Serious Sam: The First Encounter
Description official descriptions
When aliens ruled by the evil Mental attack Earth, it is up to Sam "Serious" Stone, one of the toughest guys on Earth, to time-travel back to Ancient Egypt in order to change history by defeating Mental back in the ancient times. The First Encounter tells about the first part of Sam's voyage through Egypt.
Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a high-adrenaline first-person shooter heavily focused on frantic arcade-style single player action. The game goes "back to roots" of the first-person shooter genre; it does not feature intricate story, character interaction or the need for careful tactics which were becoming common in the FPS's of its time, instead concentrating on epic battles where the player, armed with powerful weaponry, takes on tens or even hundreds of enemies at once.
Sam travels through deserts, Egyptian temples, palaces and cities, killing countless enemies and occasionally stopping to solve a more or less easy puzzle. There are many weapons to be found; they are all classic FPP armaments - shotguns, chainguns, rocket launchers etc., up to the most powerful weapon: a cannon which shoots devastating cannonballs. There are also many pick-ups, of course, containing ammo, health and armor.
The enemies come in many varieties - headless suicide bombers, giant bio-mechanical creatures that shoot missiles, scorpions with chainguns, bulls that charge at Sam, etc. There are also a couple of powerful bosses.
Sam has a mini-computer which contains basic info about the levels he's travelling through, weapons he collects and enemies he kills.
Spellings
- Serious Sam: המפגש הראשון - Hebrew spelling
- Крутой Сэм: Первая Кровь - Russian spelling
- シリアスサム ファーストエンカウンター - Japanese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 83% (based on 43 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 97 ratings with 9 reviews)
The Good
Although often compared to 'Doom', Serious Sam is nothing like it; instead, it's essentially a modern update of 'Robotron 2084' and 'Smash TV', two classic arcade games in which the player fought against overwhelming odds in a series of square arenas. Sam also bears comparison with the cult Doom contemporary 'Rise of the Triad', in that it takes place mostly outdoors, in expansive locations. It shares Triad's surreal sense of humour - the oft-mentioned screaming headless kamikazes in particular - and underdog status, coded as it was by an small, enthusiastic company from Croatia. A low price and no requirement for a 50mb patch set it apart from the FPS mainstream at the time, and the lack of mainstream coverage - it was eventually championed by the website 'Old Man Murray' and nobody else - gave it an in-built cult appeal.
If you approach it as a modern Doom heir you'll be horribly disappointed, as I was at first, but more of that later. Once you accept that it's outdoors 'Gauntlet' in 3D, it becomes easier to bear; the action does not stop, there are some cute secrets (including the programmers themselves), and the music is atmospheric and catchy. On a visceral level, the sheer volume of baddies, of firepower, and the breathtaking size of the environments is unique and compelling, and the sky is beautiful. Really, the sky is beautiful, it truly is. The wispy clouds sit in the pristine blue air, with only the beating sun for company. For a game that has no pretensions at all, the evocation of ancient Egypt is superbly atmospheric, and makes one wish that Sam had been a complex graphic adventure rather than a shoot-em-up (as it stands, the game exists to showcase its custom-built engine, created at a time when everybody and his dog was licensing engines for their own projects).
The Bad
Serious Sam takes place in a serious of large, barren arenas, which are empty until the monsters warp in; although you can see for miles, there's nothing over there to see. It is entirely linear, in that there is a single path for the player to take; furthermore, the monsters appear in a set sequence, and indeed the manual even encourages you to quicksave and quickload often, so as to learn the pattern. To the extent that almost all first-person shooters play like this, it is forgivable; but
The monsters have almost no AI, and don't fight each other, whilst there are no exploding barrels or crushing ceilings to assist you. Indeed there are almost no 'clever bits', the gameplay is simply a test of the player's reactions. By a third of the way through the game you have seen everything it has - enormous quadrangles in which meanies appear in a set sequence. Too many of the weapons require one-and-a-tiny-bit shots to kill the most common villains, which is frustrating. The game does not take account of the player's location when warping in monsters, and they often appear just behind you. Most of the monsters go faster than you, and one class explodes if they get too close, whilst the player's ponderous gait makes getting about tedious. Quite often the projectile-firing monsters cannot be dodged without taking some damage, no matter how fast you are.
The gameplay involves running backwards and to one side, until a monster gets behind you, at which point you reverse direction. Mobygame's 'Tips and Tricks' section parodies this, but it is true; there is usually no cover to hide behind, and the monsters run faster than you. Parts of the game are thus excruciatingly frustrating, as no matter how skilful you are, you will die often without first having learned the sequencing of each arena.
The monsters are mostly anonymous, only one of them fitting the Egyptian location. Some of them are intensely irritating; the flying women who go faster than you and can't be outrun or dodged, the running skeletons which form the game's staple villain, but which are annoyingly resilient, chopping off a quarter of your health with each strike, notwithstanding that there are usually hundreds of them, and they jump behind you and you die. Argh. The large arenas and volume of enemy tend to make sidestepping away from incoming projectiles an exercise in guesswork rather than judgement.
The Serious Sam character himself is clearly modelled on Duke Nukem (and the little man from the 'Metal Slug' games), who was in turn constructed out of one-liners sampled from action/horror films. Sam's utterances are however infrequent and functional, beyond the phrase 'Sam I am!'.
The Bottom Line
The size and detailed textures are achieved at the expensive of environmental detail, though. The sequel, 'The Second Encounter', is the better game, and given that the two are now available in a budget-priced 'Gold' edition there's no pressing reason not to own both. Despite the criticism below, Sam is nonetheless fun in short bursts, albeit trivial, with no replay value. I have no idea how it is like in multiplayer, bearing in mind that there is no cover to hide behind and that the first player to get hold of the Tommy Gun would win.
The final battle, and the section leading up to the final battle, is quite strikingly huge.
Windows · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2004
The Good
Well, first off, there is LUDICROUS amount of action. You'll know what I'm talking about when you're standing in a field with enemies faster and more powerful than you are coming towards you from all sides. Yeehaw! Secondly, I enjoyed the refreshing Doom-like feel of the game. Even if a situation looks impossible, you will find a way out of it. Finally, the game is full of humor and secrets. Speaking of secrets, they're the best damn secrets in any game. They COMPLETELY step away from the game, and ANYTHING can happen in a secret area. Oh, yeah, and the graphics engine is absolutely gorgeous! Do yourself a favor and walk up to a wall. IT JUST DOESN'T PIXELATE!! NOT ONE BIT!!
The Bad
Parts of the game, especially towards the end, are EXTREMELY difficult. Some areas limit you on health and ammo for a while. Finally, you get annoyed when, for the 45th time in a level, you walk into a wide-open area with some really powerful item in the middle. Before you know it, the world around you is exploding, scratching, and, er, laser-ing. In my opinion, once per level is enough! UGH!
The Bottom Line
A serious FPS with a soaring fun factor!
Windows · by Archagon (108) · 2002
The best FPS you'll play for a long time
The Good
EVERYTHING. Serious Sam is a game with nothing but action. The plot is almost non-existant, the puzzles suit 3-years-old, and the blood is flowing like a river all over the place. The only thing you'll do in Serious Sam is blow things up, with a variety of deadly weapons.
The game already has a powerful fan base around it, ever since its original demo was released. New maps and mods are created daily, and the top sites (whose links you'll find on the Related Sites section) are filled with tutorials which allow even the scrubbiest player to create cool additional features for the game.
As an added bonus, Serious Sam wasn't created by a well-known company, therefore it's published as a "budget" game- ie, it only costs 20$!! That's nothing compared to the newest 50$ monstrosities (like Tribes 2, another modern FPS)
The Bad
Nothing. This game is meant for the sole purpose of having fun and watching the gore fly over the monitor, and it fits this purpose well.
The Bottom Line
Who needs plot? Who needs thinking? Serious Sam is the 21st century reincarnation of Doom, with amazing graphics, powerful engine and great sound and SFX. If you call yourself a fan of FPS, or of gaming in general, go and buy it- NOW.
Windows · by El-ad Amir (116) · 2001
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
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Croteam | vedder (69745) | Oct 29th, 2018 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Serious Sam appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Demo
Some of the most famous Serious Sam players (who even appear in the game's credits) got the complete game only several months after its release, and constantly played the same demo level while others had the full version.
Development
The first Serious Sam demo was a technology demo for the Serious Engine by Croteam, not a demo for a game in particular. The folks at the Old Man Murray website praised the game so much that eventually the guys at the Gathering of Developers got wind of it and sponsored a complete, full game based around the demo.
Music
The final level music (before the boss) is a strange heavy metal remix of the famous Phantom of the Opera opening theme.
References
Sam's red sneakers may be a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog - the speed power-up that pictures them with wings all but cinches it.
Technology
Serious Sam was the first game to implement ATI's TrueForm graphics technology.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- April 2002 (Issue #213) – Best Enemies of the Year (for the headless soldiers)
- GameSpy
- 2001 – Best Value Priced Game of the Year
- 2001 – Best End Boss of the Year
Information also contributed by El-ad Amir, NeoMoose, Ola Sverre Bauge and Tomer Gabel
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Related Sites +
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Seriously Warped!
Home of the highly acclaimed Warped Deathmatch MOD for Serious Sam. The team is also creating the multiplayer modes for Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. -
Seriously!
A well-populated forum and excellent tutorials regarding writing maps, mods and scripts to Serious Sam.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Cromaa.
Additional contributors: Ray Soderlund, El-ad Amir, Unicorn Lynx, NeoMoose, tarmo888, tbuteler, Foxhack, lights out party, COBRA-COBRETTI, Crawly, Stratege, vicrabb, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.
Game added April 3rd, 2001. Last modified January 19th, 2024.