Rating: 
Summary: A second helping of some serious fun
Review: "Serious Sam: The First Encounter" was released less than a year ago, and was an immediate hit with critics and fans. Developed by an unknown team from Croatia, Croteam, "Serious Sam" offered fast-paced, Doomesque action, along with great visuals, all for under $20 bucks. Powered by the "Serious" game engine, "Serious Sam" was able to throw out huge numbers of enemies at the player, onscreen at the same time, without a decrease in system performance.Sam "Serious" Stone is back in the sequel, "Serious Sam: The Second Encounter," and is better than the original. It looks great, too, using an enhanced version of the "Serious" engine. This time around, environments are varied and colorful; the original Sam featured desert environments that all looked essentially the same. Gameplay remains the same: proceed through a level and destroy everything that moves. Various power-ups are provided, such as invulnerability and super-speed, which prove to be invaluable in some levels. There's not much thinking here, just blasting monsters into oblivion. Sam ships with the standard multiplay deathmatch, but also features cooperative multiplayer, which allows you to join in with other players online to battle through each level. It's great fun, and at under $20, a great bargin.
Rating: 
Summary: Only an average game; only an average value.
Review: ... Serious Sam: Second Encounter is similar to a modern-day Doom, in that there is virtually no story line and very little strategy. It's essentially an all-out frag fest. Many of the monsters in SS:SE seem similar to Doom as do several of the weapons. Otherwise, Doom was a much better, higher quality, more refined game when it came out. In a nutshell, Serious Sam feels, sounds, and looks like a high-quality shareware game. The graphics are pretty good and I like the fact that many of the maps are "al fresco" amidst Incan-like landscapes, etc., but the graphics engine, itself, seems a lot lower quality than a game such as Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, or Return To Castle Wolfenstein. The textures seem generic and very artificial -borderline cartoonish. The sounds are not immersive and pretty weak, and the gameplay, itself, seems to lack coherency, refinement, and structure. That doesn't mean that the game can't be entertaining on its own merits. There are a plethora of unique and cool monsters and cool weapons and there's more action than you can shake a stick at. But compared to other FPS that have come out the last several years, (e.g., Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Unreal Tournament, Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault) Serious Sam, overall, can't hold a candle to them and is simply quasi-anachronistic: At 20 dollars, it's perfectly priced.
Rating: 
Summary: Compared to more expensive games..
Review: ..Serious Sam is far superior. It plays well on any decent machine, it is correctly priced and the graphics are outstanding. It is amazing how the game engine allows you to walk into the background scenery, like near the end where you have to walk towards a cathedral in the distance. It is barely visible when you start the level but you do walk right up to it! The detailed textures in the levels' buildings are amazing. And of course there are gobs of monsters to shoot down... I love using the new sniper rifle and flamethrower weapons. I have played some more expensive games that were nowhere near as good as Serious Sam. I can't wait for the conclusion, and that is my only gripe, the single player game was too short.
Rating:
Summary: for the worst
Review: 9 month ago i went to the computer store i just finished playing
quake 3 arena,unreal tournament and wanted a nother sweet deatmatch game to be hooked there wasn't any deathmatch game
there so the guy at the store reccomended me serious sam the
first encounter i didn't really want it and didn't think it would
be a safe beet to get it but my dad said it looks nice the the
guy at the shop kept explaining to me what a great game this is
(and he was right) so at the end i said well, ok its a first person shooter and the screenshots look nice si i took it
Rating:
Summary: The Best Sequel.........
Review: After playing the demo of this game, I knew I wanted to buy it as soon as it came out. When you first start the game, it starts basically like the demo until you get inside of the temple. After you get inside............well I don't want to give anything away, so you'll have to buy it. Not only does this game have awesome graphics, but the variety of monsters is outstanding. When you look at the box, you might think that it gives away the monsters you have to battle. This is not true. Throughout the game, you encounter many demons and strange looking creatures that you never thought possible. Another great thing about this game is variety. As you travel through the various levels you will be amazed as the rooms bounce you back and forth, spiked walls, and demons lurking in the dark. Another hint about the system you need to have. I run a P4 1.7GHZ with 128 RAM and a 32 RAM video card. This is THE minimum that you can have to play this game, dispite what the package says. To get the full effect, you can never run on minimum requirements.
Rating:
Summary: By far one of the best games I've played in several years.
Review: Being a hardcore old skool retro-gamer, I've found myself constantly disappointed with the 'modern' PC game. 'Serious Sam: The Second Encounter' really brought it all back for me. It's fresh, funny, challenging, and beautiful. Quite honestly I love the engine, I agree it may not be as complex or flexible as some of the other FPS engines on the market today, but it has many fantastic things about it that really create the right atmosphere for gamers like myself. One of the most appreciated features that 'Serious Sam: The Second Encounter' has, is the ability to play the single player levels with a few buddies over a LAN. This is incredible amount of fun! I sort of bought this game on whim, hearing a few good things about it from friends, I thought it might be worth a boo over the LAN - and was it ever! We stayed up all night blasting are way through wave after wave of enemies, cooperating to solve the game's puzzles, and stomping the massive boss creatures into the dirt. To conclude: My expectations were blown out of the water, and quite honestly this is by far one of the best games I have played in several years. I'm very thankful that these type of games haven't been forgotten, and they certainly haven't lost their charm! Mad props to Croteam, and I hope to see even more 'Serious Sam' sequels in the future!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best FPS ever
Review: Buy this game now. All I have to say. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Long loading times
Review: First of all I watched all the demos in this game and I have to say I just couldn't wait to get a new game started. Then when the game started to load it took for at least half an hour to load and when it was finished the game went blank screen. I don't know if its just the disk or my computer but I doubht it was my computer. Just look at the disk when you get to the car and don't be like me and miss all of the action.
Rating:
Summary: fun, fun, fun...
Review: graphics galore!, shoot a tree with the rocket launcher and watch, much, much fun, a must have...
Rating: 
Summary: This Game Should Never Have Been Released !!!
Review: I hate to write a bad review for anything, but this game takes the cake. I'm basing my review upon my experience with the Half-Life series, so perhaps I'm setting standards too high, but here goes: Pros: Nice action, beautiful scenery, nice cut-aways Cons:
(1) Poor Interaction with Vodoo Brand Graphic Accelerators: First thing to do, even before trying to run this game, is download the patch that allows the game to work with a Vodoo Accelerator. If you don't, it won't run. What kind of software gaming company builds a FPS without bothering to adequately test it on a Vodoo Accelerator? (2) Slow on Even Moderately-Fast CPUs: Okay, I have a 550 MHz Dell PC, but everytime there's more than a few bad guys on the screen, the frame update rate goes down to less than about 1 fps. Very annoying. (3) Sound Not Working: two problems: first, you have to play with the options just to get the sound to turn on (turn off auto-adjust). Then, the sound of your guns is noticeably delayed, verses the graphics. Very Annoying (4) Frequent Crashes: Something about the gernade launcher causes the program to crash, if firing more than one gernade at a time. Very Annoying. Don't bother to try to use the gernade launcher, if you don't want to have to reboot often All in all, the makers of this game, in my humble opinion, should have spent a few more months doing some fine-tuning. I would not buy any more products from Croteam, based on this ... game. (Maybe its my computer, but I doubt it.) (2)
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