By Jim Rossignol on June 26th, 2009 at 8:32 am.
So, according to Eurogamer, Serious Sam HD, which is a blow-for-blow remake of the original sillier-than-thou shooter from Croteam in the Serious Sam 3 engine, will be coming to PC. Of course we’ve yet to see anything much of Serious Sam 3 itself, which Croteam reconfirmed they were working on a few weeks ago. One minor development is that new publisher on the block, Devolve Digital, which has been set up by the chaps behind defunct publishing outfits Gathering of Developers and GameCock, is somehow involved in the new Sam games. We’ll be hearing more about that very soon, I suspect.
26/06/2009 at 08:50 BC says:
“They’re coming straight for us!”
…and not veering off in any other direction. Bang. Bang. Bang.
26/06/2009 at 08:51 Jahkaivah says:
AI DIRECTOR
I can’t repeat enough, this is what the Serious Sam series, needs, please Croteam, do your sequel justice.
26/06/2009 at 09:10 Lack_26 says:
Yey, I remember playing the Second encounter in one sitting with 4 other people, good times.
26/06/2009 at 09:19 jon_hill987 says:
Will get. I have had more fun playing SS:TFE COOP than I ever had in Left 4 Dead.
26/06/2009 at 09:22 Wilson says:
This sounds awesome. I loved the first game, Second encounter was also good, Sam II was a disappointment. But still a bit of a laugh.
An AI Director would be amazing actually. And large RPG style free world environments :) Just with copious gunplay and slaughter instead of levelling and conversation.
26/06/2009 at 10:06 c-Row says:
I hope SSHD won’t be full-prized, since it’s an update more or less. But the yet unknown price tag aside, SS in coop rocked!
26/06/2009 at 10:17 Howard says:
Have we had any details on teh new Croteam engine other than its existence being confirmed? Curios to see what it can do.
Also I am honestly surprised that Croteam are still alive. Given that they set up their company simply to shift their engine to third parties and then wholesale failed to do so, it’s odd that they can still operate
26/06/2009 at 10:19 abigbat says:
Awesome. Classic.
26/06/2009 at 11:00 Martin K says:
@Howard: Fair question re: how it is that Croteam still functions.
Both TFE and TSE were a huge larf. SSII was a disaster. Serious Sam in HD? Bring it. Bring that shit. Bring it now. Bring it last week.
26/06/2009 at 12:26 Ziv says:
SS II was FUCKING AWESOME!!! just now got into SS:TFE. GO SS3!!!!
26/06/2009 at 12:30 pepper says:
I sure wouldnt mind running through the first one in CO-OP again, especialliy in HD!
26/06/2009 at 12:35 abc says:
Second encounter was great fun. No need for “HD”.
26/06/2009 at 13:05 TotalBiscuit says:
This is perhaps the best news of the week.
26/06/2009 at 13:10 Erlend M says:
I hope they retain the split-screen multiplayer. That’s a rare but cool thing for PC games, and I’m sure there are a lot of people with USB Xbox gamepads around who’d love to try it.
26/06/2009 at 13:24 Tei says:
I have played whole sessions of serius sam, from level 1 to the end. Absolutelly crazy coop :-)
26/06/2009 at 13:47 Count Zero says:
I liked the original Serious Sam, and had some mindless fun with it, but I could never get into the game properly because of the complete lack of style and the forced attempts at humor. A few years later I finished Painkiller, essentially the same concept but visually and thematically coherent, with some of the best architecture I’ve ever seen in a game. Thing is, even with the HD upgrade I don’t think I could go back to Serious Sam…
26/06/2009 at 14:29 fdsgdshdhsdh says:
way cool
26/06/2009 at 14:47 Alchemda says:
SS 1 was the first co op that I lanned with friends for like 12 hours straight. Great fun, definitely picking this one up
26/06/2009 at 15:36 Monchberter says:
I’m slurping tea out of my oversized Serious Sam mug as i write this (not a euphemism).
Second Encounter was just brilliant and the coop laid the way for Left 4 Dead. More of this please.
Funny how this has been announced now that Duke Nukem Forever has been flushed. The SS series had a few jokes about that game never arriving.
RIP Duke. Long Live ‘Serious’ Sam Stone.
26/06/2009 at 15:37 Howard says:
“oversized Serious Sam mug”
O_O
DO WANT!
26/06/2009 at 15:53 Monchberter says:
@ Howard
http://www.cafepress.com/seriously.6271561
Your wish…
26/06/2009 at 16:10 Howard says:
WOOT! =)
26/06/2009 at 17:29 CJohnson03 says:
anyone here remember the big room, you go in and all the doors lock, and then thousands of these little guys start dropping from a hole in the ceiling? Most fun I’ve ever had in a co-op, 3 players stacked vertically in a corner mowing them down for a solid 10 minutes. Heehee
26/06/2009 at 17:49 Tanner says:
I can’t wait to see the bossfight in HD. It’s still impressive to this day and HD could only make it better, methinks.
26/06/2009 at 18:41 Adventurous Putty says:
Slightly off topic: I really wish the Council of Developers/Gamecock/whatsamacallit thing had worked out for those guys. It’s a very good idea: a publisher dedicated entirely to indie games. Unfortunately, the fact that they only seemed to bring aboard the suckiest of these games (as opposed to indie classics like Braid or Zeno Clash) seemed to have done them in. Maybe they’ll have luck with Serious Sam — not necessarily indie, but certainly not big-budget.
26/06/2009 at 19:14 Dominic White says:
Some of these screenshots show enemies from The Second Encounter, the not-quite-2-but-still-a-sequel entry in the series. So, is it a remake of that as well? Or a ‘greatest hits’ pick of the best levels from both? Questions must be answered!
26/06/2009 at 19:36 ChampionHyena says:
Oh boy. A graphical update. For a game that I already own. Wheeeeee. Seriously, who would pay for this crap?
…
…me. I would. A thousand times over. While other games speckle themselves in brown and gray, Serious Sam is so colorful and mindless that I can’t help but get giddy.
Unlike most of the people commenting here, I sadly never got the Serious Sam co-op experience. Nobody else had the game. But now, if it’s coming out all re-shinied and cheap–and, ideally, if it were to be released on a digital service like Steam (as a counterpart to its Xbox Liveliness)–I think I can get some friends into it.
And even if not, you RPS chappies are good for it, right? We could start a forum thread or Steam chat and MURDER EVERYTHING.
Excited.
26/06/2009 at 19:42 ChampionHyena says:
@Dominic White: You’re right, I see Mayan architecture, Cucurbito the chainsaw-wielding pumpkin man, and a few fleshless Zorg mercenaries in those screenshots.
Does that mean we’re getting the whole thing?
Please say yes.
26/06/2009 at 23:48 Cedge says:
Purchasing on day one, assuming it shows up on Steam.
Very interested in exactly what content is in here, since I see stuff from both First and Second Encounter.
I have not enjoyed any FPS in the past decade more than Serious Sam. The screaming, headless suicide bombers still haunt my nightmares.
27/06/2009 at 00:39 ChampionHyena says:
@Cedge: “‘AAAAAAAAGH,’ yourself.
…
Uh-oh.”
27/06/2009 at 03:44 Matosh says:
SS HD! Yay! I haven’t played it in ages! AAAAAAAA!
However.
This looks to me like an excuse to procrastinate on the actual sequel. I live an hour’s drive away from Zagreb. If they don’t release a Serious Sam 3 update soon I’m perfectly capable of driving up to the Croteam offices and slapping Roman Ribaric silly.
27/06/2009 at 07:00 Shadowcat says:
Gravatar Count Zero: Painkiller was/is great, but “Thematically coherent”? How the hell do you argue that one? Regardless of how great they looked, the settings were probably the most arbitrary and unrelated that I’ve ever encountered in a game.
27/06/2009 at 07:16 Shadowcat says:
Anyway, yay for SS HD! I never did get TSE, but I’ve wanted it ever since it eventuated that TFE was a co-op hit with my GF, so I’m definitely hoping that this release contains both games.
Prior to that, I had burned myself out a little on TFE by playing it on Hard, which turned out to be a mistake about half-way through (too far for me to want to restart), and then an absolute nightmare at the end, so I didn’t rush out to get TSE at the time. I hope that SS HD allows you to switch difficulty mid-game!
Coincidentally, we’re playing SS2 at the moment, and it’s a whole heap better than I was expecting given the response it got on release. I do seem to be experiencing some nasty movement glitches, though, which is either dodgy code, or a serious problem with our LAN that hasn’t shown itself elsewhere. Still good fun, though (except for the damned maximum 10 life limit, which the GF is chewing through on regular occasion :(
27/06/2009 at 08:34 Dominic White says:
@Shadowcat – if you’re on a LAN, you’ll really want the Insamnity 2 mod.
http://insamnity2.danceswithkleer.com/
It basically lets you customize the game however you want. And if that customization includes semi-random spawns of 5x the enemies, then go wild.
Note: It should ALWAYS include semi-random spawns of 5x the enemies. It turns the game from a decent shootfest into a first-person Smash TV.
27/06/2009 at 18:19 JKjoker says:
i loved the first SS, playing with a friend on split screen on a pc, just AWESOME!, more games need to add this option, im looking at you L4D and soon-to-be released Resident evil 5
SSII not so much, it felt boring for me, the improved graphics took some charm away from it and the weapons were meh, but i played years after it was released, maybe i was spoiled by newer games.
i would love to see a third game, and i agree with what Jahkaivah said, they need to take a few points out of L4D, the AI director, the music cues, the damage feedback from monsters, it really sucks when you shoot something and they don’t flinch and no forgetting about the split screen option.
27/06/2009 at 23:47 Valarauka says:
Hahahahah, wow. This is awesome. By some cosmic coincidence, I just brushed off my old copy of Serious Sam and was giving it a two-player coop playthrough with my lil sis.
The surprising thing was, there’s enough people still playing for my game to be joined by four or five random internet peeps every time. :D Amazing fun!
28/06/2009 at 06:29 flash games says:
Just looking at that screenshot makes me want to pop in my ol’ Serious Sam: Next Encounter. It wasn’t epic, but it was a great time killer. Ugh… so… tempted.
28/06/2009 at 13:23 Shadowcat says:
Cheers for that, Dominic! Infinite lives will definitely make the GF happier. It might also kill any hopes I have of convincing her to side-step, but frankly that wasn’t looking like a promising eventuality…
28/06/2009 at 16:21 Borat says:
sounds good to me. i love exact remakes, and why not ?
is it too early to want far cry hd ?? not in this gamer’s opinion.
in fact i believe that far cry should be remade every 4 years verbatim, just to showcase new engines.
29/06/2009 at 01:57 Jonathan says:
For $20 or less, I’m all over it. I can’t see paying big money for it though. Hopefully they retain the insanely colorful and intentionally nonsensical style of the original. Don’t try to make it “realistic”.