The Rollerball is a mechanical enemy that appears in Serious Sam 2 and Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope. It is essentially a rolling version of the Spawner.
Overview[]
Rollerballs were actually Ugh-Zan's marbles when he was a kid, quite heavy by today's standards. Mental hollowed them inside. But instead of weight, he used titanium spiky casing to hold the fragile plasma glass.
In Serious Sam 2, the Rollerball appears as a big white sphere with spikes coming out of it and purple glass covering its insides. In The Last Hope, there’s 2 types of Rollerballs, small and large. The small Rollerball is red and has yellow lights around its body, and the large Rollerball has several spikes around its body and eyes inside of it, which are covered by glasses.
Appearances[]
In Serious Sam 2, Rollerballs are usually spawned in large numbers, so they can easily overrun the player. A larger version of the Rollerball appears in Chaolin Temple.
In The Last Hope, they are not as common compared to the previous game they appear in, but still appear in groups. Large Rollerballs first appear in Pladonis Botanical Gardens, while small Rollerballs first appear in Meadow of Death.
Application[]
In both games they appear in, Rollerballs usually appear in groups to distract the player from fighting other enemies due to their fast speed, and can deal a lot of damage to the player if several of them hit them at once. They usually appear with weaker enemies.
Behavior and skills[]
The Rollerball's only attack is to roll onto the player. If the Rollerball is hit with a powerful attack, it will bounce back.
The small Rollerball from The Last Hope, unlike its bigger counterpart, explodes when it touches the player, similarly to the Beheaded Kamikaze. The explosion can deal quite a bit of damage to the player, especially on higher difficulies.
Tactics[]
Serious Sam 2[]
- The Double Shotgun is very effective against a single Rollerball. Two point blank range shots will destroy it.
- If the player encounters a group of Rollerballs from a distance, the XPML30 Rocket Launcher is very useful against them. It deals a lot of damage to a Rollerball and knocks the Rollerball back, which keeps them a safe distance from the player.
- The RB-45 Hand Grenade is very useful against a single Rollerball. One direct impact can soften it up enough for the player to finish it off with one blast from the double shotgun.
- Large groups of Rollerballs can be decimated with either the XM214-A Minigun or the SBC Cannon. With the cannon, charged up shots work best.
- With other enemies, the Rollerball should be one of the first targeted enemies. It can sneak up on the player and do damage if the player isn't paying attention to it.
Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope[]
- The Double Barrel Coach Gun is the most effective weapon against large Rollerballs. Its high damage output and fast rate of fire allows the player to quickly kill them and push back Rollerballs that are close to them.
- Rapid-fire weapons, such as the Thompson submachine gun and M29 Infantry Assault Rifle are effective against small Rollerballs.
Gallery[]
Serious Sam 2[]
Pre-release[]
Retail[]
Serious Sam VR The Last Hope[]
Trivia[]
- The Rollerball is so far the only enemy in the series that has appeared in an non-canonical game (Serious Sam 2) and then added to a canonical game (Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope).
- The model of the large Rollerball from The Last Hope is a retextured version of the Buzzer, an enemy from The Talos Principle, which is another game made by Croteam.
- The model of the small Rollerball from The Last Hope was reused with a different texture for the Scrapjack's grenades in Serious Sam Fusion and the Octanian Grenadier's roller grenades in Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem.
List of appearances[]
- Serious Sam 2 (First appearance) (non-canonical appearance)
- Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope