By Alec Meer on November 24th, 2009 at 11:56 pm.
Oho, we’ve not said too much about the rejiggery of Serious Sam, have we? I fear it got a little lost amidst all the wartorn modernity, ages of dragons, deadly leavings and lands of borders of recent weeks, alas. But it’s here now. As in, right now, as of today. Steam is its only current home, where it’s busy pulling the crab most muscular in the hope of earning $20/£18 (damn you, exchange rate) of your esteemed funds. I’m in two minds about Sam HD. On the one hand – been there, done that. On the other, well, you know. Serious Friggin’ Sam. Don’t make ‘em like that anymore, and all that. Sniff. Below, a glut of agreeably insane promotional videos that we really should have put up earlier. They won’t improve your understanding of the game one bit, but they will brighten/strangen/unsettle your day. Bless you, Crotream, you mad fools.
First, the straight one. More or less, anyway.
So far, so Traditional Growly Videogame man. But let’s continue. Next, three of four beyond-silly testimonial videos that we’ve somehow missed. Ah, The Virals That Never Were. Bless ‘em.
Fun! Bar the second, anyway. And then there’s this one. Then there is this one.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Aaaaa. Aaa. Aagh.
Finally, the Happy Fun Time Mode, and a video that made me a very cheery little boy indeed.
It’s the Screaming Guttural Kamikaze Man as backing vocals that really makes it for me.
Ah, the good old Run Backwards and Shoot game. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.
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I thought I was alone in calling it an RBS game!
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Yeah, the new painkiller tried but seemed to fail miserably.
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So did the first Painkiller. ZING!
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One thing that Super Happy Fun Time lacks that the original games Hippy Mode had is blood-stains on the ground. Or, rather, patches of beautiful flowers that spread around corpses.
That was awesome. I hope they managed to get that effect back in by release.
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Classy.
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Tried it today, was dismayed with the awful performance. There is literally no reason for it to run at sub 30 fps on my system.
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You mean that it’s not running at 6005 polygons per krundle?
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Am I the only one who thinks this remake was unnecessry? I mean, if they wanted to rekindle the interest for the game, they should just release the whole series as a package on Steam for an attractive price (which I’m sure would sell even more). But a remake? Just a visual makeover? Heck, it doesn’t even look that great. The time and resources they spent on this, could’ve been used for a sequel/new IP
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The reason for the remake is primarily, I assume, for the XBLA crowd who are going to be enjoying it on the 360 for £10. If you are remaking it anyway, might as well release it on the PC as well!
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You are wise in your years, Monk Of Time. My XBOX rrod, and the first think I though is “Damn, I won’t be able to buy SS HD on launch day”
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I just got done playing it a bit, love it. The sounds are oddly distant, though; I need to tinker around with my audio settings and see if I can fix it. Still, good fun and I haven’t even tried coop yet.
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Still no other games like Serious Sam. Big huge spaces full of big huge monsters to shoot with big huge guns. Run fast, shoot often. Bright colours. Goofy one-liners. Pyramid of crates. Well worth $20. And I still remember where most of the secrets are.
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Painkiller et al certainly tried, but didn’t really get there.
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I hate to be “that” commenter, but you missed by far the best one, Mr. Meer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85rjt3lSZRQ
I implore you to rectify your mistake!
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I hate to be that other commenter… but…
WRONG
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/08/26/notoriously-mental-serious-sam-hd-supermercial/
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While I do actually love the serious sam series, I even bought the sequal. 18 pounds for an antiquated rerelease? Try 5
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It also has 16 player co-op, something that should be mentioned.
I do not know if the original had 16 player co-op, but there you go.
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I can confirm that the original allowed up to sixteen players to run backwards whilst shooting.
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Yes, but does it come with 15 other people to play with?
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Does it increase the number of enemies by 16 times?
O_O
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One thing to note in this regard is that this one works over the internets, not just LAN. Quite great being able to just hop into a running game and shoot wildly around while seeing 15 other people doing the same.
The only game where I use the ‘Quick Match’-button.
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Just played through the entire campaign with like 4 other people. ‘Twas great.
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That was the scariest thing EVAAAAR! :))
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If I had seen the happyfuntime video yesterday, I would have been convinced to buy this game when I could have saved five dollars.
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Aaaah, I remember those lan parties. Ten people with chainsaws running towards a bull, oh, the memories.
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I like these videos very much. The infomercial is just brilliant. Love it. Also love crowd control shooters cause sometimes (a lot of the times) I don’t want to hide behind a crate popping shots or sneaking around in the shadows, I just want to run around and shoot stuff!
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ZIG, there’s hundreds of new games every year for guys like you. SSHD is a move to be encouraged! How many of your all-time favourite games of ever would you pay again to have remade in a format that doesn’t make your eyes be sick, but hasn’t had the gameplay/plot you love tweaked as in a sequel?
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The band (Tegan & Sara) at a concert I was at the other week came out to the ‘sunshine, lolliepops,…’ song, I now have two great memories linked to this song, the concert and shooting piñata like headless-kamikazes in the face.
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Now available for £9.99 from
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Now here: http://www.getgamesgo.com/catalogue/game/serious-sam-hd for £9.99
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Oh no, not another games download service. I’ve got too many passwords now :(
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don’t worry, just mail me all your password and if you forget one I’ll gladly tell it to you
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I agree with other comments – I had this originally and thoroughly enjoyed it. But would I pay again for exactly the same monsters and levels?
Not convinced.
Croteam could easily and produced a mix of old levels and new ones for the new engine (a bit like a Director’s cut with extra stuff added in).
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An entire thread on Serious Sam and not a single mention of “frantic action feeling“?
For shame!
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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