Serious Sam HD
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Seriously! Community
As the largest Serious Sam community on the Internet, Seriously! is home to the Official Serious Sam Forums. But you can also follow us on Twitter for the latest news and join our Facebook Group to connect with other players!

We look forward to hearing from you!

Thursday, March, 04, 2010

Play SS HD with Croteam through Xbox LIVE - Gimli - 4:03 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

On March 13, Croteam developers will play Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter in the official Xbox Game with Developers event. Here's an excerpt with all the details:

Croteam, the creators of the first-person shooter Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter on Xbox LIVE® Arcade, will play their game with Xbox LIVE® Gold Members in our Game with Developers event. If you're a Gold member (if you're not a Member, upgrade now!) join us Saturday, March 13, from Noon – 4:00 P.M. ET for some serious (har) action.

Send off an invite or friend request to the following Gamertags:

samsteam25
samsteam35
samsteam45
samsteam55
samsteam65
samsteam75

Monday, March, 01, 2010

Possible Demo Problems After the DM Patch - Gimli - 6:58 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Alen Ladavac, Croteam's Lead Programmer, posted a warning in the SS HD forum about possible problems with older demos after the deathmatch patch arrives. Here's what he had to say:

Just to let everyone know in advance that when the DM patch is released, as a side-effect of some code changes required for DM, all currently recorded demos will be unusable (they will refuse to play back).

So, if you have some demos that you are particularly fond of, it may be good to convert them to some movie format before this happens.

We don't have a strict release date yet, but an ETA of next week or something like that is likely. You have at least one week to convert the demos.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for understanding.

Sunday, February, 28, 2010

Seriously! Forums on your Phone - Rodzilla - 12:40 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

At Seriously! we're always hoping to make the community a more useful and enjoyable place for everything relating to Serious Sam. We are pleased to announce that we now support the mobile phone app Tapatalk which significantly improves the usability of our forums on the iPhone, Android phones, and Nokia smart phones. It will also be available shortly for Blackberries. Tapatalk supports all the usual forum functions plus full screen image viewing, image upload, caching (less reload), private messaging, all these features are accessible in just a few simple taps. You can download Tapatalk via the iPhone App Store, the Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, or Blackberry's App World.

Wednesday, February, 24, 2010

SS HD: TFE 50% Off! - Gimli - 5:20 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter will from now on be available at a lower price and to celebrate, the game will be available at 50% off until March 2nd. Here's the official news post from Valve:

To celebrate a new lower price, Devolver Digital is offering Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter at 50% off until March 2nd! Want to play with some friends? Grab the four pack also available for 50% off!

Thursday, February, 18, 2010

GUI for Dedicated Server - jasser - 5:58 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

Fast on his feet, AngeloGeels has released a GUI for running dedicated servers for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. For a download link and more info, check out the forums

Dedicated Servers for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter! - Louva-Deus - 5:20 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

For those of you waiting for dedicated servers wait no longer! They are finally here! Server hosts take note! Alen Ladavac had this to say:

This took quite a bit longer than initially expected, but the deathmatch work has progressed rather nicely in parallel, and the dm patch will hopefully be in beta very soon. It actually turned out even more advanced than I'd expected. and we hope that the players will like the DM as much as we do while playing the test builds in the office. :)

February 18, 2010 - Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter Update Released

Updates to Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Added Dedicated server. Use the Tools tab in Steam to install the dedicated server utility, then consult Help/DedicatedServer_Readme.txt for information about how to configure and run a server

When enumerating listen servers (i.e. non-dedicated), the servers from the entire world are now listed (as opposed to only those in your vicinity, as it was previously). This should help with low availability of servers in some parts of the world

Fixed case where weather/time-of-day on Hatshepsut were sometimes different on client and server (and wrongly recorded into demos)

Wednesday, February, 17, 2010

Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter Due Late April - Louva-Deus - 10:26 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

Big Download has posted a general release date for Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter in late April. They have also made a note of Devolver Digital's recent statement that deathmatch and dedicated servers for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter are coming soon.

Big Download has learned that Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, the upcoming graphical remake of Croteam's second game in the first person shooter series, has been pushed back slightly. Originally scheduled for a first quarter 2010 release, Big Download has been told by the game's publisher Devolver Digital that the game is now due for release in late April.

As with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, the remake of The Second Encounter will also be released via Steam for PC users and for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade (Majesco will still be the co-publisher of the Xbox 360 port). Devolver Digital also plans to release The Second Encounter remake in retail stores for the PC version around the same time.

Devolver Digital also said that the long awaited deathmatch and dedicated servers update for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter should be released "soon" and that The Second Encounter will have deathmatch support out of the box along with all of the other fixes and additions that have been or will be released for The First Encounter.

Finally Devolver Digital will also publish Croteam's all new next game Serious Sam 3 but they are keeping details on that title a secret for now.

Tuesday, January, 26, 2010

SS HD Four-pack for the Price of 3 Games - Gimli - 1:18 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is being offered as a four-pack on Steam for the price of three games. Here's the official news post from Steam:

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is now offering a four-pack so if you've been itching to play with your friends this is the best way to do it as you can gift out your extra copies to your buddies!

Sunday, January, 24, 2010

Prophets of Sam Release Serious Sam Forever Multiplayer Demo - jasser - 1:34 PM - Comments - Link to this Item

Prophets of Sam have released the multiplayer demo of Serious Sam Forever.

Prophets of Sam announces Serious Sam Forever Multiplayer Demo!

"After nearly four years of development and over 1000 revisions, many rewrites, and nearly starting over," John Turner began. "Phase one of Serious Sam Forever's development is over!"

"We are announcing the completion of the Multiplayer Demo featuring four maps, four game modes, and four hundred bots--given the right hardware conditions--on the twenty-fourth of January, 2010."

"The highlight of the demo, the multiplayer AI Bot system, is unparalleled in any time period and will give new and long-time players alike a fun new way to experience Serious Sam! Play alongside human and AI players in some of your favorite game modes like Capture the Flag and Deathmatch!"

"The team presents this gift to the community in the hopes of sparking a few million more hours of serious fun. Be sure to post videos of your exploits!"

You can download the Serious Sam Forever Multiplayer Demo from here or here.

Friday, January, 22, 2010

New SS HD Patch Brings Demo Recording - Gimli - 4:05 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter has received another update with more bug fixes. It also adds the demo recording feature. Here's the official changelog posted on Steam:

Updates to Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Demo recording and playback added.
- Works in single player, on server and on client.
- Can record demo segments while playing a demo.
- Recording started from menus, or using F7 in game.
- Hud shows current recording or playback status.
- Cutscenes cannot be recorded - recording is automatically stopped when a cut scene is encountered.
- Changed the alignment of all table items in the join game menu from centered to left aligned.
- Some widgets in CPU performance customization options were not functional.
- Leaderboards menu now supports double click on leaderboard players for details.
- 3rd person view mode now persists when respawning.
- Bullet fly-by sounds were sometimes played for the wrong player.
- The rocket model in the first person RL weapon would sometimes dissapear/flicker. Fixed.
- Fixed flashing crumbs when prebaked lights are used.
- net_fConnectionTimeout was not honored by the "Connecting" progress screen, thus limiting it to 10 seconds of its hardcoded value.
- Fixed possible timing issue with sounds that have their pitch set too high resulting in unsupported frequency by the sound HW and/or API.
- Sound mixer frequency can now be 48/44 kHz or 22 kHz if cvar 'sfx_bLowSampleRate' is set. (Cvar 'xad_iMaxSampleRate' has been deprecated.)
- Fixed crash inside XAudio2 when sound HW supports sample rates higher than 100 kHz.
- Master sound mixer frequency (sample rate) and speaker config are now reported to console at startup.
- Better sound mixing performance of XAudio2 under sound boards that support very high sample rates (more than 48 kHz).
- Enabled DirectSound and OpenAL sound APIs. To change the current API, adjust sfx_iAPI and restart the game. Note that those APIs are not officially supported.
- Fixed boss bar not being shown in some rare cases.
- Fixed problem with crosshair sometimes being rendered wrong (flickering).
- Fixed problem with having too many occlusion queries under 3 or more GPU setups.
- Fixed a crash that happened in graphics options when user resets cvars via console cvarResetToDefaults() command.
- Fixed a rare application crash on exit that prevented settings from being saved. It happened mostly on single-core machines, but sometimes on multi-core as well.

Saturday, January, 16, 2010

Gamespot's SS HD XBLA Review - Gimli - 3:49 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Gamespot has posted their review of the XBLA version of Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. The reviewer is satisfied with this version:

If you want to be picky about it, you can't really call this a remake. This is the first time that console gamers have gotten a look at the authentic Serious Sam: The First Encounter that was released for the PC. The version of the game released in 2002 for the original Xbox cut down the size of levels and added arcade touches, such as phone-booth save points. Now, you've finally got the real deal, a dead-on reworking of the original Serious Sam, right down to the ability to save instantly anywhere (with a quick tap of the Y button). You get the same goofy protagonist in Sam "Serious" Stone, a gravelly voiced tough guy in a T-shirt and jeans who looks and quips a whole lot like Duke Nukem. You get to gun down the same bizarre cadre of aliens under the control of a villainous ET named Mental, both solo and cooperatively. And you get to battle in and amongst a series of colossal structures in ancient Egypt, ranging from the Temple of Hatshepsut all the way to the breathtaking Great Pyramid.

Gameplay is, of course, still all about shooting and speed. You're called upon to slaughter gazillions of enemies with standard shooter hardware, such as rocket launchers, and not-so-standard shooter hardware, such as a great big cannon that might have seen duty at Gettysburg. So you constantly wheel around strafing at an amazing collection of creepy aliens, including galloping skeletons in black fetish wear, shock troops who keep their heads tucked under one arm, emerald demons juggling fireballs, robot scorpions toting machine guns, and the franchise's now iconic headless suicide bombers that come racing at you screaming with a cartoon bomb in place of each hand. Like the kids say, it's a trip. Everything feels retro given the unabashed dedication to re-creating the mood of such golden-age shooters as DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D, but this is still one of the best run-and-gun games ever made. The pace, the insane number of foes to battle, and the wide-open Egyptian levels may be simple and predictable, but it still does work. Even moving to a gamepad hasn't slowed the game down because auto-aim and more forgiving targeting compensate for the loss of accuracy in giving up the sharper mouse-and-keyboard PC controls. You can quibble over a few changes, like limiting rocket-jumping and getting rid of the zany gravity rooms that provided some memorably bloody moments way back when, but this is still a fun example of an age-old formula done to near perfection.

Another SS HD contest at Destructoid - Gimli - 3:36 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Destructoid is giving away 10 XBLA codes for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. Here's what you need to do:

We're giving away ten codes for Serious Sam HD on Xbox Live Arcade! All you'll need to do to win a code is leave any kind of comment below. Doesn't matter what the comment is, just don't go spamming the comment thread!

Contest is open worldwide and open until Sunday, January 17 at 11:59 PM CST. We'll be picking ten random commenters to give the codes away to on Monday. Go go go!

Friday, January, 15, 2010

SS HD XBLA Reviews! - Gimli - 4:27 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

The first batch of reviews for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter for XBLA have arrived. To start off Games Radar posted their review. By and large it's positive, with a few complaints, resulting in a solid 8/10. Here's what the reviewer had to say:

Maybe you missed Serious Sam back in 2001? It’s a fun, frantic fantasy FPS. A headlong charge in through one end of Thebes and blasting out the other. Into space. The remake loses none of the lunacy. HD is still all about gunning down swarming enemies. Harpies that shoot ice, zombies that spray fireballs, swarms of exploding frogs, electric piranhas, bio-mechs that stomp around and shoot rockets and lasers. The Headless Kamikaze, a roaring, sprinting corpse with two ticking bombs and a personal space problem, appears in every ensemble of enemies throughout the game.

Whether it’s a dozen of them in a volatile mob, or a lone agent squawking over the din of battle, you’re always listening out for this iconic foe. Serious Sam veterans will be relieved to learn that Croteam haven’t ruined anything: the original levels are optimised and extended. They’ve made everything shiny, sprinkled on some physics, and introduced lengthy stealth sections where you must rely on colourful spirit animals to... Only joking. It’s just shinier, with the same action.

Character progression? Pah. The closest it gets to that is the guns: Sam starts with a pistol, gets his hands on a minigun, and ends up wielding a cannon. From a pirate ship. By the end, you’re committing Sirian Werebull genocide with it – it’s the only thing that can kill these enormous beasts faster than they appear, as it violently bisects the stampede in a torrent of meat. PETA just wouldn’t understand. Not after they heard the screaming.

I played the game back in the day, and was frequently reminded of so many of the things I liked so much about the experience. Those damn suicide bombers, with the old-fashioned round bombs on their hands are still a treat as they run at you from across the map screaming, “Aaaaaaaa!”. And many of the other monster designs are sort of sweetly silly, like something sketched in a heavy metal fan’s high school binder. Re-inventing this game for the current market would have been a huge mistake.

Some people won’t get what’s so fun about Serious Sam, preferring the more advanced graphics and realistic action of more modern shooters. But you don’t have to be an old fart to enjoy this classic gaming throwback. Sometimes just shooting stuff without having to solve puzzles or tactically engage an enemy is what we want to do, and for that we will always have Serious Sam

On the Xbox 360 the game makes good use of aiming assistance, which is essential unless you're a demon with the analogue sticks. Due to the high number of fast moving enemies coming at you, with the assist disabled the game descends into chaos. No doubt some gamers will prefer no help at all, but for me the game is more enjoyable, and considerably less frustrating, when you don't have to precisely target enemies. Also included in the 360 game is a quicksave function, letting you save on the spot with a press of the Y button.

There's no competitive versus multiplayer to speak of, but Serious Sam HD does include four-player co-op play, sadly down from the 16 players that the PC game supported. It's pretty standard stuff, but the three extra players makes things even more enjoyable and there are numerous ways to tweak the experience to suit those playing - making the game even harder if you want. It's not going to take up much of the time you've dedicated to playing Left 4 Dead 2 with friends, but it's a fun romp that's worth a go.

While the game has the "HD" moniker, the visual makeover is more than a simple bump in maximum resolution. Enemy models are the most improved, sporting far more detail than they did in the original game, but the lighting, effects and environmental detail have also been overhauled. Serious Sam HD doesn't look as good as new releases, such as Modern Warfare 2, but it has a certain charm that few games can offer. Enemy designs are barmy, battles play out over huge indoor and outdoor arenas, and it all runs well on the Xbox 360 hardware. There's some suitably freaky music and sound effects to accompany the on-screen carnage, too, making you twitch in shock on more than one occasion.

SS HD XBLA Giveaway at Giant Bomb! - Gimli - 3:40 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Devolver Digital sent some XBLA download codes to Giant Bomb to give away to people. There's 10 of them, and here's how you can get them:

This week marks the arrival of Serious Sam HD: The First Enounter on Xbox Live Arcade in all its screamy, no-headed glory. To celebrate, our goodly friends at Devolver Digital have furnished us with 10 XBLA download codes for the game to give away to you, dear readers. Which means that it's time for a truly ridiculous and arbitrary contest!

If there's one thing I've learned from the Giant Bomb forums, it's that there's no shortage of deeply disturbed individuals with access to Photoshop around here, which leads us to our Serious Sam HD giveaway challenge: We want to see your most serious Sam. Whether that means Samuel L. Jackson doing his taxes or Uncle Sam hosting a satellite radio show is wide open to interpretation, and we invite you to get creative and absurd with your photo editing skillz.

Post your submission in the comments below by end-of-day Sunday (01/17/2010), and we'll announce the winners on Monday (01/18/2010 for you math majors out there.) If you're looking for some inspirado, here's a refresher course in what makes Serious Sam so stupid awesome.

Wednesday, January, 13, 2010

SS HD Available Now on XBLA! - Gimli - 10:25 AM - Comments - Link to this Item

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter has been released by Majesco on XBLA today. Here's what Majesco has to say in the press release:

"This game takes my good looks, swarthy charm and timeless cool from the original version and ups it to a level of god-like brilliance," says Sam ‘Serious' Stone, everyone's favorite loud mouth protagonist. "Gamers can even play online with up to three friends to wipe out the thorn in my side known as the Sirian Army."

Developed by Croteam, the creators of the Serious Sam franchise, and produced in partnership with Devolver Digital, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter follows our hero Sam as he frantically battles his way through time to ancient Egypt. Throughout 15 levels of awesomeness, he takes on a seemingly never-ending onslaught of enemies, from the charging Sirian Werebulls to the screaming Headless Kamikazes. Whether blowing apart nasties with monstrous cannons or ripping them to shreds with the lead-spewing minigun, the tools and the talent are at your disposal to ensure non-stop butt-kicking action over Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360.