The Serious Sam franchise has been alive and well on the PC and previous generation consoles for the past decade, but has never ventured over to the current generation of consoles until now. Last summer, when Croteam announced that Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter would be coming to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in addition to the PC, fans of first person shooters rejoiced. Many assumed at first that it would be a retail release, but Croteam announced that it would be a $15 title on Xbox Live Arcade.
Features
While the features list isn’t phenomenal, it’s more than enough for the price that this title will cost you. The main chunk of the game is the story, which is of reasonable length for a $15 Xbox Live Arcade title. There is also 4 player Co-Op over Xbox Live, which is great, but the PC version features 16 player Co-Op, which would’ve been amazing.
There will be dedicated servers added, as well as a Deathmatch mode added in coming months (reportedly), but as of now, the patch hasn’t been released, so comment cannot be made about that.
Presentation
The graphics are possibly the best ever seen on Xbox Live Arcade. The textures have all been redone from the PC version and look fantastic. The amount of enemies on the screen at one time can become ridiculous, and this game handles it all in stride. There is rarely, if ever, any slowdown or framerate issues, which is astounding for how much is really going on at any given time. The game also features pretty decent humor. The dialog can be intentionally campy, which is perfect for the gameplay itself. Think a lot less wise-cracking version of Duke Nukem.
Gameplay
Gameplay has been a strong suit for the Serious Sam series and that tradition is carried on through Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. It is a pretty standard, yet very solid, first person shooter. The concept is to blast your way through various levels using many different weapons.
The concept may seem simple enough, but the game can be insanely difficult. As mentioned in the above section, the sheer number of enemies on screen at any given time can be ridiculous. Not only is there strength in numbers, there is strength in diversity. At the same time, you could be facing a long-range enemy, a charging enemy, several machine gun enemies and many suicide bomber enemies all at the same time. One thing that is very noticeable for these enemies is that they really have no sense of self-preservation. These enemies have the ultimate mob-mentality, in that if they send 50 enemies at you all at once (which they do), they don’t care if 49 of them perish as long as one of those enemies inflicts damage. The gameplay really elevates this game up to the top of the XBLA ranks.
The Verdict
If you are looking for a mindless, yet incredibly enjoyable first person shooter, you cannot go wrong with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. For $15, you get a great story mode, enjoyable Co-Op and promise of a big patch in the future. The game will be followed up with Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, which is rumored to be coming out on PC and XBLA early this year.
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