![]() ![]() Relative to previous installments in the series, the difficulty of Serious Sam: Next Encounter seems to have been scaled back overall, but there were still moments when the game ceased being fun and started feeling like cruel and unusual punishment. On the minus side of things, I think the game is a bit too intense at times for its own good. And knowing that failure meant having to replay an entire section all over again only raised the tension level for me, making the notorious Serious Sam-style fire fights-always massive in scale and carnage-exponentially more intense. Long-time fans might balk at the checkpoint system, but I felt that it actually worked to give the game more of an arcade feel, forcing me to draw up battle plans-clear out the charging skeletons, then work on the evil monkeys, then pick up the armor in the far corner, etc. The save-anywhere feature of the PC and Xbox Serious Sam games has been scrapped in favor of discrete checkpoints. New to the series are vehicles, including a poor man's version of Halo 's Warthog, a submarine, and a piece of farming equipment called a combine, which is used to literally mow down the charging hordes. The rules of the game remain almost elegant in their simplicity: 1. ![]() Serious Sam: Next Encounter is a game that actually tries to do too little. ![]() combining driving/shooting/role-playing/fighting elements, etc. Most games these days try to do too much and are guilty of being overly ambitious i.e. The original managed to both satirize and celebrate the genre at once, quite skillfully on both counts, and it was among the first mainstream titles to be aware of its own videogame-ness, making it one of the first truly post-modern games in history. To this day, the original Serious Sam stands tall as a landmark for the medium, effectively super-sizing the parameters of the then-stale first-person-shooter genre-huge guns, huge enemies, huge levels-and managing to bring a then-unheard-of sense of playfulness and irony to bear. It's an established fact that I have somewhat suspect taste when it comes to videogames-see my glowing review of Roadkill -so it should come as no great surprise that I found this piece of crass, low-brow, derivative junk compelling, and well worth my time and gaming dollars. If that's true, then does that make this the review that no one wants to read? Furthermore, if a videogame with lousy box cover art and a budget price falls in a forest, and there are no gamers around to hear it, does it make a sound?Įnough philosophizing. Judging by the half-assed box cover art, budget price, and banal title ("Next Encounter?" That's honestly the best they could come up with?), Serious Sam: Next Encounter is clearly a game that no one, not even publisher Global Star Software, wanted. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |