[Sandwich]

I've recently had the immense pleasure of playing Serious Sam, both the first and second encounters. The games were developed with both a serious sense of humor (look at me, I've started talking like them - seriously! ) and a good eye towards MODdability.

What with support for animated lights and textures, multi-gravity areas, teleportation nodes, fog, haze, hi-res textures (512x512, maybe even higher), etc etc (go download the demo for the Second Encounter already!!), it'd be cool and, with the talent we have here at HLP, easy, to do something FreeSpace-y with the game. The incredibly immense battles, with literally dozens of detailed monsters swarming the area at once, the humongous outdoor and indoor levels, the (hehehe) sweet weapons, ranging from a knife to a minigun to a genuine cannon-ball cannon - it's screaming for people to MOD it!

Anyways, check out the developers' website here: http://www.croteam.com/

I'd attach the SDK CHM Help File, but it's 20MB. One thing it says is:

Serious Engine implements game modification system. There are many types of modifications (MOD) that can be made to original game like: new levels, new playing modes, players, weapons and other models, items and enemies, new music and sounds, textures,.... Croteam encurages and supports MODs.

[Nico]

I played the first serious sam demo... at first I thought "what the hell what is this piece of crap! it's dumb!!!" but I was with a friend and we hwas laughing like crazy looking at me frying monsters, so I keep on ( anyway, I would have even if he wasn't there). well... it was like when I played doom! it's damn fun actually, it's not serious a single second lol, but actually I played that stupid test demo (with the lines of code in the corner of the screen) and I played it again, for a dozen times at least If I find a copy, i'll probably by both games.

[Wildlife]

So far i've only played the first serious sam .

Me  and some of the TBP team play it quite often, haven't in a while tho but its great fun


Btw i'm Penil

[Nico]

lol, nice looking team
santa clauss during summer hollidays, a rastaman, a boxer and a cowboy
who can say YMCA ?

[Setekh]

You know, I've been so busy lately, I didn't even get to look at SS (1st or 2nd Encounter). I'll download the demo(s?) now.

But that moddability really sounds great... I might get talking to the PL over at Planet Serious.

[Admiral LSD]

Serious Sam (the 1st one but I'm told the 2nd one is no different) has to be one of the most aggravating games I have ever played. I'd rather wait 3 more years (or more likely 3 centuries the way its going...) for Duke Nukem Forever than play more than 15 minutes of SS...

[Nico]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD
Serious Sam (the 1st one but I'm told the 2nd one is no different) has to be one of the most aggravating games I have ever played. I'd rather wait 3 more years (or more likely 3 centuries the way its going...) for Duke Nukem Forever than play more than 15 minutes of SS...

ah.
I'd rather wait for Duke forever while playing SS

[Turnsky]

DNF?? Released in 3 yrs??

[aldo_14]

Serious Sam is probably the best 'half-hour' game I've played (i.e. good for quick blasts).  I have the SDK, but last time it crashed on loading a level (?).

The Starship Troopers mod at Planet Serious sounds pretty promising too....

The game engine is superb, considering the speed it runs at, with screen filling numbers of enemies.

[Turnsky]

oooooooooooo, sounds good

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Setekh
I'll download the demo(s?) now.

You are about to experience something incredibly cool.

Just don't expect Half-Life. It's pure, mindless, you-against-hundreds-of-monsters pure retro Doom-style action.

The engine is incredible too... heightmap terrain, LODs, detail texturing, dynamic fog regions, variable/multidirectional gravity, arbitrary entity scaling, animated/algorithmic textures, dynamic lighting, portals, mirrors, lens flares, 32-bit rendering... all in an engine so efficient that it runs great on my rusty Celeron 450.

[Nico]

I guess it's doom3 before time

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
It's pure, mindless, you-against-hundreds-of-monsters pure retro Doom-style action.

Thank you but if I want that kind of experience I'll just install Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. The graphics might be crap but neither of those games aggravate me to the point of uninstallation after about 15 minutes.

edit: And they run perfectly fine on my Pentium II 496

[Setekh]

I just played the demo then. I must say, it's fun and mindless. And runs quite nicely on my 1Gen-P3!

I got to the secret valley of the Jaguar (this is the SE demo) and then got overwhelmed by flying bone things. They were everywhere, I tell you! I'm going to have a break before I retry that one.

[Admiral LSD]

It won't be fun IMO until Croteam drop that godawful enemy spawning thing they have going there. Thats what annoyed me the most about it. Apart from that the game was cool.

[ZylonBane]

Of the people I've heard from that like FPS's, but don't like Serious Sam, the common dislike seems to be the respawning. To me, that indicates you don't actually enjoy fighting things... you're just in it for the sightseeing.

So what if picking up a powerup usually spawns a dozen monsters? If you don't like killing monsters, why are you playing at all? That's like complaining that eating the last dot in Pac-Man makes more dots appear.


Setekh-- Make sure to save the Serious Bomb for that last area. If you haven't found it, it's in the canyon off to the left of the first temple you encounter. Also, there's an Invulnerability in the Valley of the Jaguar off to the right, up on a destroyable ledge.

And be sure to try the SS First Encounter demo too. Personally I think it's a better representation of SS.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
Of the people I've heard from that like FPS's, but don't like Serious Sam, the common dislike seems to be the respawning. To me, that indicates you don't actually enjoy fighting things... you're just in it for the sightseeing.

I'm all for fighting things, if I weren't I wouldn't even play FPS's, I'd stick to games like Pac-Man and Pong however the fact is the spawning in SS was way too over the top for my liking. Lots of people found it fun, I just found it annoying. Until Croteam implement a sensible enemy respawning system the SS franchise will suck as far as I'm concerned.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
Setekh-- Make sure to save the Serious Bomb for that last area. If you haven't found it, it's in the canyon off to the left of the first temple you encounter. Also, there's an Invulnerability in the Valley of the Jaguar off to the right, up on a destroyable ledge.

And be sure to try the SS First Encounter demo too. Personally I think it's a better representation of SS.

Can do. I got through it, but I missed a lot of those bonuses... though I manage to find a spot to camp and cool off, sniping those blue and red things, whose names elude me... blah.

I had a (brief) look for the FE demo... I only looked at the official Croteam download page, and only the SE demo was available... but there must be mirrors around somewhere, so I'll look a little harder.

[ZylonBane]

Here ya go...

http://www.gamesdomain.com/demos/demo/1140.html


Also note that you can use the sniper scope to aim any of your other ranged weaponry. The dual pistols have unlimited range and ammo, so you can pick apart anything with them, given enough time.

It's fun to fire a rocket from one side of the canyon to the other and see how long it takes to hit. Really give a sense of how huge that area is!

Another couple of secrets... the lake you start in has a rocket launcher all the way down at the bottom (use forward+jump to ascend faster), and a super armor on the shore behind it.

"Look Ma, I'm a lumberjack!"

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
...and a super armor on the shore behind it.

Phone booth.