Serious Sam: Xbox is a first-person shooter video game developed by Croteam and published by Gotham Games. The game is a port of Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter to the Xbox. Some of the levels from original SS:FE and SS:SE were split because of the 64MB memory limit the Xbox has. Serious Sam: Xbox was first released on November 12, 2002.
Characters[]
- Croteam Heads (non-canonical appearance)
- Mental (Mentioned) (Not seen)
- NETRICSA
- Sam Stone
Enemies[]
- Arachnoid
- Aludran Reptiloid: Highlander's Bride
- Beheaded Rocketeer
- Beheaded Bomber
- Beheaded Firecracker
- Beheaded Kamikaze
- Common Aludran Reptiloid
- Cucurbito the Pumpkin
- Exotech Larva (Boss)
- Fiendian Reptiloid Demon
- Gnaar
- Highlander Aludran Reptiloid
- Kleer Skeleton
- Kukulkรกn, the Wind God (Boss)
- Lava Golem
- Major Bio-mechanoid
- Marsh Hopper
- Minor Bio-mechanoid
- Mordekai the Summoner (Boss)
- Reeban Electro-Fish
- Scythian Witch-Harpy
- Sirian Werebull
- Ugh-Zan III (Boss)
- Zorg Commander
- Zorg Mercenary
- Zumb'ul
Weapons[]
- 12 Gauge Pump-Action Shotgun
- Double Barrel Coach Gun
- M1-A2 Thompson Submachine Gun
- Military Knife
- MK III Grenade Launcher
- P-LAH Chainsaw
- RAPTOR Sniper Rifle
- Rotating Cannon
- SBC Cannon
- Schofield .45
- Serious Bomb
- Static Cannon
- XL2 Lasergun
- XM214-A Minigun
- XOP Flamethrower
- XPML21 Rocket Launcher
Gameplay[]
Gameplay-wise, Serious Sam: Xbox is essentially the same as both Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, though there have been many changes and modifications. There are also several features which are otherwise not present in Serious Sam 1.
For instance, there is a "multikill" system, which multiplies your score if you kill multiple enemies with a single shot. (x1 multiplier for each enemy killed) The more multikills you do in a short period of time, the higher the multiplier. Other features include a life system, which re-spawns you in place when you die, and auto-aiming. The player can access multiplayer via system link and split-screen.
The player can also align their favorite weapons to the X and Y button by selecting a weapon and holding X or Y, then press X or Y again to select that weapon.
Changes[]
- Sam now has a new model, with red sneakers, a shirt that says "Serious Sam" on the back (the bomb logo is still present on the front) and no shades. He is more muscular and looks a lot less like Duke Nukem, like he was in Serious Sam 1.
- The HUD is more cartoonish and stylised. The ammo bars that appeared in the bottom right corner of the screen in the PC version have been removed. The weapons list is now vertical and is displayed on the right side of the screen.
- Beheaded Bombers, Firecrackers, Kamikazes and Rocketeers look more muscular than in Serious Sam 1, and they have less human-like heads (except the Kamikaze, who has no head), without a mouth and with glowing light blue eyes and they all have a belt with a skull on it. The Kamikaze's back also looks different.
- Cucurbitos have fingers and a different chainsaw. Ugh-Zan III also has fingers.
- Several new introductory levels are added, giving a truncated origin story for Sam of his fights against Mental's forces on present-day Earth leading up to his use of the Time-Lock.
- Some levels are split into two parts to account for the Xbox's hardware limitations, such as:
- Karnak is split up into Karnak and Ankh Pool.
- Sierra de Chiapas is split up into Sierra de Chiapas and Catacombs.
- The City of the Gods is split up into The City of the Gods and Inner Sanctum.
- Ziggurat is split up into Ziggurat and Gates of Persepolis.
- The Courtyards of Gilgamesh are split into Courtyards of Gilgamesh and Temple of Gilgamesh.
- Tower of Babel is split up into Ceremonial Halls and Tower of Babel.
- The Citadel is split up into The Bridge and The Citadel.
- Land of the Damned is split up into Winter Wonderland and Lava Caves.
- The Grand Cathedral is split up into Corridor of Death and The Grand Cathedral.
- The "Geek Secret" is not present in Sacred Yards. Picking up the extra small health that starts the secret will always spawn a Major Bio-mechanoid.
- Certain levels such as City of the Gods and The Elephant Atrium are missing significant portions.
- Deathmatch maps Compound, Desert Temple, Red Station and We Got Skulls'n'Bones Too from the PC version have been removed. They have been replaced by 5 new maps: Ashes to Ashes, Brkeen Chevap, Docking Bay, Hoodlum's Backyard and Sun Palace.
- There are some new cinematics, and some different cinematics, such as the intro and The Second Encounter intro is skipped to where Sam flies aboard the SSS Centerprice. Specifically, Oasis, Alley of the Sphinxes, The City of the Gods, Ziggurat, The Citadel, Land of the Damned and The Grand Cathedral have new intros, while the Temple of Hatshepsut, Tomb of Ramses III, Valley of the Kings, Dunes, Suburbs, Sewers, Metropolis, Karnak (or "Ankh Pool", here), Luxor, The Pit, Tower of Babel and The Citadel have new outros. Temple of Hatshepsut's intro is also significantly shorter.
- The middle floor of Temple of Hatshepsut (the one the player spawns on) now has a dirt floor and trees.
- There is a time-lock in the Ziggurat and The Citadel, which serve as "exit" time locks. "Entry" time-locks look like doorways.
- All weapons except for the P-LAH Chainsaw and SBC Cannon have different models (albeit the Chainsaw and Cannon have different viewmodels; the Cannon's being ever so slightly different). The Serious Bomb also has a different model, and is required to be equipped first, then used, unlike the Serious Sam 1 version, where it is instantly used.
- The player switches weapons a lot faster than the PC version to make up for not being able to have binds for each weapon.
- There are serious bombs scattered around The First Encounter levels, and there's a chainsaw in Temple of Hatshepsut.
- The player can pick up ammo, health and armour items even if you have the maximum amount allowed for that item, unlike the PC version. Health and armour can be super charged to over 100 from any health/armour pickup but will automatically decrease by 1 every 2 seconds until it reaches 100 (except when playing on Easy difficulty). Extra small health/armour pickups now give 5 health/armour points instead of only 1.
- Both the Tourist and Mental difficulties are not present in the Xbox port.
- Ammo pickups give only half ammo on the Easy difficulty, but ammo capacity remains unchanged.
- The player does not get double ammo on Serious difficulty.
- The maximum capacity for Bullets is 999 (instead of the normal 500) on all difficulties but Bullet ammo pickups still give only 50 ammo. This is the only ammo type that has double the normal capacity.
- Any kind of damage boosting (including rocket jumping and excluding the damage boost from the Reeban Electro-Fish and Sirian Werebull) is disabled in the Xbox port, presumably because being out of bounds in some areas may render the whole level at once, causing massive lag and possibly crashes on the Xbox console. This makes the damage boost from the Sirian Werebull the only way to get out of bounds.
- There is only 1 available crosshair which is not found in the PC version, however a smaller version of it is used as the default crosshair in Serious Sam 2. The crosshair is also fixed, with no option of making it unfixed.
- Cheats are available in the Xbox version and can be enabled in the main menu or in the pause menu by having the left stick, the black button, the white button and Y held down at the same time. Most cheats are not available (such as fly and turbo) due to how easy it is to get out of bounds with said cheats. However there are developer cheats exclusive to the Xbox port that are enabled by using the same button combination but Y must be pressed 3 times while having the other buttons held down. These cheats teleport the player to different markers of the level, e.g. checkpoints and secrets. The 99th marker cheat will always teleport the player to an end level trigger (including levels that are typically passed by defeating a boss).
Trivia[]
- The developer cheat menu has a typo, displaying "Developert Cheats" at the top of the menu.
- Temple of Hatshepsut has 6 treasure pickups according to its statistics screen, but only 5 can be found.
- The green variant of Marsh Hopper that can only be found in Sewers are not present in the Xbox port.
- The secret disco in Sierra de Chiapas plays different music. The same music can be heard in Ankh Pool's outro.
- The Serious Bomb has a weird visual when being equipped; the left hand (which holds the lighter) instantly appears while the right hand smoothly transitions into view.
- Doing nothing for around 20 seconds on the main menu will cause one of the game's trailers to start playing.
Glitches[]
- A game crash can be manually caused via using a Serious Bomb then using a developer cheat right when the explosion occurs.
- Using a developer cheat can cause the player to automatically switch to a random weapon.
- If you use a developer cheat while zoomed in with the RAPTOR Sniper Rifle and the player automatically switches to a different weapon, a glitch will occur where the crosshair and viewmodel will be invisible, though bullet casings will still be visible and weapon functionality will remain the same. The glitch can easily be reversed by simply changing weapons.
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