With the battle against Mental thought to be finished Sam returns back to the present only to find that his actions in the past have done nothing to change the timeline. Sent this time into the future Sam has decided to assassinate Mental there. Gearing up to take on his forces Sam gets help this time from Gregory and White. Take control of all three heroes as they charge Mental’s forcesWith the battle against Mental thought to be finished Sam returns back to the present only to find that his actions in the past have done nothing to change the timeline. Sent this time into the future Sam has decided to assassinate Mental there. Gearing up to take on his forces Sam gets help this time from Gregory and White. Take control of all three heroes as they charge Mental’s forces and have a seriously good time while they’re at it!
Like any major title released today if there’s one constant in the world of gaming is a promotional tie-in. Sometimes it’s a competition, sometimes it’s a comic book or a vinyl soundtrack (why vinyl and not CD???) but one thing that is certain is that if an eagerly awaited game is coming out expect some kind of tie-in. Video game tie-ins, or at least indie game tie-ins to big release games however is unusual. When Croteam’s Serious Sam 3: BFE (2011) was in the process of being released indie company Vlambeer, known for its tiny pixel style 2D games, got in on the action with turn based RPG/shooter Serious Sam: The Random Encounter (2011). The game contains three worlds with three stages per world. You make your way across the map until you hit a random battle. You take on the bad guys will all your favourite weapons from the mainline games here plus you can collect items (some new) along the way like the old favourites Serious Bomb as well as Serious Damage. The game essentially works with a timer where you control the action of moving up and down firing at enemies. When the timer stops the game freezes and allows you to pick your next weapon, item or strategy for all player characters on screen. Once this is done the timer starts up again and so repeat/rinse till death or completion. Poor Sam and his friends have to do all this running backwards and we all know by now how much he hates doing that right? At least you can move your characters out of harm’s way during active gameplay. There’s not much more going on in gameplay apart from all that. Make no mistake this is a short game. An endless mode is made available upon completion but this is artificially extending the length. Critics were keen to see the game length as a major issue but for the price point I don’t feel that criticism is justified. My concern is more a couple of bugs which years after release the developers still have yet to iron out like the game crashing sometimes at the game over screen or a bizarre bug that doesn’t allow you to restart a save file. The game is fine for a budget title. The graphics are cute and the music is synth awesome.
The Random Encounter is a seriously short game taking no more than two hours to complete. The endless mode of course extending the gameplay time helps but for those who complained about the length the fair price and it being a promotional tie-in mean one shouldn’t expect depth. For the price it makes an alright purchase although I wish those bugs were sorted out. In all it’s not a bad game at all.… Expand
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