By Kieron Gillen on August 26th, 2009 at 8:44 pm.
G4 and their exclusives, eh? They’ve just gone and put up a new comedy commercial for the forthcoming Serious Sam HD. Much like the majority of my pun titles, it’s a bit Trying Too Hard, but it’s highly likeable. It also reminds me of the first Old Man Murray interview around the dawn of Serious Sam, especially the bit where they really don’t know what a crate is. I’m also reminded the time we howled down the phone until all of Edge came all around the future building to see the glorious final battle against Notorious mental. I’m also reminded of the time I actually tried to hand in my notice over some publisher backstabbing to do with Serious Sam. Ah, the memories.
I’m actually really looking forward to this. Serious Sam was a profoundly splendid first-person shooter, and nothing has been nearly as dumb and brilliant since.
And if you’re about to say “Painkiller”, don’t.
Also, I wonder if it’ll still have PC Gamer’s Steve Brown in the secret room at the start?
26/08/2009 at 20:48 Nighthood says:
I LOVE SERIOUS SAM! The kamikase bombers are an iconic gaming sound for me. Serious Sam 2 never interested me quite as much as the original couple, but insane, non stop, daft action never gets old.
26/08/2009 at 20:54 Smee says:
It’s nice to see that they haven’t changed the broken animation of the pump action shotgun (it never actually “pumped” in the original game). Such a dedication must bode well.
I will be buying this.
26/08/2009 at 20:56 Batolemaeus says:
Okay.
(ohmygawd!)
26/08/2009 at 20:58 ascagnel says:
SSFE and SSSE defined high school (along with UT99) for me. Is SSFEHD out already?
26/08/2009 at 21:01 RJ-45 says:
this is what I expected from a Serious trailer
26/08/2009 at 21:13 Lobotomist says:
Hehe
My damn neighbor made graphic for the game (original – not HD) When I ask him if he could score me a job there too..he said NO.
Damn snob >:(
26/08/2009 at 21:18 TotalBiscuit says:
Hell
Yes
26/08/2009 at 21:18 Gimli says:
“Also, I wonder if it’ll still have PC Gamer’s Steve Brown in the secret room at the start?”
I don’t know, but maybe I could arrange it so that you’re in it.
(I have connections…)
26/08/2009 at 21:26 DarkNoghri says:
Heh. This should be awesome.
I only recently picked up copies of the old versions, with the intent of lan-gaming with my family as well as playing with RPSers, as the Resurrect a Multiplayer Game forum thread was suggesting.
I played through the first encounter several times with friends and family, and then the second encounter wouldn’t run correctly on my cousin’s (Vista) laptop.
I still remember playing this at another cousin’s house whenever I visited. Between this, TFC, and Perfect Dark, we were all set up.
26/08/2009 at 21:30 DarkNoghri says:
Just watched the ad. My reaction: whatisthisIdonteven….
I think this is a good thing.
26/08/2009 at 22:23 WantOn says:
Best thing I’ve seen in a long, long while. Remember pulling an all-nighter at a LAN cafe in Durham just to play this through in co-op. Awesome, awesome game.
I think going back I’d find it slightly repetitive, but could probably kill a few hours on it… hmm, tempted!
26/08/2009 at 22:23 Jon says:
Publisher backstabbing? Serious Sam? Pray tell!
26/08/2009 at 22:31 Ben says:
Still got it and love it for a quick blast – its not suited for long play sessions as it too damn intense. Waves upon waves of enemies and just when you think that that must be it you hear that bloody kamikaze scream (or worse the thunder of bull hooves) and got to spend the next 5 min gibbing for your life. After 20 min I’ve got to turn it off and play something else
26/08/2009 at 22:33 jsutcliffe says:
I have been looging forward to this incarnation — for a while I was worried it’d be exclusive Xbox Live (I have a 360 but bleaaargh to shooters without a keyboard and mouse). Serious Sam taught me to circle strafe. And run backwards.
I hope it does well enough to justify them HD-ifying Second Encounter — that one was off the bonkers scale. I have particularly fond memories of trying to shoot enemies in a room made of trampolines — for a while I could have sworn the undead horses had panicked expressions on.
26/08/2009 at 22:33 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Pai…aargh, it hurts.. j/k, P..that other game got boring too fast :)
Me wants this one :)
26/08/2009 at 22:35 Cedge says:
I really can’t stand waiting for this much longer.
I really wish they’d clarify why the trailers appear to be showing elements of both First and Second Encounter.
26/08/2009 at 22:38 Zee says:
I’ll pay copious quantities of cash to play this game. Some of my fondest gaming memories are playing through Serious Sam and Second Edition co-op, I couldn’t be more excited for HD!
26/08/2009 at 22:42 stan says:
the comedy duo, Beef & Sage are responsible for blessing us with the SSHD Supermercial. They’ve got some other gems on their site too: http://www.beefandsage.com
26/08/2009 at 22:55 Markoff Chaney says:
Serious Sam was such a fantastic game. I second the iconic yell of the suicide bomber and, now that I think about it, it WAS the game that showed the importance of backpedaling, sometimes all the way to the beginning of a level, while never stopping your firing. Color me intrigued on the publisher back stabbannigans as well.
26/08/2009 at 23:01 nath says:
That little trail reminded me a lot of all the silly vids in Amped 3. Top stuff.
26/08/2009 at 23:07 kafka7 says:
Watching the footage reminded me that the game only has one play style: reverse strafing. The content might be refreshingly bonkers, but to play it’s an exercise in repetition. I don’t think any other game has quite captured such a dangerous cocktail of excitment and tedium.
26/08/2009 at 23:14 Vandelay says:
PASGETTI!!!!!!!
The first game was a hell of a lot of fun so this could be a good purchase (if it’s at a reasonable price.) Hopefully they will do the same to the Second Encounter, which I missed out on originally.
26/08/2009 at 23:30 Lack_26 says:
Serious Sam (and the SE) was quite simply the best game ever made, nothing has since bested it’s level of in-depth charactarisation and story. But seriously, it was a great game.
26/08/2009 at 23:33 postmanX3 says:
So is there any news on a release date yet?
26/08/2009 at 23:43 Voice of Reason says:
Yay SSHD.
Wait, what? I didn’t get the Painkiller joke until I searched around on RPS and found that apparently it’s not a joke at all. RPS really didn’t like PK?
The follow-up question to that isn’t “What’s wrong with Painkiller?” but rather “What’s wrong WITH YOU!?”
That is all.
26/08/2009 at 23:44 Wulf says:
I have this to say:
The ad is much funnier when watched with sound muted.
That is all.
26/08/2009 at 23:48 jarvoll says:
Voice of Reason: I took it to mean that Painkiller came AFTER Serious Sam, so to claim that SS is a rip-off of PK would be to get your history backwards. I could be wrong though.
26/08/2009 at 23:58 Heliocentric says:
The makers of serious sam are from the future. Can you think of any further explanation?
Apparently hd is the first and second encounter together.
27/08/2009 at 00:12 DarkNoghri says:
I took it to mean that Painkiller just wasn’t as dumb and brilliant, no matter how good it may or may not have been.
Anyway, anyone up for a game?
To the Forums!
27/08/2009 at 00:16 Y3k-Bug says:
For the record, the commercial is HEAVILY influenced by Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job!, which as a huge fan of that show, I did this commerch.
Although it could lose about 15 – 30 seconds of trimming as its a bit overlong.
27/08/2009 at 00:36 Frye says:
Sam & I go way back. Sam 1 was just amazing, i had never seen anything as over the top and grandiose as that. Never got quite that same feeling in the second game, or hardly any other game for that matter, but that’s how things go in life i guess. We played the second one LOADS on Linux on our office LAN since it was one of the few games that i could get to run properly. We ended up uninstalling it after complaints how addictive it was LOL.
27/08/2009 at 01:24 Max says:
SS2 never really grabbed my interest but the first and second encounters were fucking awesome. I might pick this up.
27/08/2009 at 01:24 tapanister says:
Painkiller painkiller painkiller. No, but it looks pretty fun and the trailer was VISUAL AWESOME (R).
27/08/2009 at 02:33 Wulf says:
You know what would be incredible? If they somehow figured out a way to allow owners of the original Serious Sam (FE & SE) to play alongside those on HD, so that one could keep up with a group on both more buff laptop and netbook, whatever’s handy.
Wishing for the moon, I know…
27/08/2009 at 05:05 capital L says:
Serious Sam was always the real Doom 3 (& Duke Nukem Forever, for that matter) in my heart.
27/08/2009 at 05:14 DarkNoghri says:
Wulf:
I don’t know much about game programming specifically, but if they didn’t bother recoding the networking protocols it could work. Just have all network traffic look the same between both games.
Still, probably wishful thinking.
27/08/2009 at 05:41 Matzerath says:
Do you think the destitute strip-club announcer that did the original voice will get some residuals? Or will they give him a dollar a word?
27/08/2009 at 06:15 Martin K says:
Tell us a story about publisher backstabbery and the Serious Sam franchise, Gillen!
27/08/2009 at 06:19 Muzman says:
Was it Serious Sam that had the bonkers gravity? That was great fun in DM. I recall one map that was a giant cube in space which you played on the outside of.
27/08/2009 at 07:03 GJLARP says:
This is what Serious Sam 2 should have been, but wasn’t.
27/08/2009 at 08:05 DigitalSignalX says:
Rogue Trooper was pretty dumb and brilliant.
27/08/2009 at 09:04 pignoli says:
@ Capital L: Serious nail head knocking scenario you have going on there. SS absolutely took up the mantle of those games.
I must resist cracking out the original in anticipation so as not to sully the experience when this does finally come out. Any word on release date yet?
27/08/2009 at 09:35 aoanla says:
@Capital L: As the esteemed gentleman above me notes, this is the most true statement in the thread so far. Even the progression of enemy types is basically Doom-on-Steroids until half-way through the game, and the Duke-esque humour was, well, at least as good as Duke was.
All that, turned up to 11.
(And this is why we shouldn’t mention Painkiller – okay, it was gloriously OTT (and I have a soft spot for it in that it tried to add a tiny bit of complexity to the genre with those cards, and the soul-collecting thing), but it did seem to almost be taking itself seriously with those awful rendered cutscenes. Serious Sam could never be accused of doing such a thing.)
27/08/2009 at 09:47 MD says:
Man, I hope this runs on my computer. I know the whole point is the fancy graphics, but I’d be happy to just enjoy the high-res textures and nicer models with everything else turned down.
27/08/2009 at 11:57 Metal_Circus says:
That was a really funny trailer.
27/08/2009 at 12:05 LionsPhil says:
Argh? Argh. Argh…YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! *splode*
Serious Sam: First Encounter still runs fine on modern machines, and scales up crazy-high: those guys knew how to write graphics engines (which makes a graphically bumped look-bloom-effects remake seem…kind of pointless). Plenty of funtimes to be had at LAN parties.
27/08/2009 at 12:41 LionsPhil says:
Also, the “CDOS” desktop has a rather familiar icon on it. All we need now is for Serious Sam 3 to include the inexorable yeti as an opponent, to discourage players from being slow or thoughtful.
27/08/2009 at 14:11 Lucas says:
Stupid name. Serious Sam has ALWAYS been HD.
Call it Serious Sam Hi-Fi or Redux or anything else please.
Seriously Serious Sam. There, use that!
27/08/2009 at 15:55 Gregory Weir says:
Skifree reference at 0:55.
Incidentally, the new rollover McDonalds ads on RPS are more annoying by far than any ads you’ve had before. The one in the sidebar, especially; its “close” link aligns with your “donate” link (at least in Firefox), so the only way to get rid of it once it expands is to refresh the page and be very careful where I mouse.
27/08/2009 at 15:57 Jim Rossignol says:
Gergory: can you send me the link for the ad, and I’ll remove it. Cheers.
31/08/2009 at 14:29 KilgoreTrout XL says:
Haha, best video game ad I’ve seen in a while. Looking forward to it.
05/09/2009 at 20:17 Catfish says:
Painkiller!
That is all.