Serious Sam: The First Encounter

aka: Krutoj Sam: Pervaja Krov', Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter, Serious Sam: 1st Encounter, Serious Sam: O Primeiro Confronto, Serious Sam: Pierwsze Starcie, Serious Sam: Premier contact
Moby ID: 3512
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/23 5:56 PM )

Description official descriptions

When aliens ruled by the evil Mental attack Earth, it is up to Sam "Serious" Stone, one of the toughest guys on Earth, to time-travel back to Ancient Egypt in order to change history by defeating Mental back in the ancient times. The First Encounter tells about the first part of Sam's voyage through Egypt.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a high-adrenaline first-person shooter heavily focused on frantic arcade-style single player action. The game goes "back to roots" of the first-person shooter genre; it does not feature intricate story, character interaction or the need for careful tactics which were becoming common in the FPS's of its time, instead concentrating on epic battles where the player, armed with powerful weaponry, takes on tens or even hundreds of enemies at once.

Sam travels through deserts, Egyptian temples, palaces and cities, killing countless enemies and occasionally stopping to solve a more or less easy puzzle. There are many weapons to be found; they are all classic FPP armaments - shotguns, chainguns, rocket launchers etc., up to the most powerful weapon: a cannon which shoots devastating cannonballs. There are also many pick-ups, of course, containing ammo, health and armor.

The enemies come in many varieties - headless suicide bombers, giant bio-mechanical creatures that shoot missiles, scorpions with chainguns, bulls that charge at Sam, etc. There are also a couple of powerful bosses.

Sam has a mini-computer which contains basic info about the levels he's travelling through, weapons he collects and enemies he kills.

Spellings

  • Serious Sam: המפגש הראשון - Hebrew spelling
  • Крутой Сэм: Первая Кровь - Russian spelling
  • シリアスサム ファーストエンカウンター - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (Windows version)

195 People (76 developers, 119 thanks) · View all

Programming
2D Art
3D Art
Game Design
Level Design
Music
Sound
CEO
Serious Sam Voice by
Moral Boost by
amp11lib library by
Additional Programming
Additional Moral Boost
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 43 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 99 ratings with 9 reviews)

The Sun is God

The Good
Although often compared to 'Doom', Serious Sam is nothing like it; instead, it's essentially a modern update of 'Robotron 2084' and 'Smash TV', two classic arcade games in which the player fought against overwhelming odds in a series of square arenas. Sam also bears comparison with the cult Doom contemporary 'Rise of the Triad', in that it takes place mostly outdoors, in expansive locations. It shares Triad's surreal sense of humour - the oft-mentioned screaming headless kamikazes in particular - and underdog status, coded as it was by an small, enthusiastic company from Croatia. A low price and no requirement for a 50mb patch set it apart from the FPS mainstream at the time, and the lack of mainstream coverage - it was eventually championed by the website 'Old Man Murray' and nobody else - gave it an in-built cult appeal.

If you approach it as a modern Doom heir you'll be horribly disappointed, as I was at first, but more of that later. Once you accept that it's outdoors 'Gauntlet' in 3D, it becomes easier to bear; the action does not stop, there are some cute secrets (including the programmers themselves), and the music is atmospheric and catchy. On a visceral level, the sheer volume of baddies, of firepower, and the breathtaking size of the environments is unique and compelling, and the sky is beautiful. Really, the sky is beautiful, it truly is. The wispy clouds sit in the pristine blue air, with only the beating sun for company. For a game that has no pretensions at all, the evocation of ancient Egypt is superbly atmospheric, and makes one wish that Sam had been a complex graphic adventure rather than a shoot-em-up (as it stands, the game exists to showcase its custom-built engine, created at a time when everybody and his dog was licensing engines for their own projects).

The Bad
Serious Sam takes place in a serious of large, barren arenas, which are empty until the monsters warp in; although you can see for miles, there's nothing over there to see. It is entirely linear, in that there is a single path for the player to take; furthermore, the monsters appear in a set sequence, and indeed the manual even encourages you to quicksave and quickload often, so as to learn the pattern. To the extent that almost all first-person shooters play like this, it is forgivable; but

The monsters have almost no AI, and don't fight each other, whilst there are no exploding barrels or crushing ceilings to assist you. Indeed there are almost no 'clever bits', the gameplay is simply a test of the player's reactions. By a third of the way through the game you have seen everything it has - enormous quadrangles in which meanies appear in a set sequence. Too many of the weapons require one-and-a-tiny-bit shots to kill the most common villains, which is frustrating. The game does not take account of the player's location when warping in monsters, and they often appear just behind you. Most of the monsters go faster than you, and one class explodes if they get too close, whilst the player's ponderous gait makes getting about tedious. Quite often the projectile-firing monsters cannot be dodged without taking some damage, no matter how fast you are.

The gameplay involves running backwards and to one side, until a monster gets behind you, at which point you reverse direction. Mobygame's 'Tips and Tricks' section parodies this, but it is true; there is usually no cover to hide behind, and the monsters run faster than you. Parts of the game are thus excruciatingly frustrating, as no matter how skilful you are, you will die often without first having learned the sequencing of each arena.

The monsters are mostly anonymous, only one of them fitting the Egyptian location. Some of them are intensely irritating; the flying women who go faster than you and can't be outrun or dodged, the running skeletons which form the game's staple villain, but which are annoyingly resilient, chopping off a quarter of your health with each strike, notwithstanding that there are usually hundreds of them, and they jump behind you and you die. Argh. The large arenas and volume of enemy tend to make sidestepping away from incoming projectiles an exercise in guesswork rather than judgement.

The Serious Sam character himself is clearly modelled on Duke Nukem (and the little man from the 'Metal Slug' games), who was in turn constructed out of one-liners sampled from action/horror films. Sam's utterances are however infrequent and functional, beyond the phrase 'Sam I am!'.

The Bottom Line
The size and detailed textures are achieved at the expensive of environmental detail, though. The sequel, 'The Second Encounter', is the better game, and given that the two are now available in a budget-priced 'Gold' edition there's no pressing reason not to own both. Despite the criticism below, Sam is nonetheless fun in short bursts, albeit trivial, with no replay value. I have no idea how it is like in multiplayer, bearing in mind that there is no cover to hide behind and that the first player to get hold of the Tommy Gun would win.

The final battle, and the section leading up to the final battle, is quite strikingly huge.

Windows · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2004

Baby's first Quake mod

The Good
The guns are varied and satisfying, the graphics look really good.

The Bad
Serious Sam feels like something a ten-year-old would make right after downloading a Quake level editor. It consists of simplistic, very linear levels and almost constantly throws wave after wave of enemies at the player without any design concept or actual sense of progression. Even though some enemies are actually interesting to fight when they're first introduced, they become utterly tedious as you fight them again and again in almost identical circumstances. The entire experience becomes simply tiring already in its first half.

Croteam probably meant to create something that would reject the more complex gameplay mechanics of newer action games at the turn of the century and return to the '90s classics. The thing is, games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Unreal are not just pure mindless violence. Intricate level design is an essential part of their identity, absolutely crucial to how engaging they are - something the Serious Sam developers seem to have completely forgotten.

The Bottom Line
Serious Sam is a tiring and tedious FPS focused on endless enemy spam. 3/10 (officially Worse Than Daikatana)

Windows · by Pegarange (282) · 2023

Solid, Fast-Paced FPS Action

The Good
Non-stop shoot-em-up action. Lots of creatures to kill with plenty of ways to kill them. The graphics are top-notch for its time, especially considering that it is value software ($20). Coming from an independent development team, this game is absolutely amazing.

The Bad
I can not stand vanishing corpses or blood. It really ticks me off that I can not survey the carnage I just caused. All the levels take place in Egyptian-style locales, which really makes one want some more variety.

The Bottom Line
The most mind-numbing shooter to hit the market since Doom. Don't think... SHOOT! Over-the-top battles and great multiplayer options round off this sweet package.

Windows · by NeoMoose (1231) · 2001

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Croteam vedder (70685) Oct 29, 2018

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Serious Sam appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Demo

Some of the most famous Serious Sam players (who even appear in the game's credits) got the complete game only several months after its release, and constantly played the same demo level while others had the full version.

Development

The first Serious Sam demo was a technology demo for the Serious Engine by Croteam, not a demo for a game in particular. The folks at the Old Man Murray website praised the game so much that eventually the guys at the Gathering of Developers got wind of it and sponsored a complete, full game based around the demo.

Music

The final level music (before the boss) is a strange heavy metal remix of the famous Phantom of the Opera opening theme.

References

Sam's red sneakers may be a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog - the speed power-up that pictures them with wings all but cinches it.

Technology

Serious Sam was the first game to implement ATI's TrueForm graphics technology.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2002 (Issue #213) – Best Enemies of the Year (for the headless soldiers)
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – Best Value Priced Game of the Year
    • 2001 – Best End Boss of the Year

Information also contributed by El-ad Amir, NeoMoose, Ola Sverre Bauge and Tomer Gabel

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
Released 2002 on Windows
Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter
Released 2009 on Windows, 2010 on Xbox 360
Serious Sam HD
Released 2010 on Windows, 2011 on Xbox 360
Serious Sam: Gold
Released 2003 on Windows
Serious Sam
Released 2004 on Game Boy Advance
Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360
Serious Sam Classics: Revolution
Released 2014 on Windows
Serious Sam: Double D
Released 2011 on Windows, 2013 on Xbox 360

Related Sites +

  • Seriously Warped!
    Home of the highly acclaimed Warped Deathmatch MOD for Serious Sam. The team is also creating the multiplayer modes for Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
  • Seriously!
    A well-populated forum and excellent tutorials regarding writing maps, mods and scripts to Serious Sam.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 3512
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Cromaa.

Additional contributors: Ray Soderlund, El-ad Amir, Unicorn Lynx, NeoMoose, tarmo888, tbuteler, Foxhack, lights out party, COBRA-COBRETTI, Crawly, Stratege, vicrabb, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added April 3, 2001. Last modified January 19, 2024.