounds of depleted uranium-filled cannonballs, properly aimed and fired the SBC Cannon allows to shoot through multiple lesser enemies, albeit its primary use was meant to be against the largest bosses. The cannonballs that do not explode on impact will detonate after a brief amout of time, applying more damage to the surrounding enemies.
- Serious Bomb (*): the Serious Bomb is the most powerful weapon in The Second Encounter. Shaped as a bomb with the grinning Serious Sam icon, it annihilates every living thing within a radius of 700ft except its user, who is safely protected by a "Life-Preserving-Quantium-Field(TM)". Not only are Serious bombs rarely encountered across the game, also, due to its considerable size, Serious Sam is never able to carry more than 3 at a time.
Levels
The First Encounter
- Hatshepsut
- Sand Canyon
- Tomb of Ramses
- Valley of the Kings
- Moon Mountains (secret level)
- Oasis
- Dunes
- Suburbs
- Sewers
- Metropolis
- Alley of the Sphinxes
- Karnak
- Luxor
- Sacred Yards (secret level)
- The Great Pyramid
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The Second Encounter
- Sierra de Chiapas
- Valley of the Jaguar
- The City of the Gods
- Serpent Yards
- The Pit
- Ziggurat
- The Elephant Atrium
- Courtyards of Gilgamesh
- Tower of Babel
- The Citadel
- Land of the Damned
- The Grand Cathedral
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Trivia
- The game features several heavy metal music tracks by the Croatian metal band UnderCode.
External links
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