Going Through The Serious Sam Games Again

[Rudolph]

33 minutes ago, Jello said:

Because they started out making one or two games, and ended up making a Sam game.

To be fair, that is not unlike Croteam, given how Serious Sam was created in the first place! :P

[slugger]

Serious Sam's levels are beautiful and they feel great to move around in. I wish I could live in the grassy ruins from SE. Calling Serious Sam a "run backwards and shoot simulator" is no more insulting than calling Mario a "run right and jump simulator". That is how you play the game, and it's spectacular and super fun.

[Rudolph]

Okay, so I replayed the Karnak demo in Serious Sam HD this morning. I deliberately avoided searching for secrets and as such the game felt much less tedious. When the game plays like Doom or Quake (i.e. taking places in corridors and small rooms), it is perfectly fine. However, the large rooms still feel woefully underutilized: despite skipping the secrets, I was never low on ammunition and health and I kept bracing myself for large mobs that (almost) never came. Then again, I reckon that it is much harder to keep track of enemies in first-person than in a top-down shooter like Bogus Detour, which I guess reinforces my belief that Serious Sam gameplay is ultimately better suited for that genre of game than a first-person shooter and makes Bogus Detour's flop all the more heart-breaking. :(

 

It is worth noting that I was playing on Normal difficulty, but I am reluctant to increase the difficulty, as I read that in addition to increasing the number of enemies, it also makes them more annoying, e.g. making the Kleer shoot homing projectiles. I wonder if there is a mod out there that merely increases the monster population.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

Eh. I guess I spoke too soon: Hard difficulty seems to be basically what I was looking for.

 

Still, it is not perfect, as the game has the nasty habit of spawning dangerous enemies (e.g. Kleers, Kamikazes) right on top of me as well as Arachnoids in areas with no cover. There is a lot of trial and error involved - the ambush in the western corner of the Ankh Pool courtyard comes to mind - and it can be really annoying at times. On the plus side, I do appreciate that ranged enemies - minus the Arachnoids - use projectile attacks rather than hitscan ones, and some of the projectiles can even be shot down.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Rudolph

[Jello]

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Eh. I guess I spoke too soon: Hard difficulty seems to be basically what I was looking for.

 

Still, it is not perfect, as the game has the nasty habit of spawning dangerous enemies (e.g. Kleers, Kamikazes) right on top of me as well as Arachnoids in areas with no cover. There is a lot of trial and error involved - the ambush in the western corner of the Ankh Pool courtyard comes to mind - and it can be really annoying at times. On the plus side, I do appreciate that ranged enemies - minus the Arachnoids - use projectile attacks rather than hitscan ones, and some of the projectiles can even be shot down.

You've basically described Serious Sam in a nutshell. I fell in love with the game when I played the demo, and then bought TFE  in 2001. It was a wonderful throwback to 90s shooters. 

 

At that point shooters were aiming more for modern styles, more military shooters like COD and Medal of Honor, or campaign based like Halo. So to have a simple, straightforward shooter like Serious Sam, available for $20, was wonderful.

 

You might not like it, and you shouldn't force yourself to like it. But when it came out, it was something special.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Jello

[Rudolph]

@Jello Well, I have been replaying the Karnak Demo on Hard, this time finding all the secrets, and I think I am getting the hang of it. I already own the first three Serious Sam games (I cannot even remember when or why I got them in the first place), so I might as well try my best to enjoy them.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Rudolph

[Antroid]

I've been rushing to replay SS4 in my preparation for the new campaign, and it's as fun as I remembered. The only part of SS4 i don't like are the giant walking mech sections. I love the little riding sections in the giant expanses of France, even if there's no gameplay there.

 

Also, I love the first half of SS3. Every SS game starts slower and with less enemies than it usually gets to having by mid-game. SS3's beginning is very atmospheric and the music is great. Maybe the museum level is a bit boring, but I love the city levels. I think the closest SS comes to having a bad game would be SS2 because SS2 is the only one that actually is as simple as "run backwards and shoot". In the other ones you mostly can't get away with that, at least on Serious, where you actually are made to learn how to handle all the different enemies and the crowds. The greatest parts of SS are running around in a giant field and handling a giant crowd that's slowly converging on you. A lot more than just running backwards and shooting goes into it, so everyone who says that instantly outs themselves lmao

 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Antroid

[NuMetalManiak]

22 hours ago, Rudolph said:

making the Kleer shoot homing projectiles

Huh? I didn't know they did this. I always thought that when I played on the harder settings they were just more aggressive and did more damage in general. I just may need to replay this game.

[Rudolph]

One thing I have to wonder: is the game's habit of spawning enemies out of thin air rather than placing them in the maps right off the bat the result of incompetence or sadism on the developers' part or is it actually some kind of workaround for the Serious Engine's technical limitations?

[Antroid]

12 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Huh? I didn't know they did this. I always thought that when I played on the harder settings they were just more aggressive and did more damage in general. I just may need to replay this game.

Its only something that they did to the Fusion edition of SS3, giving some enemies extra attacks out of nowhere.

 

12 hours ago, Rudolph said:

One thing I have to wonder: is the game's habit of spawning enemies out of thin air rather than placing them in the maps right off the bat the result of incompetence or sadism on the developers' part or is it actually some kind of workaround for the Serious Engine's technical limitations?

Literally just the style of the game. It works out better when they spawn rather than encountering them one by one in the maps, because it creates fixed combat situations. You really seem convinced that not being like doom or quake is "incompetence" or the games "not being tightly designed" (lmao), when it's just a different approach that works better for these games.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Antroid

[Kyle07]

I love the Serious Sam series. I have to admit that I haven't bought or played Serious Sam 4 yet. The negative reviews at the time of release gave me a bad feeling about the game. But now the negative reviews are gone. I would give it a try.

 

Enjoyed SS3 a lot with the modern Egypt theme and I need to finish Bogus Detour, which is awesome as well.

[Rudolph]

9 hours ago, Antroid said:

You really seem convinced that not being like doom or quake is "incompetence" or the games "not being tightly designed" (lmao), when it's just a different approach that works better for these games.

I absolutely disagree. Having to run through vast, empty courtyards for minutes, only for enemies to suddenly spawn out of thin air usually right next to you when you grab a small health vial that is located in a corner on the far side of the courtyard is not what I would call "working better"; it just punishes you for exploring and it relies too much on trial and error by forcing you to memorize the location of every invisible spawning point.

 

The actually better approach in a game that features such large environments would be to allow the player to see the enemies from afar so that they can prepare in consequence. Now, I have yet to play Serious Sam 2 and replay Serious Sam 3, so maybe Croteam got better at designing enemy encounters, but Serious Sam 1's overreliance on cheap ambushes is annoying - especially when it involves Arachnoids in the open.

 

In contrast, Bogus Detour has most of its enemies already placed on the map and when it spawns additional enemies, it gives you visible cues, e.g. teleporting devices, reinforcement drop pods, shadows of enemies dropping from the ceiling. Also, since it is a top-down shooter, you have a 360 view of the battlefield, so you do not have to waste precious seconds to try to figure out where an attack is coming.

 

Speaking of Bogus Detour, I think I have figured out why the Kleers are more fun to fight in this one: in addition to being able to track their movements much more easily thanks to the top-down view, you are given a dodge roll ability to put some distance between you and them and also you can take one down with a single shotgun blast rather than three. Heck, you can even outrun Headless Kamikazes by executing a quick series of dodge rolls!

Edited January 25, 2022 by Rudolph

[BGreener]

21 hours ago, Rudolph said:

One thing I have to wonder: is the game's habit of spawning enemies out of thin air rather than placing them in the maps right off the bat the result of incompetence or sadism on the developers' part or is it actually some kind of workaround for the Serious Engine's technical limitations?

Equal parts gameplay design choice like when Doom does it, and workaround for the seriously obscene monster counts.

[act]

Well I decided to replay the game a bit, and it is pretty bad. I think I enjoy First Encounter moreso than I do Second Encounter, simply because I genuinely believe that Second Encounter is just way too annoying.

I need everyone to be on the same page as I am when I call something "annoying", versus when I call something "difficult". Annoying means I have the ability to do it, but it's not fun to do. Difficult means I cannot do it, full stop. Serious Sam is definitely leaning into annoying, I can play the game and win, sure. But it just feels like such a goddamn annoyance when I load two 12-gauge shots into a Kleer from 5 feet away, and he doesn't die. I wish they made the Kleer more of a one-shot against the Double-Barrel.

[Antroid]

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I absolutely disagree. Having to run through vast, empty courtyards for minutes, only for enemies to suddenly spawn out of thin air usually right next to you when you grab a small health vial that is located in a corner on the far side of the courtyard is not what I would call "working better"; it just punishes you for exploring and it relies too much on trial and error by forcing you to memorize the location of every invisible spawning point.

 

The actually better approach in a game that features such large environments would be to allow the player to see the enemies from afar so that they can prepare in consequence. Now, I have yet to play Serious Sam 2 and replay Serious Sam 3, so maybe Croteam got better at designing enemy encounters, but Serious Sam 1's overreliance on cheap ambushes is annoying - especially when it involves Arachnoids in the open.

The overwhelming punishments for taking one out-of-the-way item are a meme and they get away from it as the games go along, but they should not be taken seriously. I for example never pick those items up. And for the actual, normal fights, they are absolutely all fair, beatable, and you never actually have to run "for minutes" unless you're doing something very wrong. There's only a handful of fights in the entire series that I would consider to be a bit on the mean side. If you're considering the regular Serious Sam fights to be "unfair ambushes" (ones that aren't secrets that are meant to fuck with you in a funny way), well, I guess you have to learn how to deal with the staple Serious Sam enemies. Kleers, for example: you can absolutely deal with them in first person, as soon as you internalize how they move. It only takes a bit of skill and you can dodge them and then move in such a way that they won't hit you from behind, or actually just kill them from afar, depending on the fight.

 

And preparation is absolutely against what Serious Sam combat is about. Sure, you can learn the fights and that's how you do the no-death runs and such, but normally it's about thinking in the moment, adapting. Having everyone roaming around ahead of time would absolutely ruin it.

 

It kinda seems like you're trying to play serious sam not like it's meant to be played. It's like with me and F.E.A.R.: I never have fun with the "great AI" in FEAR. It just doesn't click with me. Maybe Serious Sam doesn't click with you. Of course, so long as you keep insisting it's them "being bad at designing enemy encounters" you'll keep expecting the games to play like other games which they are not...

 

30 minutes ago, act said:

Well I decided to replay the game a bit, and it is pretty bad. I think I enjoy First Encounter moreso than I do Second Encounter, simply because I genuinely believe that Second Encounter is just way too annoying.

A lot of people have Second Encounter as their favorite, but despite being a huge fan of the series I don't really share that opinion. To me Second Encounter is annoying at points, but mostly with the wacky environments that bounce everything around and whatnot, not actually just fighting the enemies. They give you too many OP weapons in Second Encounter for most fights to be any bad (sniper rifle specifically). Also, Kleers are the best like they are. They made them more frail in Serious Sam 2 and it ruined them as enemies, because you no longer had to wait until they were really close, which was a really fun way to fight them. I think they overtuned Kleers a bit in SS3, where they seem harder than they should be, though still very fun. But they return to perfection in SS4.

[Rudolph]

31 minutes ago, act said:

But it just feels like such a goddamn annoyance when I load two 12-gauge shots into a Kleer from 5 feet away, and he doesn't die. I wish they made the Kleer more of a one-shot against the Double-Barrel.

Amen to that! Like I said, the Kleer is such a baffling enemy. The game already has the Gnaar and its variants, which are perfect as fast melee attackers.

 

It certainly did not need Quake's Fiend with a ranged attack.

[Antroid]

1 minute ago, Rudolph said:

Amen to that! Like I said, the Kleer is such a baffling enemy. The game already has the Gnaar and its variants, which are perfect as fast melee attackers.

 

It certainly did not need Quake's Fiend with a ranged attack.

The gnaars are zero threat. Kleer function completely differently and are one of the most fun enemies in the series. I have no idea how you can be so wrong about them lmao

[Rudolph]

30 minutes ago, Antroid said:

And for the actual, normal fights, they are absolutely all fair, beatable, and you never actually have to run "for minutes" unless you're doing something very wrong.

Well, that is basically what happens in Karnak's Ankh Pool courtyard if I do not go for the items that cause enemies to spawn.

 

30 minutes ago, Antroid said:

Having everyone roaming around ahead of time would absolutely ruin it.

Bogus Detour did just that and it is a great game.

 

Also, Serious Sam does sell itself as a game series where you run backwards shooting at large hordes of enemies. 

 

30 minutes ago, Antroid said:

It kinda seems like you're trying to play serious sam not like it's meant to be played.

So not exploring the levels, avoiding most encounters and ignoring items is how I am meant to play Serious Sam? I am pretty sure Croteam did not intend to make a survival horror there. I mean, at this rate, you might as well tell me that I am not even supposed to shoot the monsters.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Rudolph

[Antroid]

Just now, Rudolph said:

Well, that is basically what happens in Karnak's Ankh Pool courtyard if I do not go for the items that cause enemies to spawn. 

If you bypass all the enemies, it hardly takes a minute anyway.

 

1 minute ago, Rudolph said:

Bogus Detour did just that and it is a great game.

It's also not a first person shooter... And judging by the sounds of it, it plays very differently from the main games.

2 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Also, Serious Sam does sell itself as a game series where you run backwards shooting at large hordes of enemies. 

Because most people wouldn't want to learn the game and play on Serious. That's just marketing.

3 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

So not exploring the levels, avoiding most encounters and ignoring items is how I am meant to play Serious Sam?

 

I am pretty sure Croteam did not intend to make a survival horror there...

If you can't deal with the secret meme ambushes, don't pick up the obvious trap items. No other encounters are unfair enough to be complaining about them.

Exploring the levels is fine, but Serious Sam games are definitely way less exploration-based than most classic shooters. If you decide to run across a giant yard to pick up some 10 hp vial in a corner, that's on you. You're gonna be resupplied before the next big fight anyway.

 

What suggests that you're playing it wrong is stuff like being apparently unable to deal with kleers, and thinking that the enemy encounters are not well-designed. Such frustration can only happen if you're really trying to push against the current of how the game wants you to play. I mean, if you say something as ridiculous as "why did it need kleers, it already has gnaars", there is absolutely no way you're doing anywhere approaching adequate at the games yet. That's like if I said "why did Doom 2 need revenants, it already has a perfectly fine ranged attacker with the Imp". Surely you realize how insane that would sound? Now imagine, your statement with the kleer sounds one hundred percent like that. Do you think the person who'd say that about Doom 2 has grasped the basics of how the game plays?

[Rudolph]

I do realize that you are being nothing more than a condescending jerk right now. I kindly ask of you to stop.

 

And yes, I do dislike the Revenant - especially its homing attack - and I am clearly not alone there. Oops?

 

And yes, I do know how to deal with the Kleer, thank you. I still find it unnecessarily annoying: it looks bland, it is not meaty (so no gore) and it takes more punishment than it should, and as such it is not fun to fight or to kill.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Rudolph

[Antroid]

I don't think someone who dislikes the revenant is compatible with enjoying serious sam. That's just disliking games having any sort of fun challenge.

[Liberation]

Pack it in you two, or I'll close the thread.

[BGreener]

30 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

And yes, I do know how to deal with the Kleer, thank you. I still find it unnecessarily annoying: it looks bland, it is not meaty (so no gore) and it takes more punishment than it should, and as such it is not fun to fight or to kill.

That’s odd. The way you described it isn’t far off from revenant complaints, especially in saying how they take more hits than they should and finding a “bag of bones” more boring than a fleshy enemy.

[Rudolph]

Well, unlike the Kleer, the Revenant does look fairly unique and it does produce blood when shot; also, they do not move ridiculously fast. The reason why I dislike the Revenant is because of its homing attack, which strikes me as kind of cheap. 

 

In many ways, I like its 2016 counterpart better. I also seem to remember that the Doom 3 Revenant's homing missiles can be shot down as well.

 

17 minutes ago, Liberation said:

Pack it in you two, or I'll close the thread.

What do you mean, "you two"? Antroid is the one who keeps attacking me for not liking everything in an otherwise good video game.

 

I am trying to remain civil and constructive here, hence why I have asked them to stop.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Rudolph

[PsychEyeball]

Personally I enjoy the revenant as an enemy, but they start breaking my balls really hard when some WAD authors start lowering walls and send over 50 revenants at me with nothing else to fight. I just feel revenants aren't fragile enough to be used as a mass ambush enemy, yet have the downside of being able to deal incredible amounts of damage to you.

 

At the least, Kleer skeletons are a better mass enemy to fight because they take way less damage to kill and are much more predictable. Plus there are many worthwhile options to clear a bunch of Kleer, while on the other side, mass Revenants can only be rocketed or BFGed. 

Edited January 25, 2022 by PsychEyeball

[BGreener]

15 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

In defense of the Revenant, it does look fairly unique and it does produce blood when shot. Also, they do not move ridiculously fast like the Kleer. The reason why I dislike the Revenant is because of its homing attack, which strikes me as kind of cheap. 

If we’re going “full-on hairsplitting and satirical pettiness”: They’re just an armored skeleton, they’re one of Doom 2’s fastest enemies, their death animation is just them falling over with a “crack” sound (unlike the violent, gory death sprites common to most other enemies) and they take more than one SSG blast to take down!

 

Silly satire aside, they’re very fun to fight and can be very essential to making engrossing combat encounters. Same exact thing applies to the Kleer, and funnily enough they’re both fun to fight in groups and they’re both bony boys.

Edited January 25, 2022 by BGrieber

[Rudolph]

13 minutes ago, BGrieber said:

they’re one of Doom 2’s fastest enemies

Really? I thought the Demon was faster.

 

At least, the Revenant does not constantly leap at you like the Kleer does. I do not mind a leaping enemy like Quake's Fiend, but to give it a (homing on higher difficulty settings) projectile attack as well strikes me as a bit overkill.

 

Also, a tall skeleton with a shoulder missile launcher is cooler than just a moving bull skeleton. Given how colorful and wacky Serious Sam enemies tend to be, I find the Kleer to be kind of lacking: I will take a chainsaw-toting maniac with a pumpkin for a head over it any day!

Edited January 25, 2022 by Rudolph

[NuMetalManiak]

Demon moves at 10 map units per frame (175.0 map units per second), the revenant actually also moves at 10 map units per frame (175.0 map units per second) so they're the same.

 

Now that I think about it Kleers are the most versatile SS enemy (I haven't played past 2 sorry but they do have three types of attacks as opposed to 1-2 for every other non-boss enemy). I do know they usually don't use the chainballs if they're in medium range and closing in, as they really want to get in for the leap move. From my experience at least.

[Antroid]

23 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

What do you mean, "you two"? Antroid is the one who keeps attacking me for not liking everything in an otherwise good video game.

Where did I attack you? You fill the thread with both underhanded and blatant insinuations that Croteam don't know what they're doing and that the games are badly designed, but when it turns out that you don't jive with the games' style of gameplay at all, pointing that out is "an attack"? How else would one express that if you don't even enjoy one of the most basic, most used enemies in the series, you're probably not going to enjoy the general concept of the gameplay, because it's based on the same things that make fighting the Kleer fun (movement and dodging, controlling crowds that can overwhelm you)? Serious Sam games are played either to relax with "holding S and shooting" (especially in Coop) or for the proper challenge, where you stop the games from letting you tank every fight. How can you expect to enjoy the games if you dislike the challenging parts? Instead of learning how to handle the things in your way and have the fun the game can provide, you keep trying to push the blame onto the games' design instead. I fail to see how it's "constructive".

[Rudolph]

8 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Demon moves at 10 map units per frame (175.0 map units per second), the revenant actually also moves at 10 map units per frame (175.0 map units per second) so they're the same.

Yeah, I saw that. Well, damn. I guess Doom 3 Revenants must have made quite an impression on me then! :P

 

13 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Now that I think about it Kleers are the most versatile SS enemy (I haven't played past 2 sorry but they do have three types of attacks as opposed to 1-2 for every other non-boss enemy). I do know they usually don't use the chainballs if they're in medium range and closing in, as they really want to get in for the leap move. From my experience at least.

Yeah, they are definitely like that in Bogus Detour. Thank god for the dodge roll, because holy shit, they sure love throwing those chainballs.

 

I guess this is due to them being already placed in the levels and thus getting them to attack you from afar much more often.