Serious Sam:
The Second Encounter

Sam "Serious" Stone brings slaughter to a new setting when an alien starship crashes in South America

	Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
	Windows 9X, ME or XP
	Pentium II 300
	64 MB RAM
	4X CD-ROM
	DirectX compatible sound card
	D3D video card
	MSRP: $19.99

Review by Mark H. Walker

n 2001, Croteam's Serious Sam took the gaming world by storm. Here was unapologetic, unashamed, shoot-'em-up fun. The question on gamers' minds the planet over, however, was simple: Was it a fluke? Could an unheard-of European developer repeat the bucket of fun in a sequel or was Serious Sam a one-of-a-kind aberration? At last, the answer is at hand: Serious Sam: The Second Encounter stands ready to invade Earthlings' computers across the world.

The Second Encounter begins immediately after the first game ends. Having journeyed back to ancient Egypt to defeat the monstrous hordes of the treacherous Mental, Sam "Serious" Stone has confiscated an alien starship that is headed to Mental's home planet. Unfortunately, the rocket crashes into South America, and Serious Sam must face an entirely new legion of monsters before he can put Mental to death.

The Foundation Trilogy it's not, but the story serves to get gamers into the action quickly and keep them ensconced in the thick of it. Playing from a typical first-person-shooter point of view, gamers must traipse the jungles, buildings and tunnels of South America in an effort to blast their way through hordes of viciously amusing monsters, solve a few puzzles and make Earth once again safe for terrorists, polluters, postal clerks and other evildoers.

The game includes an excellent multiplayer suite, and Croteam has stuffed eight new multiplayer levels and the entire Seriously Warped Deathmatch on the ROM. Multiplayer games include the standard Deathmatch, Rugby (players gain points by running around with the flag/ball) and Objective Thief, which is known in the rest of the world as Capture the Flag.

Killing aliens was never so much fun

It's hard to believe that so much fun can come in such an inexpensive package. With Serious Sam, Croteam altered the landscape of gaming. With Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, they have reworked the entire planet. Sure, there is a lot of the nearly breathless, when-will-this-rush-of-monsters-ever-stop action for which the franchise is famous, but the game offers so much more.

Not the least of the game's offerings is humor. Each level is littered with tons of easter eggs and secrets, most of which are good for a chuckle if not an out-and-out guffaw. Sam's comments are as witty as they are surprising. "I hate running backwards," he says as you backpedal from the latest scrum of aliens. Good stuff, fun stuff, the way an action game ought to be.

It's beautiful action to boot, and it's simply amazing that a low-budget game can look so high-class. From the bucolic green of the South American jungles, to the bright glare of a stadium (yeah, a stadium) Serious Sam: The Second Encounter's graphics snap you behind a sniper rifle, minigun, flamethrower or whatever in some of the most richly rendered environments in today's gaming.

Gamers should not be surprised. The original Serious Sam was a promise of better things to come. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is the fulfillment of that promise, and one heck of a good game.

This game blows every other first-person shooter on the market out of the water. — Mark

Back to the top.

Home