Serious Sam: The First Encounter

Single-segment speed run of Serious Sam: The First Encounter on Tourist difficulty, done on August 30 2007. Author's comments: This run was done using version 1.05. Originally I started running this without using Fraps to record, since using the built-in demo recorder would enable me to play at 1280x1024 at 60fps, which makes aiming/movement easier for me. After completing a very good run however, I discovered that every multi-level demo I created desynced at the second level, which was rather annoying, so I had to resort to Fraps for this, meaning I had to play at 30fps at 640x480. It wasn't as bad as I thought, and I came close to beating the run I'd captured on demo previously. (I was 45 seconds off that time with this run, which I find impressive considering that it's hard to do long distance aiming at 30fps) Anyhoo here's a list of tricks I used in each level, along with things you might wonder about in the run. * Level 1: Hatshepsut - 0:35 At the start I jump up the slope instead of walking since you gain altitude when jumping off a slope, which means I move up it faster. The rest of the level is just precise movement along walls and barely skimming the shotgun to pick it up. * Level 2: Sand Canyon - 1:33 This level is a pain on 30fps. I leave the first Kamikaze I see alive, since killing him makes more spawn and makes it more annoying a bit further ahead. I kill the two Gnaar because their deaths trigger a Kleer Skeleton spawn, and I use that as a stepping stone to get over the barrier at the bottom of the dark slope. The hopper trap in the next room is triggered by killing all three Kamikazes in the tunnel before it, so killing them as soon as possible makes progression faster. I press the secret wall to get the Tommygun here since it makes killing the hoppers faster and costs no time at all. I use the slope jumping trick in the room after that (and jump over a Female Gnaar on the way) and in the next area I kill the Bull, since it has an annoying habit of knocking me out of the doorway at the end if I don't. * Level 3: Tomb of Ramses - 1:43 Again the slopejump was used here for a little speedboost. In the long corridor area where I jump randomly the jump avoids a trigger which closes the door ahead of me and spawns a Young Arachnoid and some Gnaar, which I have to kill to get the door to open. I use a trick to jump on the flying Gnaar's head to get to the upper level faster, which shaves a few seconds off. (This is also in the Serious IL for this level) It's possible to jump up the slope in the room after the Kamikaze in this level in one try but I didn't manage it, luckily the flying Gnaar was just behind me to give me a stepping stone. Jumping up the wall at the end of the large square arena room lets you exit early. * Level 4: Valley of the Kings - 4:12 Here I kill the Kamikaze riding the bull first, since it has a very annoying habit of getting in the way of the bull boosting me. Here's also where you'll see the first truly random part of the run. Bull boosting. Grazing the side of the bull sends you in the direction perpendicular to that side, which is nice for moving in one direction since you can just keep grazing opposite sides, but here I didn't manage to keep the pattern up. The Aludran Reptiloid Highlander takes 14 rockets to kill, but you can substitute the last two for Tommygun bullets which saves about a second or two. In the room with the Ankh on a pillar, I need to press one button (The left one specifically) to get the pillar to lower enough so that I can slopejump onto it, which means I skip half of this puzzle. I also have to keep at least one of the flying Gnaar from pressing the left switch alive to jump back over the Wall of Darkness further in the level. There's not much else to say about this level which isn't self-explanatory, except that keeping all the Kleer from jumping in the water with the Stone Ankh is harder than it looks. :) * Level 5: Oasis - 2:28 This is probably the easiest level in the game for me, it's a straight forward run, the only area of note being the large hopper room where I kill the initial waves with the rocket launchers splash damage then when the extra hoppers start spawning further along the walls I switch to the tommygun and exhaust each hopper spawn in turn. * Level 6: Dunes - 1:11 I really didn't like this level., and you'll see why when you watch the run. Bulls can be very uncooperative. :( The end door has the end-of-level trigger right inside it, so all I need is a boost to push me slightly into the door to trigger it. * Level 7: Suburbs - 0:58 This level, like Oasis, is also straightforward, and doesn't need any comment from me. * Level 8: Sewers - 1:39 This level can be really annoying, depending on how the fish behave during it. I managed to press the first button faster than I normally do. (and without killing all the fish in there to boot!) Note that killing the Aludran Reptiloid guarding the Super Armor pickup and pressing the button is faster than waiting for the wall to move up by itself. * Level 9: Metropolis - 8:07 Killing the two Aludrans on the towers in the courtyard with the Black archways is the only way to unlock the door here. I skip a large part of the level by (clumsily) using a Beheaded Sirian and a Biomechanoid Minor as stepping stones to get on the roof of a building and from there over the wall and out of the main level area. Bunnyhopping after using the bouncepad lets me keep some of my momentum for the next two jumps, and touching the Armor piece in the centre of the room starts the fight off. Note that Grenades > Harpies. :) (Each wave here is summoned by picking up the ammo backpacks.) * Level 10: Alley of the Sphinxes - 5:19 This is another pretty straightforward level, and with luck it would be possible to shave about 30 seconds off by managing to get a bull into the courtyard after jumping the wall and opening the door by touching the Armor piece. I've managed it only once though, and messed up that run at Luxor. Killing most of the enemies in the area where you place the four elements spawns the items which spawn the Lava Golem here, and I try to be efficient about it. * Level 11: Karnak - 5:55 Thanks to zojji for the tactic for this level, though on previous runs I had trouble actually not killing the Bull, since I was dumb and used Cannon to kill the Young Arachnoid in the wide room where the Bull spawns. The rest of the level is pretty self-explanatory. * Level 12: Luxor - 4:35 This level can theoretically be improved by 1:30, but it requires a very VERY random trick called Cannon Boosting. Basically if you get the correct angle and jump height, you can boost yourself into the air at about Double Rocketjump height, for the price of 70-140hp. Unfortunately it's so hard to get perfect that I just gave up trying and finished this level normally. The Ankhs in the last room always spawn in the order I collect/place them. I was admittedly a little cautious partway through the level stopping to kill some Kleers, as I had a run where I collected the golden feather, went to exit the room and was double boosted by two waiting Kleer off the edge to the lower level. Which was pretty annoying. :( * Level 13: The Great Pyramid - 10:55 This level is also improvable by around 3-4 minutes or so by use of the Cannon Boost to skip the initial part of the level. I got very unlucky with bull randomness here, had a few decent boosts which hit the wall too soon and caused me not to go over the wall. (cue much cursing) The timer for the opening of the doors into the great pyramid start when I get to the ramp, so my goal is to get there ASAP. Ugh'Zan did something funny where he stopped advancing after a while, so I was stuck spamming Cannonballs at him at super long range. Luckily he was close enough for them to get to him. Inside the great pyramid all that's left is to jump through the four hoops and activate the ships teleport, which happens to be fatal to large horned six-armed demonic entities. (Lucky me.) If you try to kill him normally, he'll regenerate back to half health. Sounds simple? It's not, since he has to be positioned over the glowing circle in the center of the floor for him to take damage. I've had many runs ruined because he moved out of the circle at the last second. But not this time. :) *NOTE* Ignore the very last time screen, it includes end-of-level cutscene times which aren't included.