Thursday, January 28, 2010

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter




If you're tired of all the sophistication and nuance in modern first-person shooters, you may want to take a trip back to simpler times with Serious Sam HD. There is no cover system, no elaborate story, and no characters to care about. What it does have is testosterone to spare and plenty of cheesy action movie one-liners delivered by our meathead hero, Sam. All you do is run around blowing the crap out of everything in sight, an activity that remains entertaining some 15 years after we first blasted our way through Doom's corridors. The whole thing has a very low budget B-movie feel to it and, despite the title, it definitely doesn't take itself too seriously.

Monsters from another dimension are here to kill us all, and Sam 'Serious' Stone is the one-man wrecking crew who will save us. You'll guide Sam through mostly linear levels set in ancient Egypt, stopping to solve only the most simple of puzzles along the way. In the spirit of Wolfenstein 3D, though, there are plenty of secrets to find.

As the focus is on shooting stuff, there are several fun weapons you'll find lying around. In addition to your standard shotguns and machine guns you'll find a Predator-style portable mini-gun, an effective laser blaster, and a cannon that shoots giant cannonballs that instantly take down just about anything. Regardless of your weapon of choice, fallen enemies explode in a very satisfying splatter of meat and gore.

Enemies swarm at you from every direction almost constantly, but there are only a handful of bad guy types so you're basically being attacked by never-ending waves of clones. This is one of those games that locks you in a room and keeps respawning enemies for way too long -- a mechanic I've always felt was lazy on the developer's part. Serious Sam is pretty challenging, but too often it's because of these cheap gimmicks.

Aside from the shiny new high-definition graphics the only other new component to Serious Sam is the four-player co-op mode. It can be fun to blast through the game with three friends but the framerate drops pretty seriously. Other than that, there are no new levels, enemies, or weapons to be found. In fact, the 16-player Deathmatch mode from the PC version has been removed here, which is a disappointing move considering the excellent Battlefield 1943 has been hosting 24-player online XBLA battles for over six months now.

With so little in the way of new content, players who already blasted their way through the adventure eight years ago might not find enough here to bring them back for another go round. But if you're a shooter fan who missed Serious Sam the first time, now's your chance to see why it's a cult favorite.

This XBLA version includes a very handy auto-aiming option that makes it much easier to hit your target. Some gamers might find it a little too easy, actually, but I appreciate it.

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