Serious Sam HD

Name: Serious Sam HD

Developed By: Croteam

Release Date: September 2009

Website: http://www.serioussam.com/

Reviewed: Jan. 13th, 2010

Premise

Going by the only campaign, it would seem like you (some variation of Serious Sam) and possibly your teammates, are in a post-apocalyptic world and for some reason chose to explore some Egyptian ruins.

Gameplay

If you like fast-paced mindless killing types of games such as OpenArena, Quake III, or Nexuiz, then you’ll really enjoy playing Serious Sam HD.

1) Weapons:

Like most FPS games, you are equipped with a fairly standard set of weapons: shotguns, pistols, grenade launchers, and a knife of some kind. However, Serious Sam HD bolsters your killing potential with some more interesting machinery.

The Missile Launcher

The Cannon

The Laser Gun

2) Monsters:

Todo.

3) Difficulty:

Todo.

Graphics

Compared to the original Serious Sam, the new “HD” models/textures are a BIG improvement.

The Old.

The New.

Sound

The sound quality of the game wasn’t that bad, but at the same time wasn’t too spectacular. When playing multiplayer with some friends, the lack of surround sound made it difficult to tell where my teammates without having eyes on them.

Replay Value

After completing the one and only campaign, I found myself feeling exhausted. The task of vanquishing seemingly endless hordes of monsters felt rather repetitive after the first couple of encounters. Furthermore, the maps were insanely long — something like 20+ mins — and, the puzzles were extremely tedious. In basically all of the levels you: search for a door, enter said door, are attacked by monsters, find a locked door, are attacked by more monsters, find a button, press the button, kill some more enemies, and finally move on to the next room. Rinse and repeat several times for each level.

That being said, I do see myself re-playing some of the maps from time to time with friends. The idea of you and your comrades facing a possibly infinite onslaught is very appealing.