{"id":208,"date":"2007-09-29T22:35:03","date_gmt":"2007-09-30T03:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/208"},"modified":"2016-07-07T17:47:11","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T00:47:11","slug":"ss2e-the-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/208","title":{"rendered":"SS2E: The End"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-summoner-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-summoner-1-300x225.png\" alt=\"ss2e-summoner\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-summoner-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-summoner-1-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-summoner-1.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>It turns out that the final levels shed the halloween motif pretty quickly and settle into something more like the knightly stuff I was expecting.  Not that this has a very great effect on on the game &#8212; the monsters are the same as always, and not even reskinned.  But the ultimate goal is the Holy Grail (which helps you get a spaceship somehow), and the final boss is a gray-robed wizard-looking guy, albeit one who&#8217;s 80 feet tall according to the stats provided in-game.  His schtick is that he summons random assortments of the standard monsters, which makes for a difficult fight until you find out about the cheap trick that lets you take him down with near absolute safety.  Something of a letdown, but then, the end boss in <em>Serious Sam: The First Encounter<\/em> is a really tough act to follow.<\/p>\n<p>Looking back on the whole game, how would I describe it?  Oddly medatative.  The bulk of the player&#8217;s time is spent on chaotic battles in open areas, which is the kind of action that mainly engages the lower brain functions, leaving the player&#8217;s thoughts free to wander.  Sometimes this means I was thinking about tactics &#8212; deciding which weapon to use, whether to seek cover, and so forth &#8212; but by the end, I had pretty much got that down.  There are only so many permutations the game supports, and by the end, you&#8217;ve seen them all several times.  I suppose most FPSes deal with this by varying the environment a lot, adding in puzzles and platformer sections if necessary.  But <em>Sam<\/em>, especially toward the end, mainly plays to its strength: chaotic battles in large, open environments.<\/p>\n<p>So, do I want to continue on to <em>Serious Sam 2<\/em>?  Maybe, eventually.  There are other FPS games on the Stack, and a distinct possibility that I&#8217;ll be sick of them before I get through them all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that the final levels shed the halloween motif pretty quickly and settle into something more like the knightly stuff I was expecting. Not that this has a very great effect on on the game &#8212; the monsters are the same as always, and not even reskinned. But the ultimate goal is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[80,81],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fps","tag-serious-sam","tag-serious-sam-the-second-encounter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3587,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/3587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}