Themes: Alien Invasion, Co-op, Independent, Parody / Satire, Run-‘n-gun, So Hard it Hurts, Spelunking / Graverobbing, Time Travel, Wacky / Over the Topīogus Detour is easily the best of the Serious Sam spin-offs, even when compared to the very solid Next Encounter. Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour – PC, Linux (2017) After 3’s rocky release and Greek Encounter‘s face plant, the series stuck to re-releases and remasters up until 2017, where things started up again. The game was met with almost universal negative responses (though most polite about it) and most likely changed Devolver’s handling of the IP.
It’s hard to find now, for the same reasons as Kamikaze Attack, but doesn’t really have much value beyond being a proof of concept. The Greek Encounter is a narrative lacking top down shooter that had Sam fight off waves of monsters, as usual, but it suffered from very poor environment design, seeing all characters straight down so as to hide most design details, and a difficulty curve more in line with the much harder difficulty levels in a mainline Serious Sam game. It’s not good by any stretch but based on what we know about Random Encounter‘s rushed development, it’s safe to say Ruth didn’t get the time he needed to flesh out the small title. It may have also ended the career of independent game designer Eric Ruth, whom you may have known from work on The Angry Video Game Nerd game, and a few odd spin-offs for Team Fortress and Halo, among others. The Greek Encounter was the last of the initial wave of Serious Sam indie games, and it was probably the one that killed the original trend.
Themes: Alien Invasion, Independent, Run-‘n-gun, So Hard it Hurts, Time Travel
SERIOUS SAM 3 HELLFIRE PC
Serious Sam: The Greek Encounter – PC (2012)