Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter
Seriously insane fun
Posted October 19, 2010
Back in the day, I was a big fan of games like Doom, as it's just huge fun to blow away waves of bad guys in maze-like environments with a varied range of weaponry. But as first-person shooters evolved into the Halo era and military realism took over, my interest in the genre waned. The manic shoot-em-all games made a small comeback though with the XBOX 360 Live Arcade update of the Serious Sam franchise, with HD versions of The First Encounter and now The Second Encounter.
Do you like to shoot things? Then you'll enjoy Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. Sure, there's a story, something about a spaceship crash landing and ancient lands, and you've got some minor puzzle-solving and platforming action, but most of the time, you're going to be shooting things and shooting some more things, then maybe attacking some things with a knife, before finally shooting a whole lot more stuff. It's pretty simple, but it's also pretty fun. As you progress through three different worlds, traversing large open areas and moving through scary enclosed spaces, you're going to meet a wide variety of evil monsters, including headless human bombs, flying harpies, huge plasma beasts and chainsaw-wielding musclemen with jack-o-lantern heads, and you need to kill them all. If just naming a select four of the game's villains don't make it clear, this game is a bit unusual, and has a weird sense of humor. It's all a bit off-kilter, which makes what could have possibly been a repetitive run-and-gun game into something entirely entertaining.
I'm a big fan of Left 4 Dead, and find it to be a rather scary experience. But I never reacted to it the way I react to Serious Sam. At one point, I was fighting off tons of baddies who were leaping at me, running at me, screaming at me and generally terrorizing me, and when things calmed down, I realized I had rolled my chair halfway across the room, in an effort to get away from my attackers. It's the continual onslaught and the different ways your attack that don't let you react. It'd be one thing if you were avoiding bullets and grunts from one direction, but you've got assaults coming from all sides, and bad guys appearing out of nowhere, sometimes from right in front or behind you. It's a seriously nerve-wracking experience, but at the same time, it's hugely exciting.
Part of why you can deal with these attacks is the range of weapons you have at your disposal, which grows as your progress through the game, to include massive guns, grenade launchers and, the ultimate weapon, the Serious Bomb, which kills everything around you. If you played the previous game in the series, this edition adds a trio of new weapons to your arsenal, including a powerful chainsaw for face-to-face kills, a flamethrower that lets you damage enemies over time and space, and a sniper rifle that enhances your strategy, letting you pick off opponents from a distance. They could have simply allowed you to blast away with things like your rockets or grenades, but the fact that they are quite deadly to you when they go off in a close vicinity makes you choose your weapons carefully. That you have to think about what you're doing while facing down the hordes adds another level of challenge to an already difficult game (a factor you can thankfully adjust via the difficulty settings.)
While it's literally and figuratively a blast to play Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, the length of the game can start to wear on you a bit, even with only three levels to the game. Just when you think you've finished off a level, after mowing down enemy after enemy, and battling massive bosses, it just keeps going. You may find yourself utilizing the game's quick-save system (which lets you save at any point in the game, thankfully) to take a break, step outside, or maybe get into an online game (see Online Play.) That doesn't mean you won't come back for more, but it's hard to get into real marathon play with such exhausting combat. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much of a good thing?
Though the 16-player co-op heaven available on the PC version doesn't make it to XBLA, the online offerings for this title are many, starting off with the ever-popular co-op mode. If the regular single-player chaos isn't enough, playing a campaign with online pals against an immense army of evil will get your heart pumping, with a nice twist available via the Coin-Op Co-op mode, which gives you a limited number of lives to lose, making the campaign into a true arcade experience. If you don't get along well with others, you can try to beat them in the game's many versus modes, including Deathmatches, Capture the Flag, Last Man Standing, Instant Kill (a fun sniper battle), My Burden (where your time of possession decides the winner) and Beast Hunt (where different enemies are worth different point values, with Deathmatches, Last Man Standing and Beast Hunt available in solo or team versions. Though there are plenty of online options, the opponents are lacking, and frequently I was unable to get a game going, and never had a full roster of players. When I could play though, it was a great experience, with Capture the Flag being a personal favorite.
The only thing I can complain about with the controls worked itself out after a few plays, and that's having the save button being the Y button. At first, I frequently hit it by accident, saving when I didn't mean to. But, that stopped after a while, and the controls became the positive experience I now know this game for. There's a ton of options available for calibrating your weapons, including auto-aiming and custom mapping, but even on default, it's easy to pick up and go, using the right trigger to shoot and the shoulders to rotate through your arsenal. Beyond that, there's not much, as you can jump and access your in-game guide, but this game is all about shooting, and the controls make that easy, never feeling too loose. You've really got to be able to move and groove, and the response on the controls are just right.
Yes. You can seriously achieve 12 achievements here, worth a grand total of 200 points. They're a mix of mode completion and challenges, like simply defeating a level or reaching a kill count of 100,001. The achievements do require you to play all the modes, so it's a nice excuse to explore everything the game offers.
For this XBLA release, the game was moved to Serious Engine 3, and the results are beautiful, as there's just tons of detail everywhere, especially on the bad guys and in the projectiles that fly everywhere. There's not an element to the game that hasn't received either a polish or complete re-do, which really shows in the external areas, as the vast expanses look terrific, while the heads-up display is much improved and more in line with modern style. Even the neat gore options, which replace the game's massive blood and guts with goop, rainbow stars or flowers and vegetable, got an upgrade. The level of detail is especially impressive on your enemies, like how the skeletons galloping and leaping at you is just terrifying. There's so much going on during battles that some slowdown could be expected, but the game just motors along like a runaway train full of chaos. Only once, during a massive open-air clash with about a hundred foes, guns a-blazing, did I ever see anything close to a stutter.
Though the sound hasn't received the enhancements the visuals have, it was excellent to begin with, using a lot of directionality to help you identify where enemies were coming from, which is a big deal, since you frequently hear them before you see them, be it the hair-raising scream of a headless bomber (umm...how do you scream without a mouth?) or the thundering hoofs of a charging bull. There's so much going on, but the sound effects are so well designed, you know what's happening just from what you're hearing. The music, which fits each scene perfectly, is equally impressive, helping raise the intensity and epic feel of the battles. The final fight would be nowhere near as exhilarating without the classic soundtrack provided. Then, of course, there's the gritty voice of Sam, which is an integral part of the game, setting the silly, over-the-top tone every time he opens his mouth.
I've never played a game like Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, and I likely never will, at least until Serious Sam 3 arrives. It's probably the most challenging shooter you can play in terms of pure difficulty, as you are constantly assaulted from all sides by a multitude of enemies, over three lengthy levels. But thanks to the creativity and sense of humor evident throughout, as well as its technical excellence, you'll have a great time facing that challenge, and you're unlikely to grow bored over time due to a variety of gameplay modes (even if you may get wiped out in any given session.) Fans of the Serious Sam series really need to give this version a play, as it's practically an all-new experience, while still being the game you loved, and if you've never played Serious Sam, and enjoy an FPS shooter or two, you must check this one out.
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum
Gameplay
Do you like to shoot things? Then you'll enjoy Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. Sure, there's a story, something about a spaceship crash landing and ancient lands, and you've got some minor puzzle-solving and platforming action, but most of the time, you're going to be shooting things and shooting some more things, then maybe attacking some things with a knife, before finally shooting a whole lot more stuff. It's pretty simple, but it's also pretty fun. As you progress through three different worlds, traversing large open areas and moving through scary enclosed spaces, you're going to meet a wide variety of evil monsters, including headless human bombs, flying harpies, huge plasma beasts and chainsaw-wielding musclemen with jack-o-lantern heads, and you need to kill them all. If just naming a select four of the game's villains don't make it clear, this game is a bit unusual, and has a weird sense of humor. It's all a bit off-kilter, which makes what could have possibly been a repetitive run-and-gun game into something entirely entertaining.
I'm a big fan of Left 4 Dead, and find it to be a rather scary experience. But I never reacted to it the way I react to Serious Sam. At one point, I was fighting off tons of baddies who were leaping at me, running at me, screaming at me and generally terrorizing me, and when things calmed down, I realized I had rolled my chair halfway across the room, in an effort to get away from my attackers. It's the continual onslaught and the different ways your attack that don't let you react. It'd be one thing if you were avoiding bullets and grunts from one direction, but you've got assaults coming from all sides, and bad guys appearing out of nowhere, sometimes from right in front or behind you. It's a seriously nerve-wracking experience, but at the same time, it's hugely exciting.
Part of why you can deal with these attacks is the range of weapons you have at your disposal, which grows as your progress through the game, to include massive guns, grenade launchers and, the ultimate weapon, the Serious Bomb, which kills everything around you. If you played the previous game in the series, this edition adds a trio of new weapons to your arsenal, including a powerful chainsaw for face-to-face kills, a flamethrower that lets you damage enemies over time and space, and a sniper rifle that enhances your strategy, letting you pick off opponents from a distance. They could have simply allowed you to blast away with things like your rockets or grenades, but the fact that they are quite deadly to you when they go off in a close vicinity makes you choose your weapons carefully. That you have to think about what you're doing while facing down the hordes adds another level of challenge to an already difficult game (a factor you can thankfully adjust via the difficulty settings.)
While it's literally and figuratively a blast to play Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, the length of the game can start to wear on you a bit, even with only three levels to the game. Just when you think you've finished off a level, after mowing down enemy after enemy, and battling massive bosses, it just keeps going. You may find yourself utilizing the game's quick-save system (which lets you save at any point in the game, thankfully) to take a break, step outside, or maybe get into an online game (see Online Play.) That doesn't mean you won't come back for more, but it's hard to get into real marathon play with such exhausting combat. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much of a good thing?
Online Play
Though the 16-player co-op heaven available on the PC version doesn't make it to XBLA, the online offerings for this title are many, starting off with the ever-popular co-op mode. If the regular single-player chaos isn't enough, playing a campaign with online pals against an immense army of evil will get your heart pumping, with a nice twist available via the Coin-Op Co-op mode, which gives you a limited number of lives to lose, making the campaign into a true arcade experience. If you don't get along well with others, you can try to beat them in the game's many versus modes, including Deathmatches, Capture the Flag, Last Man Standing, Instant Kill (a fun sniper battle), My Burden (where your time of possession decides the winner) and Beast Hunt (where different enemies are worth different point values, with Deathmatches, Last Man Standing and Beast Hunt available in solo or team versions. Though there are plenty of online options, the opponents are lacking, and frequently I was unable to get a game going, and never had a full roster of players. When I could play though, it was a great experience, with Capture the Flag being a personal favorite.
Controls
The only thing I can complain about with the controls worked itself out after a few plays, and that's having the save button being the Y button. At first, I frequently hit it by accident, saving when I didn't mean to. But, that stopped after a while, and the controls became the positive experience I now know this game for. There's a ton of options available for calibrating your weapons, including auto-aiming and custom mapping, but even on default, it's easy to pick up and go, using the right trigger to shoot and the shoulders to rotate through your arsenal. Beyond that, there's not much, as you can jump and access your in-game guide, but this game is all about shooting, and the controls make that easy, never feeling too loose. You've really got to be able to move and groove, and the response on the controls are just right.
Achievements
Yes. You can seriously achieve 12 achievements here, worth a grand total of 200 points. They're a mix of mode completion and challenges, like simply defeating a level or reaching a kill count of 100,001. The achievements do require you to play all the modes, so it's a nice excuse to explore everything the game offers.
Graphics
For this XBLA release, the game was moved to Serious Engine 3, and the results are beautiful, as there's just tons of detail everywhere, especially on the bad guys and in the projectiles that fly everywhere. There's not an element to the game that hasn't received either a polish or complete re-do, which really shows in the external areas, as the vast expanses look terrific, while the heads-up display is much improved and more in line with modern style. Even the neat gore options, which replace the game's massive blood and guts with goop, rainbow stars or flowers and vegetable, got an upgrade. The level of detail is especially impressive on your enemies, like how the skeletons galloping and leaping at you is just terrifying. There's so much going on during battles that some slowdown could be expected, but the game just motors along like a runaway train full of chaos. Only once, during a massive open-air clash with about a hundred foes, guns a-blazing, did I ever see anything close to a stutter.
Sound
Though the sound hasn't received the enhancements the visuals have, it was excellent to begin with, using a lot of directionality to help you identify where enemies were coming from, which is a big deal, since you frequently hear them before you see them, be it the hair-raising scream of a headless bomber (umm...how do you scream without a mouth?) or the thundering hoofs of a charging bull. There's so much going on, but the sound effects are so well designed, you know what's happening just from what you're hearing. The music, which fits each scene perfectly, is equally impressive, helping raise the intensity and epic feel of the battles. The final fight would be nowhere near as exhilarating without the classic soundtrack provided. Then, of course, there's the gritty voice of Sam, which is an integral part of the game, setting the silly, over-the-top tone every time he opens his mouth.
And in the End...
I've never played a game like Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, and I likely never will, at least until Serious Sam 3 arrives. It's probably the most challenging shooter you can play in terms of pure difficulty, as you are constantly assaulted from all sides by a multitude of enemies, over three lengthy levels. But thanks to the creativity and sense of humor evident throughout, as well as its technical excellence, you'll have a great time facing that challenge, and you're unlikely to grow bored over time due to a variety of gameplay modes (even if you may get wiped out in any given session.) Fans of the Serious Sam series really need to give this version a play, as it's practically an all-new experience, while still being the game you loved, and if you've never played Serious Sam, and enjoy an FPS shooter or two, you must check this one out.
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum