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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 Sams 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 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.
Story At the dawn of the 21st Century, mankind made a startling discovery. Beneath the sands of the earliest known human civilization were traces of another, even more ancient but technologically advanced. The profound scientific implications of this discovery lead humankind to the far reaches of the universe. Everything seemed perfect — but perfection has to have a price. In the year 2104, human civilization was attacked by countless deadly creatures, spawned from another dimension. In the battles that followed, humankind fought valiantly, but nothing could stop the creatures. Earth’s forces were steadily defeated, planet-by-planet, from Alpha Centauri back to their own solar system. Because of his extreme bravery in battling monsters, Sam 'Serious' Stone became a legend. Wounded countless times — but never defeated — Serious Sam is a living symbol of the Earth's resistance against the advancing evil. But, no matter how bravely the human armies fought, they were defeated, time and time again. Attempts to defend the solar system failed and the Earth is now under direct attack. Humankind stares into the face of its own annihilation. World leaders must now turn to their last chance — an ancient artifact called the 'Time-Lock', a relic from a long-forgotten race, imbued with the power to teleport a single person back in time. The choice of whom to send is obvious... Game Design 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 Dooms 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 do the levels abound with enemies, but there is also a large variety of enemies that the player can face at one time, all with their different attacking styles. Fortunately, ammo is plentiful in the game, so the player can concentrate more on dodging and killing enemies instead of worrying about running dry. 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, and at the same time providing 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 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, similar to Doom and Doom II. 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 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 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 ( Levels Trivia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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