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Serious Sam: The Second Encounter

Score: 95%
ESRB: Mature
Publisher: Take Two Interactive
Developer: Croteam
Media: CD/1
Players: 1 - Multiple (Online)
Genre: First Person Shooter


Graphics & Sound:

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is not your run-of-the-mill FPS type of game. Where else can you get a BoneCracker Chainsaw and slice up headless men that run at you? As original as Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is in gameplay and story line, so goes with the graphics. They are absolutely brilliant. The jungles of the first few levels are so realistic, that I thought I saw jaguars a time or two. Dense vegetation that looks like dense vegetation is scattered throughout. Trees rise slowly off of the forest floor and loom overhead as their realistic canopy lets finely rendered sunrays peek through. If you find that one of these trees are in your way, then blow it up. There's nothing a few rockets won't take care of in the game. The water is done so aqueous, that you can feel Sam (the main character) instantly cool off when he dives in. The weapons are rendered well, with no confusion over weapons when you need to switch them extremely quickly, because they don't look like each other. Nothing brings a bout of confidence like the Civil War type cannon that Sam can fire at the bad guys. Yep, it shoots cannonballs...big Uranium ones at that. The temples that Sam must explore are very temple-esque when it comes to how a temple should look. They are actually foreboding to go into, and will have you craning your neck in real life just trying to get an extra look at a bad guy before he sees you. On the subject of 'bad guys,' the enemies are hilariously perfect looking. All of the minions look appropriately evil, and my favorite had to be the pumpkin-headed, chainsaw wielding, muscle-bound Cucurbito the Pumpkin. From a graphical standpoint, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is definitely one of the best-looking games I've ever seen.

When you have a game that looks as good as Serious Sam 2, you need some big top sound to go with the graphical showcase. Fret not, as the sound is blazingly good. The music is nerve-wracking yet action oriented. It changes when there is an enemy that sees you, which is good. The reason why you need to have the music is that the levels are so huge that sometimes you can only see an enemy if you have your sniper rifle scope all the way zoomed out on them. Thus it pays to have the patented bad guy music pumping to let you know that somewhere out there a bad guy lurks. Yes, the levels are that big, and they are still so pretty. After you listen to the music, you will appreciate that it's so fast paced as it really does its part to pump you up and enjoy the game.

The sound effects are also impressive rungs on the stepladder of sound. Sam's voice is real deep and testosterone influenced. There are times in the game where he must make these aided super jumps, and it's always funny to hear him pipe out 'weeeeeeeee!' as he's slung into the air. The guns sound great too, as the Civil War cannon will resound it's commanding presence with a rocking explosion while the Bonecracker saw will growl as it tears open the bad guys. Probably the part that impressed me most with the sound is that each of the creatures had almost a signature 'roar.' You could tell what you were going to come up against by what you heard around you. That's amazing, to have sound effects so well and real that you can attribute it to every creature in the game. If you heard mechanized walking and laser beams, well that would differentiate itself from if you heard an evil cackle and a chainsaw. Different enemies require different weapons, so it's good to know what you're up against.


Gameplay:

You play the role of Serious Sam who is out to save Earth from Mental and his evil band of minions. The first installment of Serious Sam saw Sam grabbing a spaceship to chase after Mental. Due to his poor driving skills (who can drive a spaceship anyway?), Sam crash lands in the South American mountains. Here he is surrounded by more bad guys (including seven new types of bad guys in this sequel) that he must cut a path through to get to Mental. You will be trying to conquer twelve levels to finally get to the baddest of the bad guys. The levels are absolutely huge as well. I really liked that you could go anywhere your heart desired. If you felt like exploring, you could spend an extra ten minutes exploring one part of a level. Often you are rewarded for searching the nooks and crannies that are away from the action. With four new power-ups out there, you'll need all the help you can get. Sam can even turn invisible (if he gets the appropriate power-up entitled Invisibility), which will prove pivotal in some areas to sneak past bad guys. Also helping him will be three new weapons (which all turned out to be my favorites) that are the flamethrower, sniper rifle and Bonecracker saw.

The game is very fast-paced, but the controls accommodate it very nicely. There are a variety of Modes to choose from starting with Single Player Mode that pits you against the baddies trying to save the world. Multiplayer Mode lets you choose one of several skins for your Sam and hunt down friends. You also can do what my friends and I did, which was to team up and destroy bad guys together. Aaah, nothing says 'friendship' like destroying some bad guys with a buddy and a cold root beer. Finally, you can set what seems like everything in the Options Mode, most importantly being the difficulty. How hard is Serious Sam: The Second Encounter? Keep reading!


Difficulty:

You can choose from four difficulty levels that kind of tell you how hard they'll each be. Sure, the names are things like 'Easy' for easy and 'Are You Serious' for difficult, but under each setting shows what FPS-experience level that particular difficulty is catered to. For Instance, when hovering your pointer over the easiest setting, it reads something like: 'this setting is for those who are new to the First Person Shooter, and have never played one' - thus keeping things simple for all of us. With the exception of the easiest level, I believe that this game is indeed very difficult. You will have to have your wits sharpened to figure out how to get past some of the levels. It's not so much figuring things out (the game is pretty straight forward) as it is trying to conquer the sheer volume of bad guys that want to kill you. Don't worry though as everything is achievable, and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is one of those rare games that makes you actually feel like you've earned something when you do beat a level. There are codes available to those of the community who feel the need to be god-like or own every weapon from the start of the game. I'll leave the research up to you to find them though!

Game Mechanics:

You will need to use your mouse and keyboard to play this game. The controls are easy enough to get used to, as they are extremely responsive and user-friendly. The game does remain easy enough to keep you from getting discouraged, yet difficult enough to be rewarding. Finally how can one not see the beautiful price tag on this game? 19.99 is an absolute steal as this game would be still worth the money if it were 44.99. A game that looks good, sounds good, plays well and is cheap? Sounds like a Game of the Year to me.

Riot Rundown: I think that Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is one of the best games I've played. It's presentation is top-notch, but more importantly, it's extremely fun. It's addictive, funny and downright well made. They haven't made quality this good since I was your age.


-Sydney Riot, GameVortex Communications
AKA Will Grigoratos

Minimum System Requirements:



AMD 400MHz, Pentium II 300MHz, 64MBOpenGL or Direct X 8.0 Compliant 3D Video Card, 100 percent Windows compatible Sound Card, Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP, NT (w/service pack 5), 150MB free space, keyboard, mouse.
 

Test System:



AMD Duron 1GHz, GeForce4 MX420 Video Card, Hercules Fortissimo II Sound Card, Windows XP Pro, 150MB free space, keyboard, mouse.

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Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated