Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter Review: It’s ****ing Serious!

Serious Sam is all about mindless running and gunning, which is why it’s such a brilliantly simple, brilliantly stupid and – consequently – brilliantly awesome game. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is a complete overhaul of the original with improved textures and character models and 16-player co-op (4-player on the Xbox 360). Considering the greatness of the original, it can go without saying that Serious Sam HD raises the bar and then some.

Ironically, Serious Sam is not a serious shooter, and the formula of the game is quite simple. Frankly, I couldn’t put it any better than Destructoid’s Jim Sterling did: “There are big guns. There are big monsters. The big monsters need to be shot with the big guns.” That’s it. There’s really nothing else to the game, and in a genre as saturated as the first-person shooter, Serious Sam is a refreshing – if not surprising – breath of fresh air.

Visually, Serious Sam HD looks great. Sure, it’s not as pretty as some games, but nonetheless the game’s new engine does a good job. The game runs smoothly and monsters look phenomenal.

The game style is very reminiscent of classic 90’s shooters such as Quake and Doom in that, apart from the constant unleashing of bullets, rockets, and other things that go boom, there are weapon, shield, and health pickups strewn arbitrarily around the levels. Controls are very simple. This button fires your gun, and these ones are to move. Okay, so it might not be quite that simple, but damn near.

It could be conceived that, given the game’s simplicity, it’s really easy. This is a big misunderstanding. Serious Sam is tough, and depending on the difficulty you play it through on, you’re going to die. A lot. You’ll be plenty busy avoiding barrages of rockets, hordes of headless men wielding bombs, and scorpion people. It’s intense and did I say tough?

Luckily, you’re not alone. You can be joined by up to 15 other players (again, 3 for you Xbox 360 gamers) to fight the monsters cooperatively, and let me say, this is how the game’s meant to be played. If the game wasn’t chaotic enough by yourself, it’s an absolute riot with 16 guns blazing.

Another highlight of Serious Sam is its slapstick humor. The game is ridden with hilarious one-liners and taunts, yet another contradictory to the game's title.

Of course, being a critic, it’s my duty to also point out the game’s flaws. Avid FPS gamers might tire of the game’s repetitive campaign since it consists of the same thing throughout the entire game. That being said, it’s a great game for jumping into for a bit when you’re in the mindless gunslinging meathead kind of mood, a mood I know you’re probably in all too frequently. It certainly would have been nice if a versus or deathmatch game mode was introduced, but for a $20 price tag, co-op is definitely sufficient.

Serious Sam HD has 12 achievements to unlock, and to be honest, I was a little disappointed with the achievements. Coming from a studio like Croteam, I was hoping to see some creative ones, but they’re pretty generic – complete any level in single player, complete the game, complete any level in co-op, etc. Not something huge to gripe about, but still an issue I had with the game.

The Lowdown