Serious Sam is the title of a series of first-person shooters created by the Croatian company Croteam . So far the following computer games have been released:
- 2001 Serious Sam: The First Encounter
- 2002 Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
The games follow the adventures of hero "Serious" Sam Stone and his fight against the forces of the alien overlord Mental. The games are the first two parts of a trilogy. While they are at least as gory as other FPS games the tone is lightened through humor — in the form of one-liners by the eponymous hero and a series of implausible weapons and enemies (including Santa Claus in the second game) — and an enjoyable rock music track.
The story
In ancient times, Earth was involved in a conflict between Mental and the Sirians. In the 22nd century Mental's forces return to Earth, and in desperation Sam Stone is sent back to ancient Egypt through the Time Lock in an attempt to defeat Mental and alter the course of history.
In The First Encounter Sam's task is to battle his way through the cities of ancient Egypt and locate a transmitter that will call a spaceship to take him to Mental for a final showdown.
At the start of The Second Encounter Sam's spaceship collides with the Croteam Cratebus shortly after takeoff and crash-lands in South America. Sam must do battle again, this time through ancient Mayan cities, ancient Babylon and medievel Eastern Europe, in his quest to bring Mental down.
Enemies
Marsh hopper is the weakest enemy in the game. However, they are deadly in swarms.
One of the most uncommon enemy in the game, especially in Second Encounter (Tower of Babel level is an expection). They will fire weak missle like projectile and are very easy to kill.
They is even less common, than beheaded rocketeer. They will sweep the small arena in front of then with 5 'crawling' projctiles and they are easy to kill, too.
- Beheaded bomber
- Beheaded kamikaze
- Zorg mercenary *
- Zorg commander *
- Male gnaar
- Female gnaar
- Reeban electrofish
- Scythian witch-harpy
- Static cannon*
- Rotating cannon*
- Kleer sksletion
- Cucurbito the pumpkin *
- Sirian werebull
- Young arachnoid
- Adult arachnoid
- Zumb'ul *
- Fiendian reptiloid - demon *
- Minor biomechanoid
- Major biomechanoid
- Aludrian reptiloid -common
- Aludrian reptiloid -highlander
- Aludrian reptiloid -highlander's bride*
- Lava golem -small
- Lava golem-large
- Lava golem -huge
- Kukulkan -the wind god.*
- Exotech larva *
- Mordekai-the summoner *
- Ugh Zan III
Trivia
Both games are based on the "Serious Engine " and it seems that the first game was originally developed as a demonstrator for the engine. The games are interesting for several reasons:
- The graphics are of very high quality for the year 2001 standards; the use of color and lighting is atypical of the genre and many of the game areas are truly breathtaking.
- The game engine is very efficient, capable of maintaining dozens of moving enemies even on a modest system — something that would challenge the Unreal or Half-Life engines.
- Even at the original release the game was priced at less than half that of other games in the genre.
- There is a large amount of replay value, brought about by the extraordinary amount of secrets, and the multiplayer modes, which includes a co-operative mode, something not commonly seen in modern first-person shooters.
Sequel
Serious Sam 2 is currently in development using a brand new iteration of the Serious Engine known as "Serious Engine 2." featuring many state-of-the-art features. The last media from the new engine was released at the 2004 Game Developers Conference (GDC). Both in-game videos and screenshots were released in the time surrounding the GDC. Since then the only additional official information released has been in the form of development reports on the Engine released via Croteam's official website.
More information is expected to be released 'soon', and there are currently unconfirmed reports that Serious Sam 2 will be appearing at the 2005 Eł trade event.
Console versions
External links
