![]() Puzzles, such as they are, require only the push of a button, or the location of plot widget A and its insertion into plot receptacle B. Gameplay is good: it's challenging and the big fights are desperately manic, but that's essentially it. Level design is mostly a series of arenas where the game can vomit forth armies of villains in various combinations. The first lava golem and the final villain have to be seen to be believed.Īnd that's what Serious Sam is all about. The game can also deal with Bad Guys of Immeasurable Size. When witch-harpies appear in such numbers as to block out the sun or wereboars race across the screen in a stampede it's a truly impressive sight. You'll need a tank of a machine to get a high pixel count, but even without it, the game looks good. Even on a lower end PC it can fill an area up with about fifty or so monsters with no discernible drop in frame-rate, and that's pretty impressive. Honestly, you'll think it's raining the bloody things, as the computer throws wave after wave at you until you're totally swamped and they keep on coming. In Serious Sam the basic unit of bad guy is the mob, or possibly the barrelful. In some games, the basic unit of enemy is the lone critter, in some it is the squad. Secondly, the rendering of unfeasible numbers of monsters. These are massive, featuring enormous architecture and impressive skylines. Firstly, the depiction of huge outdoor environments for you to wander through. The Serious Engine, though, excels at two things. You've got your obelisks, your pyramids and your really big statues, but it's largely familiar scenery, and lacking the huge array of funereal furnishings seen in Tomb Raider 4 (also set entirely in Egypt). What follows is a romp through a deserted ancient Egypt. ![]() Maybe it's funnier in Croatian, but loses something in translation. Unfortunately, the plot doesn't show enough signs of being aware how corny it is, and never really plays itself for laughs. Obviously, Serious Sam is not intended to be a serious game. You might need a couple of minutes to recover from the originality of it all, but I have to press on. And so it falls to earth's last hope, war hero Sam 'Serious' Stone, to use the Timelock device to travel back in time and save the world! But - oh no! - at the start of the 22nd century a terrifying evil that gets its yuks by destroying entire civilisations appears and humankind is driven back to earth and poised, on the very brink no less, of destruction (no, I haven't slipped into a film review of the Fifth Element, I'm still talking about Serious Sam). In brief, the remains of a technologically advanced civilisation pre-dating the Pharoahs is discovered, which allows humanity to take to space and colonise different planets. ![]() Bravely, rather than modifying an existing game engine, they've chosen to create their own, specifically suited to the gameplay they're looking for.Īppropriately, the plot is the thinnest, flimsiest fabrication possible to allow its diverse elements (big guns, ancient Egypt, headless zombies with unlimited ammunition, green monsters that shoot fireballs, and spaceships) to appear in the same game. Serious Sam is a game by small Croatian design team Croteam, intent on recapturing those simpler times. Intricate plot, multiplayer-specific design and Hollywood-esque set pieces have replaced the simple pleasure of splattering a monster over the textured walls just because it's there. From these humble beginnings FPS has evolved into cinematic experiences like Halflife or immersive, total-freedom games like Deus Ex and System Shock 2. Doom was the catalyst that sparked the 3D revolution, and its simple gameplay - chaingunning your way through room after room of demons - kept people stuck to the screen for months. Yet these giants stand on the shoulders of an ever-so-slightly-popular 1993 shareware release called Doom. They win Best of the Year awards ( Half-Life, Deus Ex), they dominate online gaming ( Counterstrike, Quake III, Unreal Tournament) and they even have professional leagues, so a lucky few can make a living playing them. Let's face it, first-person shooters bestride the PC gaming industry like 3D-accelerated colossi.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |