[OpenMaw]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 02:15 PM, said:

Spoiler

Wasn't that exactly what Mental Institution was?

Spoiler

Was that in Serious Sam 2? I only played TFE and BFE.

[Ninety-Six]

Commando Nukem, on 23 April 2018 - 02:27 PM, said:

Spoiler

Was that in Serious Sam 2? I only played TFE and BFE.

Spoiler

It was, yes.

[JankJason]

I can't understand why they wont want to put the HD remasters of the first two games nor SS3BFE on GoG.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 02:15 PM, said:

Spoiler

Wasn't that exactly what Mental Institution was?

That wasn't a whole level though, it was just a huge building. I sure as shit can't name another FPS where you have to fight a BUILDING BLOCK though.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:

Also I am continually amazed by the amount of people who actually care about Serious Sam's story.

Even if you don't want to care Croteam makes you care with all their weird story decisions, especially when it comes to retcons. Their "we don't agree with SS2 anymore" attitude is just the tip of the iceberg, it's like if they were embarrassed about some elements of the SS story from hindsight. For example I remember when I fired up TSE HD for the first time and there was no intro, the game just started with Sam standing at the beginning of the first level. I got curious so I went to the Steam forums and of course there were a few "where is the intro?" threads. Croteam said they removed the intro because they thought it was too silly (if you remember TSE started with Sam crash landing on Earth again after his space ship collided with those big headed "fans" - the development team basically - who ride on crates)...

...but now if you fire up TSE HD in Fusion you will see the original intro somewhat remade with HD assets. Guess it's not too silly anymore because the fans liked the original.

Really the problem of the franchise when it comes to its story is that Serious Sam was never meant to be much more than a tech demo. There was a story of course but you know, the game was a garage project so they never put much thought into it (hell, for TFE and TSE John J. Dick, the voice of Sam came up with most of the one-liners, he just played the game and when something silly came to his mind he wrote it down, there were no writers ). Then after SS2 things changed, Croteam started to take the story more seriously and that's why SS3 ignores SS2 altogether. For example the Sirians were stupid cartoon aliens in jumpsuits in SS2 but in SS3 they became this ancient alien race with vast knowledge so now they look completely different (you can see a Sirian in SS3 when you pick up the Sirian Bracelet).

This kind of stuff makes me interested in the story, especially since Croteam said that they hired Jonas Kyratzes, one of the writers of The Talos Principle to work on SS4's story. Talos had an amazing storyline so SS4 is the first game in the franchise where I actually have expectations for the writing, I'm excited to see where Kyratzes takes it.

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 23 April 2018 - 08:29 PM, said:

Really the problem of the franchise when it comes to its story is that Serious Sam was never meant to be much more than a tech demo. There was a story of course but you know, the game was a garage project so they never put much thought into it (hell, for TFE and TSE John J. Dick, the voice of Sam came up with most of the one-liners, he just played the game and when something silly came to his mind he wrote it down, there were no writers ). Then after SS2 things changed, Croteam started to take the story more seriously and that's why SS3 ignores SS2 altogether. For example the Sirians were stupid cartoon aliens in jumpsuits in SS2 but in SS3 they became this ancient alien race with vast knowledge so now they look completely different (you can see a Sirian in SS3 when you pick up the Sirian Bracelet).

They sort of portrayed that way in TFE, as well, going by the NETRICSA logs. In fact the original backstory to TFE was kind of intense, even making Sam sort of a semi-suicidal figure in his insistence on taking on thousands of monsters at once.

Reading this is extremely bizarre.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 09:15 PM, said:

They sort of portrayed that way in TFE, as well, going by the NETRICSA logs. In fact the original backstory to TFE was kind of intense, even making Sam sort of a semi-suicidal figure in his insistence on taking on thousands of monsters at once.

Reading this is extremely bizarre.

And you can find this all in the NETRICSA stuff? I always read those (pretty long ago though ) and all I remember from TFE are character and mission objective descriptions with a bit of Egyptian history put in there. I don't know much about the latter though, when I was in Egypt and I saw the Hatshepsut temple the only thing I could think of was "wow, this looks exactly like the first level in Serious Sam".

Quote

making Sam sort of a semi-suicidal figure in his insistence on taking on thousands of monsters at once

I think this would be great as the backstory of SS4, it's like the original version of Deadshot from DC Comics where Deadshot just wanted to die in battle but he's just too good so that never happens. Since the character of Sam never had much of a backstory I think it would be great if he was some disillusioned soldier guy who wants to die but he rejects the idea of suicide so when Mental invades Earth he just goes out to get himself killed. Like in the case of Deadshot that of course never happens, instead he finds out that he's a natural alien ass kicker so passion returns to his life.

I mean this could be actual character development for Sam but it's also silly enough for a Serious Sam game and I think most fans would be interested in a prequel that is actually about Sam, a "Serious Sam Begins" so to speak.

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 23 April 2018 - 10:12 PM, said:

And you can find this all in the NETRICSA stuff? I always read those (pretty long ago though ) and all I remember from TFE are character and mission objective descriptions with a bit of Egyptian history put in there. I don't know much about the latter though, when I was in Egypt and I saw the Hatshepsut temple the only thing I could think of was "wow, this looks exactly like the first level in Serious Sam".

Well most of it was only hinted at in-game. I was mostly referring to the way Sirians were presented in the NETRICSA logs, which was indeed like mystical super aliens that in the end were still felled by humanity when they rebelled against their "gods."

Zaxx, on 23 April 2018 - 10:12 PM, said:

I think this would be great as the backstory of SS4, it's like the original version of Deadshot from DC Comics where Deadshot just wanted to die in battle but he's just too good so that never happens. Since the character of Sam never had much of a backstory I think it would be great if he was some disillusioned soldier guy who wants to die but he rejects the idea of suicide so when Mental invades Earth he just goes out to get himself killed. Like in the case of Deadshot that of course never happens, instead he finds out that he's a natural alien ass kicker so passion returns to his life.

I mean this could be actual character development for Sam but it's also silly enough for a Serious Sam game and I think most fans would be interested in a prequel that is actually about Sam, a "Serious Sam Begins" so to speak.

Part of it is also responsibility, since he was the one who awakened Mental. So in addition to feeling like he needs to pay for his "crime," he also feels that it's his job to take on Mental. This is why I referred to Final Fight earlier, because it really does seem like the song was written from the perspective of Sam and addressed directly to Mental.

I would be extremely interested if 4 took the route you described where he slowly awakened into his wise-cracking asskicking self, but if The Last Hope is to be taken as canon then chances are low (I am assuming Planet Badass is a direct prequel to BFE much in the same way BFE was a direct prequel to TFE).

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 10:28 PM, said:

he was the one who awakened Mental.

Oh yeah, that's something I would like to actually see in SS4 for a change, fleshing out the backstory of the franchise is what a prequel should do in the case of SS.

Btw. I've never played Last Hope, all I know about it is that it's a VR game Croteam made to help fund the development of SS4. It had a story?

[Ninety-Six]

Kind of. It wasn't an overarching one, it was more like a series of vignettes depicting the battles against Mental in the galaxy before humanity was backed up to Earth. Sam was the captain of the battleship Saratoga in it, which aligns with his career path in the TFE backstory thing.


I'd recommend looking up some footage of the game (including the briefings which a lot of videos leave out) if you can't play VR, since some of Sam's lines are utter gems.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 10:59 PM, said:

Sam was the captain of the battleship Saratoga in it, which aligns with his career path in the TFE backstory thing.

Nice. Croteam is not an "inefficient" company and they are certainly not above reusing assets so chances are we'll see that setting in SS4 too.

[Ninety-Six]

Didn't they say that SS4 was going to primarily be set in two Earth locations? I forget which ones they were, other than the definitive "not Egypt."

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 24 April 2018 - 12:15 AM, said:

Didn't they say that SS4 was going to primarily be set in two Earth locations? I forget which ones they were, other than the definitive "not Egypt."

Apart from France I don't think much is confirmed, it could be anything at this point.

Btw. it's good to see that Croteam is using the currently limited VR market to make some money but man, Last Hope costs 37 euros on Steam. Isn't that a bit much for a 2 hour long "lightgun shooter"?

[PikaCommando]

Those interested in the Sam story should find this fun to read:



It's an excerpt from the original Serious Sam design document, which outlined what the original Serious Sam was going to be about before it was reworked into The First Encounter. Basically, the original Serious Sam plans is TFE and SS2 combined (Egypt>Planetoids>Sirius).

It's not canon anymore and many details have changed since then (such as Mental no longer being a brain in a jar), but still worth a read as all Sam titles except TSE are derived from the basic plot outline laid out here.

Here's a transcript of what's visible:

Spoiler

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW

The year is 2777. For many y---
forces. They are led by Notorious----

The situation is more and more ----
total defeat. The Mighty Council----
'Sam's Seven' are still resisting ----
computer-like creature. It's got ----
to defeat Notorious Mental. S---
Earth's last chance. It's obvious ----
of the Sam's Seven who should ----

Notorious Mental discovers tim----
the time hole. After that, Notoriou---

Now, Time Hole is ready to ???-----
through it. He wants to intercept ------

Meanwhile, the Earth is defeated.
image to surviving population and----

One guy is fighting his way towards----
contain exactly the year he should----
BC, ancient Egypt civilization----
only luggage. The short ???? -----
???? ???? and louder.

'HE IS STRONG, -----
SAM'S SEV----


Serious Sam gives his last serio----
gorgeous princess or something, ??----
hole. Let the action begins!


HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Somewhere deep inside the univer----
for centuries. There were two broth----
left of the ancient Neurons civilization-----
brain. He glided throughout galax----
powers were far superior than Men----
and a bit vicious. Through years, ??------
bad things to others. Eventually, M------

Ninety-Six, on 23 April 2018 - 10:28 PM, said:

Well most of it was only hinted at in-game. I was mostly referring to the way Sirians were presented in the NETRICSA logs, which was indeed like mystical super aliens that in the end were still felled by humanity when they rebelled against their "gods."

The Sirians aren't felled by humanity, they're just wiped out for being the most intelligent species around at that time. They're just highly advanced in technology, but they have no magic like Mental does (and were only beginning to learn magic from the Kleers before Mental's arrival). The ones on Earth are told to hide the Timelock (which is of unknown origins) from Mental and they eventually went insane and died themselves by the time Sam arrived in TFE.

The confirmed locations in SS4 so far is France and Italy, along with a third location they're not revealing yet.

[NightFright]

Wild guess for the third location: Croatia?

[PikaCommando]

Hard to say. I personally think it's Russia, but others have suggested England.

Of note though, is that apparently during the development of Serious Engine 3, they've digitized many parts of Croatia into the engine (I think one or two made it in as SS3's deathmatch maps).

The Villa from SS3 Survival is supposedly based off Makarska:


The Fiaca from SS3 Deathmatch is supposedly based off Dubrovnik:

(yes, it kinda looks like cs_italy :V)

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 24 April 2018 - 12:56 AM, said:

Btw. it's good to see that Croteam is using the currently limited VR market to make some money but man, Last Hope costs 37 euros on Steam. Isn't that a bit much for a 2 hour long "lightgun shooter"?

As far as I've heard it's the best in its genre. I can't confirm myself because I severely lack the funds and rig to run a VR game, especially one as intense as Sam.

PikaCommando, on 24 April 2018 - 01:18 AM, said:

The ones on Earth are told to hide the Timelock (which is of unknown origins) from Mental and they eventually went insane and died themselves by the time Sam arrived in TFE.

I'm pretty sure the Egyptian gods were the Sirians themselves. NETRICSA constantly refers to "riots" committed by the people of Memphis against Thebes, and Thebes is where all the Sirian tech is located. I'm pretty sure at one point NETRICSA even outright says the Sirians were literally worshipped as gods.

---

I was stating earlier how ironic it is that the second half of the original SS1 plan had never come to pass. Instead we got two sequels, one of which has been ejected from canon, the other will also be seeing a big rewrite, and then just prequels.

[Tea Monster]

Wait, there is a continuing story with Serious Sam?

[PikaCommando]

Tea Monster, on 24 April 2018 - 06:31 AM, said:

Wait, there is a continuing story with Serious Sam?

Surprisingly, yes. They were serious about the story for TFE. After the game came out and people focused on how "wacky and unexpected" it is, those comments got into CT's head and they decided to focus on being sillier starting with TSE, which continued into SSX and SS2 (by the way, the reason it's named Serious Sam 2 is because it's the sequel to the Xbox version of Serious Sam, not the PC Encounters it was combined from). Fortunately, SS2's failure which led to their near-bankruptcy smacked their heads right again and they became serious with SS3 again.

Ninety-Six, on 24 April 2018 - 03:14 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure the Egyptian gods were the Sirians themselves. NETRICSA constantly refers to "riots" committed by the people of Memphis against Thebes, and Thebes is where all the Sirian tech is located. I'm pretty sure at one point NETRICSA even outright says the Sirians were literally worshipped as gods.

Yup, the Sirians that went insane used their technology to play gods and pharoahs (which they weren't supposed to because it might alert Mental to their presence on Earth).

[necroslut]

PikaCommando, on 24 April 2018 - 06:47 AM, said:

Fortunately, SS2's failure which led to their near-bankruptcy smacked their heads right again and they became serious with SS3 again.

Eh, they didn't "become serious again" - BFE is a major tone shift compared to TFE. As major as SS2, I'd claim.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 24 April 2018 - 03:14 AM, said:

I severely lack the funds and rig to run a VR game, especially one as intense as Sam.

No need to worry, the last time I heard they are thinking about adding flat support to Last Hope so eventually you might be able to play it without using a VR headset. I don't know what would be the point of that though, the way I see it Last Hope is good because it's a VR game, if you lose that aspect then guess the fact that it really doesn't play like SS (no movement, no exploration etc.) starts bothering you.

Anyway I doubt that it's the best in the genre, I mean you can play TFE HD, TSE HD and SS3 in VR too (and I'm sure SS4 will have that feature too). I guess some people might have problems with full locomotion and whatnot but still, those are 15 hours long full FPS experiences.

Quote

I was stating earlier how ironic it is that the second half of the original SS1 plan had never come to pass. Instead we got two sequels, one of which has been ejected from canon, the other will also be seeing a big rewrite, and then just prequels.

I find it weird how Croteam doesn't even acknowledge Next Encounter exists. There may be some legal problems there because even though it wasn't developed by them it's a pretty awesome console shooter, especially the GameCube version which runs at 60 fps. It's worth it to fire up the Dolphin emulator and play it, I don't think anyone could be disappointed, NE is pure Serious Sam fine tuned for consoles.

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 24 April 2018 - 07:46 AM, said:

Eh, they didn't "become serious again" - BFE is a major tone shift compared to TFE. As major as SS2, I'd claim.

I wouldn't call BFE a major tonal change (it's less colourful and a lot more violent than the previous entries but that's all) but you can really feel on it that Croteam was afraid to use anything that could be considered cartoony after SS2's bad reception.

Basically if they made SS4's graphics more colourful along with adding more color to the arsenal while keeping SS3's over-the-top violence and R rated language intact I think the result would be the perfect Sam game.

[MusicallyInspired]

I didn't even know Next Encounter existed! From the looks of it it looks pretty authentic game-wise for sure to the original Encounters. And the sillier graphics definitely aren't as offensive or jarring as SS2's.

I remember seeing Serious Sam for the first time on a jewel case display in Radio Shack or something. I wrote it off as a cheap knock-off of Duke Nukem seeing as they looked so similar. Never ever tried it. I noticed that Milkshape 3D back in the day had support for it which confused me. But it wasn't until The First Encounter HD came out that I actually got to see what it was like. I couldn't believe I hadn't played it before. I wish I would have back in the day. Love the series now!

[cybdmn]

it‘s funny that you thought about SS as some kind of an DN wannabe. I remember back when the first demos of SS was released, and later when the full version came out, most gamers don’t gave a shit about Duke anymore. It was the time when Build games where considered old shit, and DN4F started to become the Forever-Joke.

But SS on the other hand started to get his own fanbase, for being some new kind of FPS. It was the originator of the „Arena FPSs“.

[NightFright]

I like how they removed the sunglasses from Sam to make him look less like a Duke clone - until they decided to give a f*** and put them back anyway.

[MusicallyInspired]

I never heard any wind of it at all in any of the circles I ran in. I think I frequented the Dukeworld boards at the time. Not until years and years later when I decided to download the demo for TFE HD on my Xbox 360 (when I had one) was I informed. I was blown away. And then suddenly it was everywhere and was a thing. And then I acquired them all one Steam summer sale when the whole Gold Collection was on sale for $12. Then BFE.

[NightFright]

Geez, 12 USD for so many awesome games. I don't want to do the math to know how much I paid for everything back then... You get a lot of value for a really good price!

I remember how excited I was about TFE back in the days. There weren't many games with an Egyptian scenario and the game looked pretty nice when it was first released. Gotta play everything again on Fusion once it's out of beta (if that will ever happen). Would come in handy if they finished it for the new game.

[MusicallyInspired]

Actually, my dad bought copies for himself and my brother too so we could all play. What a great deal indeed.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 24 April 2018 - 01:01 PM, said:

Gotta play everything again on Fusion once it's out of beta (if that will ever happen).

Even though Fusion is in beta I find it a lot more polished than the original version when it comes SS3 both in performance and in gameplay, it's an interesting, somewhat new experience. Most enemies have new power attacks on hard and serious difficulty that are harder to avoid and do a lot of damage, you can change and reload weapons while sprinting, cancel reloading if you have ammo left in a clip, there are some new secret areas and tons of bugs were fixed. It has a better flow.

As for TFE HD and TSE HD: SS3 received most of the changes so in the case of the HD remakes you basically get more stable, better performing and nicer looking versions. It's nothing substantial but the originals are pretty old now so Fusion should be the obvious choice these days. Overall I think the beta state has to do with the fact that Vulkan and DX12 still have a few issues so the DX11 renderer is what you should use as of now.

The only downside to Fusion is that the majority of the playerbase is yet to come over so if you want to play co-op Fusion is not that populated. There are enough players though and jumping between 3 games in co-op sessions is a great experience.

[Ninety-Six]

necroslut, on 24 April 2018 - 07:46 AM, said:

Eh, they didn't "become serious again" - BFE is a major tone shift compared to TFE. As major as SS2, I'd claim.

I'd disagree. TSE, sure, but TFE and BFE are fairly similar in tone. TFE was still taking itself at least a little bit seriously, while still having fun, much like BFE. NETRICSA was also a lot more subdued in TFE, versus in TSE where she had a lot more personality all of a sudden.

Zaxx, on 24 April 2018 - 07:58 AM, said:

Anyway I doubt that it's the best in the genre, I mean you can play TFE HD, TSE HD and SS3 in VR too (and I'm sure SS4 will have that feature too). I guess some people might have problems with full locomotion and whatnot but still, those are 15 hours long full FPS experiences.

By "genre" I referred specifically to the "stand and shoot" style of gameplay a lot of VR games go for.

Zaxx, on 24 April 2018 - 07:58 AM, said:

I find it weird how Croteam doesn't even acknowledge Next Encounter exists. There may be some legal problems there because even though it wasn't developed by them it's a pretty awesome console shooter, especially the GameCube version which runs at 60 fps. It's worth it to fire up the Dolphin emulator and play it, I don't think anyone could be disappointed, NE is pure Serious Sam fine tuned for consoles.

They acknowledged it once to say it was non-canon, though I assume that's simply because they didn't make the game and therefore didn't have any control over it. I wish I could find a copy or alternatively someone ports it to the PC in the same vein as Half-Life Decay or PSX Doom since I never had the chance to play it and it does look like a fun legit Sam game.

NightFright, on 24 April 2018 - 01:01 PM, said:

Geez, 12 USD for so many awesome games. I don't want to do the math to know how much I paid for everything back then... You get a lot of value for a really good price!

I don't remember what I paid for TFE back in the day. But that copy was long since lost. I got all my steam copies when Sam went to the Humble Bundle, though, a few years back. So I got the entire (Steam) Sam collection for $1. Because I'm poor! =D

I feel bad about it, but it was I could get all the Sam games including both versions of TFE and TSE (and I never actually played TSE back when, only TFE) for insanely cheap, or I don't play any of them for a long time, and collect them very piecemeal.


I'd love to make it up to Croteam sometime since of all the devs out there they're one of the ones who really deserve it, but that's not possible right now.