In this review, everything gets serious in the GameCube game Serious Sam: Next Encounter. We find out how well this FPS game plays.
This game was released in 2004 and is a spinoff to the main series.
The game starts off with Mental telling a minion not to enter the time lock while he is gone. After he leaves, the minion jumps into the time lock anyway. After that, a scientist detects unusual time anomalies. He then asks Serious Sam to investigate.
You start off in a coliseum where you obtain some of the more powerful weapons in the game right away. You’ll be able to take on several hoards of enemies with these weapons, allowing you to familiarize yourself with the controls.
As you fight, you’ll likely be able to score your first kill streaks. Kill streaks occur when you kill 20 enemies in a combination. When that happens, the screen flashes a message saying that you are in a mega kill streak. When that happens, you’ll be able to run faster and earn even more points per kill during this brief time period. A final tally is then shown at the end of the killing streak.
At the end of each level, you’ll be given a total score for the level. The higher the score, the better the medal you can get (gold being the highest medal you can be awarded). You get points for kill, a fast time, and finding the level secret.
In the levels themselves, you can obtain various item pickups. This includes ammo, weapons, health, and armour.
The health you can pick up has quite a range of different increments. The smallest health pickup is 2 health. From there, you can get 5, 25, 50, 100, and the rare 200 health boost.
Armour pickups are similar. You can pick up 5, 25, 50, 100, and 200 armour boosts.
In all, you can cap out at 200 health and armour respectively. The pitfall is that any value over 100 means you’ll be subject to a health and/or armour penalty of 1 point per second. This drops gradually until you reach 100 health and/or armour. This encourages you to speed through the level because you either lose it from taking damage or simply lose it over time. Better to use it up from damage, really.
Additionally, you can obtain additional ammo. There are different ammo types like 9mm ammo, rockets, grenades, and napalm to name a few examples. In addition to this, there are special ammo types. An example is the sonic rockets for your rocket launcher. You can cycle through the special ammunition types at any time as you hold that weapon.
Also, there are weapon pickups to be had. This includes pistols, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and flame thrower to name a number of examples. Note that some weapons share ammunition pools (pistols and minigun is an example of this).
There are a few keys to find along the way. Generally speaking, the game features fairly linear pathways, so finding the keys and putting them in is pretty straight forward for the most part.
There are also special designated items. These items can be anything from a weapon to a health pack to an armour boost. Either way, they are highlighted by a giant yellow arrow. Picking up the item will trigger the next wave of enemies, so you can plan your way around that if there are other items available for pickup.
Standing in your way are enemies. For the most part, enemies will swarm you, though different enemies behave differently. Some are suicide bombers that run into you and explode. There are also small red enemies that fire shots at you. Purple small enemies use spread shots. Mech enemies fire laser weapons at you. There are also larger green enemies that fire slow moving green shots at you. There are a number of different enemies you can encounter, but that’s a sampling.
As you move along, you’ll also obtain various e-mails. You can access these e-mails via the “Z” button. E-mails generally give you small bits of information. This includes general plot messages, tips on how to use weapons, and different enemy types.
Occasionally, you’ll gain access to a vehicle. Generally speaking, these vehicles are there to give you a boost in armour as well as added firepower. It’s temporary before it eventually blows up due to enemy damage, but it offers a nice bonus while it lasts.
One last thing to note is the various secrets. Each level has a secret for you to uncover. Sometimes, it’s just you finding a teleporter in the level. Other times, you are blasting a wall or hitting a special secret switch. Regardless, the secret generally contains various items that help you along in the game.
You’ll also, of course, encounter a mission boss. These bosses are generally located at the end of each location you go to. Defeating the boss means you beat the level and mission.
A style this game generally goes for is a satirical take of your average first person shooter. This, of course, has a long history of success already. Games like Timesplitters 2 and Duke Nukem 3D show how successful a violent FPS game and comedy can work quite well.
Unfortunately, just because that combination can work together doesn’t mean that it always will work together. This game is certainly case in point. For one, you need a compelling core game. In this game, you do get wide open areas, but these open areas are generally quite barren. There’s only a sparse smattering of items strewn apart to break apart the boring monotony of just random hills or simple walls and floor. Sure, there is the occasional indoor area, but this is generally reduced down to that single long hallway for a level design. Basically, some of the lazier level designs out there.
In addition to this, levels are largely reduced down to walking from mass enemy arena to mass enemy arena. While this can serve as a good focal point for the level, when 80% of the game is like this, it becomes a long boring drag through a repetitious pounding of sameness.
What features are in here often feels more like a tick to fill in a checkbox. We need a game with switches: check. We need a game with keys, preferably unique ones: check. Oh yeah, we need to throw in a vehicle or two to spice up the action: check. If at all possible, maybe throw in some special ammo type to make shooting more interesting: check. All of these features can be nicely integrated and woven into a well thought out game. In this case, a vast majority of these features feels more like something that was just tacked on at the last minute. It’s not there to make the game more interesting, but rather, it’s there because some high up thinks it needs to be there.
Defenders of the game would be quick to point out that this is more of a mindless arcade style shooter. As such, you should look at it through that lens. For me, even in that lens, you need to have that feeling of overall progression to make a compelling game. This goes beyond just advancing levels. This game doesn’t really offer that. You just strafe lots and hold down the fire button for success. You can only go so far before this style of game gets to be boring.
What’s worse is that the AI does leave a lot to be desired. Enemies sometimes get stuck behind objects while others simply follow a predetermined path before attacking you. So, at times, you do find yourself working around the AI rather than working around the strengths and weaknesses of enemies.
Over top of that, I like seeing games with either new and unique features or a unique set of well known features. The best this game can boast is the boost you get from a killing spree. It’s hard to point to that and say, “hey, that’s new and exciting!” As for existing features, well, I’ve already gone over that.
Probably the only positive I could find in this game is the use of different ammo types. Some games have this already, but are generally limited to maybe one or two weapons. This game features many more of that and few games do possess this. So, there is a positive to be had here.
Generally speaking, you really have to dig to find positives. They are there, but even if you do find them, the negatives simply outweigh the positives. While this game seems promising at first in the menu system and the first level or two, it simply goes downhill from there. You have repetitive level systems, features loosely tacked on, wonky enemy AI, and large open boring empty spaces. The interesting variety of ammunition types is certainly a positive to note, but it’s hard to really pin down anything that I’d call a positive aspect to the game. It’s a pretty bland bare bones game in the end.
Graphics aren’t that much better. While the draw distance works in this games favour, little else actually helps anything here. The models are pretty basic, the landscapes are bland, and things like statues could have easily been pulled off on a previous generation console like the N64. For as much flack as the game got for the fog distance, I’ve personally seen more impressive visuals from Turok 2 – Seeds of Evil. The effects of enemies getting killed is only marginally more impressive than what is seen in Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (and I’d call the level design in Zero Hour superior in the end). While this game can handle a nice amount of enemies on the screen and the menu system works quite well, there’s very little to look at the game and say, “that is impressive!”
Audio isn’t much better. There is a small variety of tracks, but most of them sound very similar to each other. Honestly, I thought Rome missions only had 3 or 4 tracks until I did some digging around. Even with what music is in there, I don’t see any of them as being particularly memorable. The voice acting is OK, but nothing huge. Finally, the sound effects are half ways decent, but doesn’t really make up for the slack left behind by other elements. It’s a pretty boring affair on that front.
Overall, I was intrigued by the concepts promised in this game. Unfortunately, the game simply let me down when it came to for executing what it has to offer. Features feel tacked on, level designs aren’t all that great, the constant hoards of enemies attacking you get boring after a while, and the AI isn’t all that great. Graphics are pretty bland save for the nice draw distance and the audio isn’t all that memorable. So, a disappointing game all around.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Died in the last portions of Jiayuguan Fortress.
General gameplay: 15/25
Replay value: 5/10
Graphics: 5/10
Audio: 2/5
Overall rating: 54%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
