Serious Sam The First Encounter Review

Introduction to Serious Sam The First Encounter
This is a classic game from a long time ago. The story of Serious Sam is a bit weird. It involves time travel and shooting at things. The game follows Serious Sam on his journey to stop Mental.
The game does not follow the whole story but only a part of it. This means when you reach the end of the game you will get a cliffhanger. Luckily the second and third Serious Sam encounters are already here. The story does not after the third Serious Sam encounter. There will be a fourth Serious Sam encounter that will be released in August 2020.
Serious Sam The First Encounter was hard for me to get through. The beginning was very nice and good pacing. I really enjoyed it and had fun. Then halfway through the game, it became more and more of a drag to complete it.
The save system got me in death loops and this was not a rare occurrence. I have fought many death loops in the game where you load up the game and die within a second. This happened so fast that your controls after the loading screen. When you have to repeat this for 30 minutes to get out of a death loop you will lose your sanity.
Don’t get me wrong the game did have its fun and wacky moments that were enjoyable. If you are going to play this I heavily suggest that you select the easy mode and enjoy the ride. On normal, the enemies will be able to one-hit KO you. Usually, this occurs with boss fights and harder difficulties.
Don’t think that armor is going to save you! I have died many times from one bullet or a rocket in one hit, when you have 200 armor equipped and full health. Maybe you will think like me, to pick the enemies of one by one. Well, there is more bad news if that was going to be your strategy. The enemies can spawn in hordes of over 70 enemies. Who is going to save you then? Manual save a lot but beware, be careful when you hit save. If you choose the wrong time then you will have to fight the death loop! Serious Sam The First Encounter is longer than you would expect. It took me thirteen hours to complete Serious Sam The First Encounter, a game from 2001. Granted, over at least five hours have been me yelling at the screen at one of the many death loops trying to break free. I remember that there was one time when I was finally free from a death loop. I had three hp left, I ran and killed the enemies behind me. I quickly saved glad I was free from the grip of the death loop, or so I thought. The enemies in Serious Sam The First Encounter have the nasty habit of respawning in areas that you have already cleared. An enemy, a bull-like creature had spawned behind me and ran me over. I had just saved before the bull-like creature hit me. I got stuck in another death loop. The closer I came to the end of Serious Sam First Encounter, the more death loops I encountered. This made it a challenge to complete the game.
Don’t get me wrong I loved to play Serious Sam The First Encounter. I just wish I had chosen a lower difficulty setting.

Story
In this game, you travel through time into the past to ancient Egypt. You are Serious Sam, the last hope to save earth from total annihilation. Chaad sheen the infinite one is destroying all human colonies one by one.
The humans have accidentally woke him up when they were exploring the stars in one of their spaceships. Chaad Sheen is destroying planets and colonies with ease and gains the name Mental. There is no one who can defeat him or even tell you what he looks like.
The ancient beings on earth, called the Sirians have met Chaad sheen one time before. They have been completely wiped out but their devices still remain on earth. Somehow the humans survived the last time Chaad sheen came to earth to destroy the human race and the Sirians 100.000 years ago. The humans have one last hope, you! Serious Sam is the only one who fought the hordes of Chaad Sheen and has managed to come out alive. His goal is to meet Chaad Sheen and kick his behind.
There is a plan involving time travel, the device used for time travel is called a time lock that was owned by the Sirians.
Reaching the time lock will not be easy. Chaad Sheen will try to stop you in every turn you take. The story for reaching the time lock is not for this review. The story for reaching the time lock is in Serious Sam the third encounter.

The story in Serious Sam is chronically wrong. Serious Sam the second encounter follows up neatly after Serious Sam the first encounter ends. Serious Sam the third encounter is before the first encounter. That means we need to wait for Serious Sam in the fourth encounter in the hope the story continues.
You can play Serious Sam fusions to play the game in high definition. If you want to live in the game and have a virtual headset you can buy Serious Sam the first encounter in virtual reality.

How will you try to find Chaad Sheen? You need to use the time lock time travel machine that was left by the Sirians. Humans are not supposed to be able to use the time lock and will be evaporated when they try to use the device. Only you are brave enough to try and use the machine to travel back in time.
Just maybe you can prevent Chaad Sheen from awakening once again and prevent his attempt to wiping out the human race. With the time lock set to ancient Egypt, where once the Sirians lived you hope to find a spaceship to reach Chaad Sheen.
You survive to try to use the time lock and you are able to use the machine. You end up in ancient Egypt. How you are able to survive the time machine is unknown. Maybe Serious Sam the third encounter will give you answers. You have a robot named Netricsa. She helps you analyze situations that you encounter in your journey. She also keeps a collection of the enemies that you have encountered.
You end up in the temple of Hatshepsut. You will need to journey across the lands to find the four elements to be able to reach the spaceship called SSS Centerprice. Without these four elements, you won’t be able to enter Thebes you pass Thebes in your travel to the SSS Centerprice. Chaad Sheen is all-knowing but he can’t copy himself and he is also fighting the Sirians. He is a busy bad guy. He thinks that sending some of his forces to stop you will be enough. You travel to Memphis to collect the summoning device, called the Shrine of Amon Ra. This is another key piece that you will need in summoning the SSS Centerprice.
You collect all the elements scattered across ancient Egypt and now you find your way towards a place called Karnak. Chaad Sheen is distracted in his fight against the Sirians. Because of your actions in ancient Egypt, the timeline in the present has been altered. The Sirians will take longer to be exterminated by Chaad Sheen. Does this mean you can change the future and defeat Chaad Sheen? What will happen to you if you are able to change the future? Will you even exist? Why is time travel complicated? Chaad Sheen sends more of his forces to stop you from being able to summon the SSS Centerprice. Why is Chaad Sheen so hell-bent on not facing you himself? Can he be scared after all?

You end up in Luxor, another great temple of the Sirians. After you have explored the Luxor you find a giant obelisk. When you activate the giant obelisk, the SSS Centerprice arrives in ancient Egypt. You quickly rush to the great pyramid where the SSS centerpiece will land.
The way towards Chaad Sheen is nearby. You will finally meet him and save the human race. But then Murphy’s Law strikes. Ugh, Zan appears, he is a trusted general of Chad sheen. Ugh, Zan is a giant demon that is coming to destroy you.
You shoot at Ugh Zan while you are dodging the bullets he shoots at you. He regenerates the damage that you are able to inflict on him. You run towards the great pyramid while you are also dodging the bullets Ugh Zan shoots at you. You decide to leave Ugh Zan behind and leave ancient Egypt in the SSS Centerprice.
As you are entering the waiting room that is leading towards the boarding procedure of the SSS Centerprice, Netricsa tells you that only Sirians can board the SSS Centerprice. This is a big hole in the plan. You decide to try to board the SSS Centerprice and hope for the best. Before you can try to board the SSS Centerprice Ugh Zan appears again. He has climbed on the great pyramid and attacks you. He takes his stronger weapons out of his pockets and starts firing them at you.
Ugh, Zan is not a Sirian that is why you decide to use the boarding beam against him. When the boarding beam of the SSS Centerprice hits Ugh Zan he explodes. Even though this might happen to you, you decide to try and board the SSS Centerprice via the boarding beam. Surprisingly you don’t explode! The SSS Centerprice is leaving towards Chaad Sheen. You have finally made it.
You decide to give Chaad Sheen a call to let him know you are on your way. My main question here is: how do you have cell service in ancient Egypt on a spaceship heading?

To be continued in Serious Sam the second encounter.

Gameplay
The game is a classic first-person shooter and I have encountered many flaws even though it still is a classic game that I have enjoyed playing.The maximum amount of health points that you can have is 100 in Serious Sam The First Encounter but you can have more health points when you find secret health points. You can also find armor that will reduce the damage you take. This armor will not stop you from getting killed. The maximum armor that you can find is 200 armor points.
When you have both maximum health points and maximum armor points, you can still die on the normal difficultly from a single hit. This is depending on the enemy shooting at you. There are different enemies that will try to stop you in your quest to save the human race. The most important thing in Serious Sam the first encounter is to shoot the enemies before they are able to shoot you. There is a melee weapon, a knife but I have never used it.
The story in Serious Sam the first encounter is really nice. It fits well with the other Serious Sam games franchise. I am looking forward to the Fourth Serious Sam encounter game.
In Serious Sam the first encounter you will need to try and find your way through the multiple levels that are filled with hordes of enemies. There will also be puzzles to solve and secret areas to find. The secret areas contain ammo and health points. Unfortunately finding one of the secrets usually means the end of you. Unless you are prepared for a difficult battle when you pick up the treasure a horde of enemies will spawn. The hordes of enemies in the secret areas are stronger than the regular hordes of enemies. For example: In the first level, when you have only one pistol, finding the secret area in the desert will spawn four end game enemies. They are going to shoot rockets at you. One hit of a rocket will instantly kill you. You can swim in water but these waters are usually infested with electrical fish waiting for an unprepared snack.
The ammo in Serious Sam the first encounter is scattered around the world, alongside health pickups and armor pickups. I was annoyed that there are health pickups that give only one health point. There were no other health pickups in the near vicinity. In the biggest part of playing Serious Sam, the first encounter my health points were below ten.
The biggest problem I have found in this game was the save system. I have ended up in too many death loops. If you forget about the death loops, this game is very enjoyable.

Weapons
Throughout Serious Sam the first encounter you will find different types of weapons. It is possible to gain some of the more powerful weapons early on in the game in secret areas.

Pistol
This is a simple pistol, the pistol is your starter weapon and has infinite ammo.
The pistol comes in handy when you find yourself in a situation where you have low ammo.
Double pistol
This upgrade of the simple pistol will let you dual wield the simple pistol. This is an upgraded version of the simple pistol.
It can be useful to shoot incoming balls of energy. These balls usually want to kill you.
Shotgun
The shotgun does a lot of damage at point-blank range. The shotgun is very useful at the beginning of the game.
Super shotgun
The super shotgun deals more damage compared with the normal shotgun. The reload time of the super shotgun is long. Because of the long reload time you will deal high damage especially at point-blank range.
The super shotgun is very useful for dealing with enemies that are alone.

Thompson
The Thompson is a machine gun that fires bullets very fast. Be aware that your ammo will run out quickly.
The Thompson is useful for dealing with the hopper enemies.
Minigun
The minigun fires faster than the Thompson and uses fewer bullets.
The minigun is most useful for the boss fights. You can use the power of the minigun to destroy incoming balls of energy from bosses.
The Laser
This weapon uses laser beams to annihilate groups of enemies very quickly. Ammo can be hard to find for the laser.
The laser was one of my favorite weapons next to the super shotgun.
Rocket Launcher
The rocket launcher will fire rocket-propelled grenades at enemies. You can blow everyone up with this weapon. Including yourself!
The rocket launcher will be a weapon you need to use much to progress through the game.
Mk grenade launcher
The grenade launcher will launch grenades at enemies that will explode after a few seconds or when an enemy steps on the grenade.
The grenade launcher is useful in blowing everything up.
Cannon
The cannon is the best weapon in the game. When fired right you can kill over 20 enemies at once as if they were bowling pins. The cannonballs will penetrate enemies and explode when it is done rolling.
Do you want to know what happens when you look at the wall and shoot a cannonball? It bounces off and hits you in the face. This means instant death, then you need to reload your game.
The weapon is very useful and ammo can be found more than I expected. I am wondering two things, how heavy is this cannon? How heavy are 30 cannonballs? This seems very impossible to carry with you. In my mind, I have compared cannonballs with bowling balls. I can’t carry 30 bowling balls, can you?

Pros
– The story in Serious Sam The First Encounter remains brilliant, even after many years.
– The weapons in the game are good and function well.
– You can find secrets where you can collect extra maximum health and ammo.
– The quotes of Serious Sam are funny and wacky.
– Serious Sam 4 will be released in August 2020, which means there will finally be a conclusion to the story.

Cons -There are too many death loops in Serious Sam the first encounter.
-Fighting off 60 enemies at once feels unfair.
-Enemies can kill you even when they are out of rendering distance
-Enemies will spawn in impossible to notice places.
-Enemies can spawn in you or right behind you even though you just cleared the area.
-The story is still unfinished after 19 years.
-Picking up one health point with no others in sight when you have three health points left feels mean to me.

I do recommend this game but on the easy difficulty. I played on normal and regretted my decision.
I will give two ratings for this game. One is the rating I would really give the game. The other is my experience on normal.
If you are really mental, play this game on mental mode. I feel sorry for you.

I give this game a …drumroll…

I give a 7 to this classic game!
I will give the game a 5.5 when played normal mode!

I have really enjoyed playing Serious Sam the First Encounter and I planning on playing the game again in high definition.
I hope that you liked reading this review! Leave your own thoughts about Serious Sam The First Encounter in the comments!