In Fusion, you can select the Custom difficulty mode to tailor the difficulty to your liking. There are multiple difficulty modes, one of which needs to be unlocked. The Serious Sam games are fast-paced action-packed shooters. The plot is never shoved in your face but it’s there if you want it. Sam can access Netricsa at any time during gameplay and it will provide some backstory on events and basically tell you what you’re objectives are. Most of the story is told through Netricsa which stands for “NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer”. There’s not much voice acting but Sam will often shout one-liners, some of which are humorous, and there are a few pop culture references peppered throughout the campaigns. Apparently, this campaign takes place during The First Encounter. The Legend of the Beast is set in Egypt where Sam is on a quest to find the Ram-God of The Grand Obelisk. Sam continues his journey in the Mayan age and battles through Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and Medieval Europe. The story in The Second Encounter picks up right where the previous game left off. Sam is transported back in time to Egypt and travels through the land, battling Mental’s army. In the 22nd century, Mental and his army invade Earth to destroy humanity and as a last resort, the humans use an artifact known as the Time-Lock to send Sam back in time to defeat Mental and his army and change the course of history. At one time, Earth was at war with Mental, and a technologically-advanced alien race known as the Sirians left many artifacts behind for humanity to discover. The intro cut scene in The First Encounter provides some backstory you can read. In both games you play as Sam “Serious” Stone and battle aliens under the command of an overlord known as Mental who wants to rule the universe. This review will also cover the Legend of the Beast DLC for The Second Encounter HD which includes three new campaign levels, new multiplayer maps, and a new survival mode map. And apparently, the HD versions don’t include the same gravity effects resulting in changed and/or removed secret areas originally seen in the classic games. For example, Witch-Harpies can carry Kamikazes in Revolution but not in the HD games. I noticed a few little differences when it comes to some enemies. From what I’ve researched, the HD versions and classic games are almost identical. As the “HD” moniker implies, these are visually upgraded versions of the classic games. Fusion supports split-screen co-op, includes 64-bit executables, improved physics, better modding support, and a bunch of fixes. Just install Fusion and you’re ready to go. From what I’ve read, future games will be added to the hub and the best part is you don’t need to install each game individually. But on the plus side, the developers are planning a Serious Sam 2 reboot. According to the FAQ, it’s too old to port to the Fusion engine. As of this review, the Fusion hub is still in beta and unfortunately, Serious Sam 2 is not included. The HD versions of the First and Second Encounters were released for PC and Xbox 360 and I actually played them through the Serious Sam Fusion hub on Steam which is free if you own any of the HD games or Serious Sam 3. Revolution is in early access and a new campaign is in the works but both the classic versions of the First and Second Encounters are fully intact and are combined into one campaign. It’s essentially an updated version of the classic games, designed to run on modern systems and supports up to four player split-screen co-op, among other things. Revolution is a unified version of both games, powered by an updated version of the Serious Engine, and is completely free to those who own the classic games on Steam. For this review, I played Serious Sam Classics: Revolution and the HD versions of both encounters. Developed by Croteam, Serious Sam: The First Encounter was released for PC in March, 2001, and The Second Encounter was released for PC in February, 2002. The classic versions of The First Encounter and The Second Encounter run on the Serious Engine which is capable of maintaining tons of moving and enormous enemies which was impressive for its time and that is the highlight of the series. I was in high school when I first discovered Serious Sam and at the time, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of the games sooner.
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