The Beheaded Bomber is an enemy that has made an appearance in several Serious Sam games.
Overview
The Beheaded Bomber is a headless humanoid suited in a green T-shirt, holding their head in one hand, and produces pocket bombs from the other. In Serious Sam HD, their heads are impaled on a spike protruding from their necks, and carries a bag of grenades in their right hand.
Like other Sirian soldiers, the Bomber is controlled with a "Life Control Unit" (LCU). A Bomber is equipped with their head in their left hand and produces inflatable bombs from their pocket in the right. In Serious Sam HD, the Bomber produces bombs from a grenade pouch, and tosses them with their left hand.
Occurrence
In Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Beheaded Bombers are generally rare enemies, albeit slightly more common than Beheaded Firecrackers. Bombers are either found at ground level with Beheaded Rocketeers or on elevated places such as low pillars and rooftops. They are normally found in smaller groups of other headless minions. Bombers are a lot less common in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, often replaced by Zorg Mercenaries, particularly in later levels (save a few instances).
Attacks and stats
The Bomber's only attack is to throw grenades at the target. These grenades make slight whooshing sounds once they are tossed, until they hit the ground or the player, detonating. Bomber grenades have a smaller splash damage radius compared to the MK III grenades. When killed, the Bomber will explode soon after their death. They will also explode when gibbed with a shotgun or explosive weapon. Unlike Beheaded Rocketeers and Beheaded Firecrackers, Beheaded Bombers do not melee the player when they get too close to them.
Bombers are not immune to their own grenades, which can lead to clever tactics of causing one to kill themselves or another Bomber or beheaded enemy, such as Kamikazes.
Tactics
- Small and large groups should be dealt with in haste, as their explosive bombs are more powerful than a Rocketeer or Firecracker missile.
- The Bomber's grenades can be shot in mid-air, should consequences be dire.
- Melee attacks are not recommended, as the Bomber can still throw grenades at a short distance when approaching. If the player is close to the death explosion, being caught in the radius can take off a bit of health, especially on higher difficulty levels. However, this is not as powerful as a Beheaded Kamikaze's death explosion.
- It is also not recommended to use a shotgun, the grenade launcher or rocket launcher at close range against a Bomber, as they will explode upon death, which can cause moderate damage to the player if they are within the blast radius.
- Like Firecrackers, Bombers can be dangerous if mixed in with other enemies. When this occurs, Bombers are usually perched on high spots where they can rain down grenades without the player noticing until an explosion is heard, or if the grenade collides. If left unchecked, Bombers can inflict a large amount of damage while the player is fighting more dangerous threats.
- Because the bombs have such small blast radius, the player can consistently avoid Bombers' grenades by strafing continuously in a single direction, even at close range.
Trivia
- An early alpha shot of the Beheaded Bomber shows that it was supposed to have a chainsaw and a spike on the stump of their necks. The spike was eventually added back to the Bomber in Serious Sam HD, but with their decapitated heads being stuck into it.
- This design is similar to the Firecracker from the alpha version, both would have appeared to have pikes in their necks, holding red inhuman heads in one hand, and a chainsaw in the other. The difference between the two enemies being the clothing attire, where the Bomber would sport a green T-shirt with a strange pattern embedded on it, and white pants.
- The bomber's appear identical to the grenades used by the Beheaded Kamikaze.
Gallery
Pre-release
Retail
List of appearances
- Serious Sam 1 (First appearance)
- Serious Sam: Double D (non-canonical appearance)
- Serious Sam: Double D: XXL (non-canonical appearance)
- Serious Sam HD
- Serious Sam: Next Encounter (non-canonical appearance)
- Serious Sam VR