Serious Sam: Second Encounter

List Price: $29.95 Discount Price: $49.95

Features:

• 4 new power-ups: invulnerability, invisibility, serious damage, and serious speed. There's nothing you can't handle while jacked on these
• Go head-to-head with the 7 new nightmares in Mental's army. All your old favorites are still prowling around, so don't get too comfortable
• New weapons include the Raptor 16MM Sniper, XOP Flamethrower, and Bonecracker P-LAH Chainsaw
• The Serious engine is back. Bigger, bolder textures and unbelievable particle effects render lush and varied environments
• 8 new multiplayer levels plus the full version of Deathmatch 3.0 gives you 21 levels of online mayhem

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Fun and difficult, but repetitive [Posted on 2004-05-20]
I've been playing "Serious Sam: The Second Encounter" for about a week and a half now; one of my sister's friends thought it would be fun and so loaned it to me to give it a shot--no pun intended.

I have mixed feelings about this game, which I will do my best to convey via a list of pros and cons. Here you go:

PROS:
1. Excellent graphics--muscles actually move in the werebull, for example.
2. A variety of interesting weapons. You get everything from the (useless) revolver to a portable cannon, and ammunition can sometimes be sparse; this forces you to be adaptable. You can even knock down trees or set things on fire.
3. There is a sentient computer that you carry around with you. Every time you kill something you haven't killed before, every time you get a weapon you haven't had before, and every time you come across something important in the gam,e this computer analyzes it for you to an exhaustive extent. It gives you hints into how to use your new weapons and how to kill new enemies. That's just really cool.

CONS:
1. The style of the gameplay gets really repetitive. You see, the reason this game is as difficult as it is is because the game has a habit of putting every single enemy against you, in large numbers, all at once. You don't just fight a few kleer skeletons; you fight about fifty kleer skeletons, two lava golems, about ten harpies, four major bio-mechanoids, ten minor bio-mechanoids, three juvenile arachnoids, two adult arachnoids, twenty beheaded kamikazes, ten beheaded bombers, and five werebulls.

All of that all at once. Every time you go around a corner, you don't fight one or two enemies, you fight about ten of everything the game's put against you so far. This is what makes the game a challenge, and it has helped me in those areas of other games where you fight a whole bunch of monsters, but it gets OLD. Seriously. It gets REALLY old, and it kind of bothers me that the game has to rely on that to make it difficult. Compare this to the comparatively difficult "Half-Life" by Sierra, which is far superior, with superior graphics, and it manages to be equally hard while still providing a variety in its gameplay and a mix of puzzles.

2. Come on. "Serious Sam"? How can you possibly take that seriously as the A-game that it is instead of some lame B-game spinoff of "Quake" or whatever? They could have done a much better job naming this thing.
3. Multiplayer is difficult to set up and it simply does not lend itself well to anything but deathmatch, even though it is possible to play the whole game multiplayer as in Blizzard's "Diablo II".

So. Three stars. Excellent graphics with beautiful scenery and a variety of weapons and enemies, but repetitive gameplay and sloppy multiplayer.

A great sequel to a great title [Posted on 2004-09-09]
Serious Sam 2 picks up where Serious Sam left off. The game essentially has the same engine with some improvements. It also contains new weapons, enemies and of course brand new levels. Serious Sam 2 is even more fun than the original and multiplayer cooperative matches are simply a blast!

Great Environments - Good Gameplay [Posted on 2004-12-17]
I've played a lot of first person shooters, and quite a few platform games (like tomb raider), and I find that this game takes great qualities from them both.

For FPS fans, the gameplay is fierce. Tons of weapons, lots of ammo, and billions of enemies streaming at you from all sides. However, a bit of stealth and your sniper rifle will improve your chances of surviving a walk into the open.

The environments are huge, with great detail. No, not up to the 2004 releases like Doom3 or HalfLife2, but the textures are very detailed. While the textures are a bit repetitive, this allows for very fast gameplay. Your computer won't have any trouble drawing a vast valley with four massive pyramids and with dozens of enemies (some three times your size). The view distance is amazing, with only the detailed grass having an obvious draw distance (a very nice touch that allows you to feel completely surrounded by grass without having to draw all those polygons throughout the map).

The first world you navigate through is "Mayan". I actually work in Mexico and can tell you that the textures used for those maps are amazingly authentic. Some are actual photographs of famous Maya murals that make wonderful wall textures, making you feel like you're in a Maya palace.

Finally, the little puzzles and secrets that are found throughout the game give it a kind of "platform adventure" feel to it. This may be annoying to FPS fanatics who only want to walk down corridors and shoot whatever pops up. Serious Sam Second Encounter gives you all the action, with the added desire to explore every nook and cranny of the huge maps. The puzzles are not tricky, generally fun and sometimes skill-building.

I highly recommend this for some FPS fun on the lighter side of Doom3.

A Top Gun!! [Posted on 2005-01-03]
I've played alot of video games but I can say straight off that this has been one of the best I have ever played.
Why do I say that?
Well the great graphics,sound,gameplay,intense immersion and challenge aside,this is one of the few games I own that I keep coming back to play again....and AGAIN!
Both of the incarnations of Serious Sam(1 & 2)are on the same high quality scale of the first person shooter genre and rate very high marks indeed.
Croteam the creators of the Serious Sam phenom were to release a third and final game to end the series but to date this unfortunately has not come to pass.
But I'll continue to keep my fingers crossed and on the trigger ready and waiting for that day when Mental and his minions challenge us once again to a battle to the death.
A game no true gamer should be without in his collection.

A perennial favorite... [Posted on 2007-01-03]
I love this game: good, clean design, few bugs (well, single player... online is another matter), and runs fine even on my aging Sony. The way that Croteam captured the concept of VOLUMES of baddies attacking at once is just fantastic. The weapons and characters are excellent, the puzzles are fun, the secrets are cool... it's just a lot of fun.

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