Serious Sam gets serious
Reviewer - John LaylandWhat happens when you take a game that's nearly a decade old, based on gameplay from when the FPS genre was still very much in its infancy and shoehorn it into a modern engine? Serious Sam HD:The Second Encounter, that's what. It's not every day a developer attempts what is essentially a straight up re-make, and as someone that remembers the disappointment that was Metal Gear Solid - Twin Snakes for the Gamecube I know that what made a game great can easily be lost in translation a few years down the line. That said, Croteam's last effort - Serious Sam HD : The First Encounter took everything that made the original awesome, wrapped it in 1080p eye candy and ended up being a great game. Let's see if they can do the same thing again.
First though, a little recap of the story, what little story there is anyway. Sam "Serious" Stone is a wise cracking warrior sent back through time to stop a war that will eventually lead to earths destruction. To do this Sam must kill Mental and his followers, in theory stopping the war before it starts and saving all mankind in the process, simple really. When we last saw Sam he'd battled his way through ancient Egypt, defeated Mental's right hand man Ugh-Zan III and was high tailing it towards Mental's home planet in a stolen spaceship. Unfortunately for Sam, the ship crashed back to earth before he had chance to complete his mission (isn't that always the way?) leaving him stranded in prehistoric South America with nothing but freakish monsters and a healthy supply of ammunition for company.
Continued Overleaf...