Serious
Sam took the action gaming world by surprise. It was developed by an
unknown group from Croatia of all places, and appeared quietly on the market as
a budget-priced title. However, its great graphics and furious action
quickly pushed it to the top of a lot of people's play lists. Now Croteam
brings us another Serious Sam game - one that comes in with a higher level of
anticipation. Does it live up to these high expectations? In a word,
yes.
Serious Sam : The Second Encounter picks up right where the first game left
off, with Sam aboard a spacecraft he hijacked in Ancient Egypt.
Unfortunately, he does not quite find himself on the way to the planet Mental
after the ship crash lands in South America during the height of the Mayan
civilization. The story is absurd and shallow, but that's OK. Its
main purpose is to give the pretext of an excuse to move Sam from one
imaginative and action-packed level to the next. You'll be having so much
fun blasting bizarre creatures that you won't even care about the story.
The Second Encounter also adds new enemies and weapons to the game.
Three new weapons are added to supplement the eleven appearing in the first
game. The first is a chainsaw, which is good for close in fighting and is
more entertaining than effective. Next is a flamethrower which Sam can use
to barbeque his enemies. This weapon produces great visual effects along
with its carnage. Flames will run along walls and set fire to objects as
well as enemies, and enemies which have caught on fire will continue to take
damage as they roast in their own juices. The last new weapon is a sniper
rifle, complete with a telescopic site. Needless to say, this weapon is
great for taking out enemies at a distance, sometimes before they even notice
that Sam is nearby. The variety of weapons provided - from miniguns to
rocket launchers and shotguns to grenade launchers - gives the player a lot of
options when confronting enemies and adds a tactical element that requires the
player to choose the right tool for the job. Each weapon has it's own
sound, firing characteristics, and feel, and each requires a different approach
to battle. There are also some new power-ups available, including the
serious bomb. This powerful item will destroy all of the enemies around
Sam without causing any damage to him, and comes in handy when things get very
hectic.
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter throws a dizzying array of interesting,
bizarre, and wildly imaginative monsters at the player. In addition to the
20+ monsters from the first game, there are seven all new enemies, including
Cucurbito the Pumpkin, a huge chainsaw-wielding, jack-o-lantern headed
maniac. The different enemies each have their own attack style - from
kamikaze creatures that run into the player and explode to rocket-firing monstrosities
that like to keep back and pound Sam from afar. The game will send waves
of enemies at Sam in different combinations, forcing the player to constantly
adjust his/her tactics to confront the different variations of combined
attacks. Not all attacks are massed, though, sometimes the player will
find Sam under fire from a distant foe or a hidden enemy sniping at him from
under cover.
On the game's default difficulty level, the game is quite challenging.
Some battles can last for quite a bit of adrenaline-pumping time, and casual FPS
players can easily feel overwhelmed. Luckily, the game comes with two
easier settings (and two harder ones for the truly insane), that will still
prove challenging, but will give players a better chance to complete the game.
The levels in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter are all massive, beautifully
rendered, and very imaginative. The game takes the player to ancient Mayan
cities, Babylon, and Medieval Europe, with indoor and outdoor environments in
each area. Sometimes Sam has an incredible amount of room to
maneuver, and at other times he is packed into tight corridors laden with
traps. The levels are packed with secret areas and power-ups, and it is
fun trying to find them all.
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