Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter

The beginning of pure chaos. Endless waves of enemies, huge arenas, and that unforgettable first scream of a kamikaze running at you.
It’s simple, dumb, and insanely fun. A true FPS classic.

💣 Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter

I decided to start with the classic version before moving on to the HD edition — I’ll leave that for later.
The classic is the one I first experienced back in childhood, and I remember it very clearly.

I had a childhood friend, and our families were close too, so we often spent time together.
When we were visiting his family, I first saw Serious Sam on his computer.
I even stayed overnight once, and we ended up playing the game almost all night long.
We finished it surprisingly fast — I clearly remember how we took turns fighting the final boss.

Those are very warm childhood memories that still come back to me whenever I think about this game.

⚔️Atmosphere & First Impressions
Even today, the game still feels surprisingly atmospheric and not that old.
It’s pleasant visually, pleasant in tone, pleasant in vibe.
Yes, it’s old in body — but not in spirit.

This isn’t some wildly unique gameplay concept. Games like DOOM, Quake, and Unreal already offered the same core idea:
run, shoot, lots of enemies, lots of weapons.

A timeless and foolproof formula.

But Serious Sam adds something extra — a very simple, yet cool sense of lore and identity.
It perfectly captures that late 90s / early 2000s energy:
a charismatic, unstoppable action hero destroying aliens with style, confidence, and cheesy one-liners.
Sometimes even jokes like “It’s not the size, it’s how you use it” (yes, the final boss).

🗺️ Setting & Level Design
The setting is Ancient Egypt, and honestly…
I feel like I’ve already been there — does that count as traveling? 😄

Pyramids, temples, statues, obelisks, hieroglyphs, deserts — everything looks bright, colorful, and alive.
It’s very visually appealing.

The levels are technically corridor-based, but very wide and massive corridors.
The scale is huge — sometimes even grandiose — although not all of that space is fully utilized.

You’ll constantly see:
• temples and ancient buildings
• statues and ruins
• pyramids in the distance
• deserts, catacombs, underground corridors

Special mention to the skyboxes:
sunny maps, sunsets, night skies full of stars — they still look great, especially considering this is a 2001 game.

🎬 Story (Simple but Effective)
There is a story, very minimal, set in the far future — with a big twist:
Serious Sam Stone travels back in time to defeat alien hordes and save Earth.

That’s it. Simple. Effective.

🧟‍♂️ Enemies — The Soul of the Game
Enemies deserve a section of their own.
• Headless soldiers with various guns
• The iconic screaming suicide bomber (the true symbol of Serious Sam)
• Charging bulls you dodge like a matador
• Skeletal dogs (or whatever those things are)
• Harpies, scorpions
• Walking dinosaur-like monsters with lasers and rockets
• Strange four-legged creatures I later saw something similar to in Ben 10 and even Mortal Kombat

You will never be bored.

🔫 Weapons
Plenty of weapons:
• Shotguns
• Miniguns
• Rocket launchers
• Grenade launchers
• Laser weapons
• And my personal favorite — the mortar

Pure chaos, pure fun.

💥Difficulty & Gameplay Feel
On higher difficulties, the game becomes a real challenge.
Honestly, it turns into a save/load simulator — but that was pretty standard for shooters of that era.

Still, the combat loop is incredibly satisfying.

👥 Multiplayer & Extras
• There is multiplayer
• Even split-screen on one screen (on PC!)

How practical that is — questionable.
But it exists. We tried it back in the day… not for very long 😅

🎵 Sound & Music
Rock music accompanies the carnage.
It’s not super memorable, but it fits the tone and does its job.

✅ Pros:
✔ Timeless, fast-paced classic shooter gameplay
✔ Huge enemy variety with iconic designs
✔ Massive, memorable Egypt-themed levels
✔ Still atmospheric even today
✔ Charismatic main character
✔ Tons of weapons and pure chaos
✔ Legendary cult status

❌ Cons:
➖ Gameplay doesn’t evolve much — pure run-and-gun
➖ Large spaces sometimes feel underused
➖ Difficulty relies heavily on saving/loading
➖ Story is extremely simple

📝 Conclusion
Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter is more than just a game — it’s a cult phenomenon.

It represents an entire era of shooters:
loud, fast, unapologetically over-the-top, and fun.

It may be old, but it still plays well, still feels good, and still delivers exactly what it promises:
pure action and nostalgia.

For me, this first entry will always be special.
Like first love — you never forget it.

⭐ Rating: 8.5 / 10
Why so:
• It's not a perfect game from a modern game design perspective
• But as a 2001 classic, with the vibe, charisma, scale and recognizability — it still works
• Plus a strong nostalgia and "pure fan" factor

🎮 Fun Facts:
• Released in 2001, during the golden age of classic shooters
• Developed by Croteam, a Croatian studio
• The screaming suicide bomber became one of the most iconic enemies in gaming
• The game supports split-screen multiplayer on PC, which was very rare
• Serious Sam became a cult figure comparable to Doomguy
• Later HD versions reworked visuals, but many fans still prefer the classic
• The Egypt setting was chosen to maximize open-space combat
• Multiplayer sniper duels were surprisingly popular back in the day

I'm a very serious gamer. I take pride in playing only the most serious and strategic of games such as Call of Duty and Among Us. Serious Sam is like both of those games but with the seriousness turned up to 11. This is no baby game, it's only for the toughest of gamers who only play serious games with no jokes or baby stuff.

pretty neat game, not too difficult, kinda reminds me of a mix between doom and wolfenstein
if you enjoy fps games, especially good retro shooters, pick this game up for your collection.

When you play on Linux, you can use a Steam Play option called Luxtorpedia which will automagically run your installed files through a native source port of this game and other supported titles!

Pretty fun, enough so to recommend. The guns all feel pretty powerful save for the pistols, and it ends on a pretty high note. With that said, some of the enemies in this are not difficult but quite annoying to deal with over and over again. It's not so much a challenge as it is a routine of learning when and where the suicide bombers or skeletons or alien bulls will spawn so you know to switch to the right weapons. It's at least a little funny that the very first game earned the entire series' reputation for running backwards while shooting hordes and hordes of enemies from the get-go but god does it drag at times.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Perfect
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Okay
☐ Bad
☐ Very stylized
☐ They're what they should be for what the game is
☐ MS Paint could make something better
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Fantastic
☑ Excellent
☐ Perfect
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Meh
☐ Bad, but playable
☐ Just go watch paint dry
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Amazing
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not to bad
☐ Alright
☐ Bad
☐ My ears are bleeding
---{ Audience }---
☑ Babies
☑ Young kids
☑ Young teens
☑ Older teens
☑ Adults
☑ Old people
☑ Anyone with a decent maturity level
☑ Anyone with a lack of maturity
☑ Anyone that is alive
☑ No one, not even your dog
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Just average
☑ A little better than average
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Better than good
☐ Fancy Pants Rich Boy
☐ NASA
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Can choose your difficulty setting
☐ No difficulty needed
☑ Just press 'W"
☐ Easy
☐ Medium
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Hard
☐ Verry Difficult
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if you like to collect things
☐ Only if you care about steam achievements
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Only if you care about rankings/placements/leaderboards/etc.
☑ Average grind level
☑ A little grindy
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second life, maybe some macros, & a will to live for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ Story? What story?
☐ No Story
☐ Twilight was a better love story than this
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It‘ll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ 1-2 Hours
☐ 2-5 Hours
☐ 5-10 Hours
☑ 10-20 Hours
☐ 20-50 Hours
☐ 50+ Hours
☐ 100+ Hours
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Replayablity }---
☐ You won't even finish it the first time
☐ None, once was enough
☐ Not that kind of game
☐ You don't stop playing this kinda game, ever
☑ Maybe once or twice, to try something new
☐ You'll want to get every single possible ending & secret there is
☐ You'll pick it up every few years, but never finish a whole playthrough
☐ A lot, just to romance everyone, pick new options. try new classes, etc
---{ Price }---
☐ It’s free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If you have some money to blow
☑ Wait for it to go on sale for the 100th time
☐ Ask someone to gift it to you instead
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Circumstantial (PC specs, internet, save/install location, etc.)
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Very low
☐ Low
☑ Average
☐ High
☐ Too much
---{ Worth It }---
☐ Hell no!
☐ If you have a lot of cash
☐ Worth it!
☐ Get it now!
☑ Life is not complete without this game!
---{ TEXT }---
A classic game, which I played a long time ago, we can say that it is part of the list of games of our childhood when we download them from certain obscure sites. Coming back to the game, my opinion is that it moves much better than many and I love this trilogy, the graphics are decent!
---{ 9 / 10 }---
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