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"Gotta love the flashy stuff on this one."
Sam Stone[src]
 

The XL4-P Beam Gun, nicknamed the "Ghostbuster", is an energy weapon that was originally meant to appear in Serious Sam: The First Encounter, but was scrapped before the release of the final version of the game. It appears as a functioning weapon in Serious Sam Classics: Revolution.

Overview[]

An even more experimental branch of the original XL2 Lasergun research, the XL4-P Beam Gun fires a deadly continuous beam that cuts through everything in its path. The XL4-P Beam Gun was used by a select few highly trained Earth Defense Force soldiers for secret field testing, where the weapon quickly earned the nickname "Ghostbuster", due to its similar nature to a weapon from a certain movie. Using the same power cells as the XL2 Lasergun, the XL4-P Beam Gun was originally designed to be a replacement to the XM214-A Minigun; however, as it never entered mass production, most soldiers believed this "super weapon" was just the stuff of legends.

The Ghostbuster releases a beam of energy when the fire key is pressed. Holding down the fire key allows for continuous fire. The beam fired by the Ghostbuster deals a significant amount of damage to enemies and can kill enemies faster than the minigun can. However, it eats up ammo much faster than the latter. Unlike the minigun, the Ghostbuster's beam has a fairly limited maximum range, making it impossible to take out enemies at long range.

Appearances[]

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution[]

The Ghostbuster can be found in Alley of the Sphinxes. Right before going through the doors into the large arena, the player should go left and follow the wall until they reach its end. When there, the player needs to shoot a rocket at the piece of the wall that is right next to the temple.

In the Bright Island campaign, the Ghostbuster appears in Ruins of the Abyss, only for it to be teleported away by Mental, and a P-LAH Chainsaw to be spawned in its place. It can be properly obtained later on, in The Sunken Pyramid.

Tactics[]

  • The Ghostbuster is a perfect panic weapon for close-range encounters. It's powerful enough to quickly take out anything, from large hordes of Kleer Skeletons to a Major Bio-mechanoid that's too close for comfort.
  • The Ghostbuster will very quickly burn through ammo. Even if the player has the maximum amount of ammo for the weapon, it will disappear quickly if the player constantly holds the fire key down. It's best to fire the gun in brief, controlled bursts. Constantly holding down the fire key should only be done for dealing with very large hordes of enemies, or a boss.
  • Remember that the Ghostbuster's beam has a limited range. Always make sure that enemies are fairly close before using the Ghostbuster.
  • The Ghostbuster can be used as a fairly viable replacement to the lasergun in closer quarters due to the fact that the weapon operates off hitscan damage instead of projectiles, meaning all one has to do to land hits with it is track an enemy with the crosshair.
  • The Ghostbuster often has very finicky hit detection, such that it won't always hit enemies even at close range, especially the Exotech Larva boss. This is likely a bug.
  • The gun cannot be obtained anywhere in The Second Encounter, but Sam will keep the weapon when transitioning between time periods if the player obtained it from The First Encounter. It won't have any cells to use from the start, and cells can only be obtained in The Pit, The Elephant Atrium (via secrets), Courtyards of Gilgamesh, and Land of the Damned.

Behind the scenes[]

  • The Ghostbuster was originally meant to be in The First Encounter, but was scrapped in November 2000, due to the inability to fix the code and the model's UV maps. However, its HUD icon and one of its beam textures can still be found in the final game, and its code can be found in Test 1, Test 2 and in the SDK.
  • Originally, the Ghostbuster was a weapon that fired a light-blue colored, electric beam. In the Test 2 phase the beam itself was purely a visual effect, as it is in reality firing a stream of invisible bullets at the target, just like how it functions now in Revolution.
  • The Ghostbuster was scrapped from The First Encounter in November 2000, due to the inability to fix the code and the model's UV maps.
  • One of its firing sounds appears to have been repurposed for Ugh-Zan III's electric beam firing sound, as it is named “GhostBuster.wav” in the game's files. The Reeban Electro-Fish also uses Ghostbuster's firing sound from the 1999 Publisher Evaluation build. The weapon got far enough in The First Encounter development that it received a new model, which can be seen in its Revolution incarnation with fixed UV maps.
  • The idea of a beam-firing weapon was revisited in Serious Sam: Next Encounter's Sirian Power Gun and the Beam Gun from Serious Sam 2. Ironically, the beam gun was cut before the game was released, just like the original Ghostbuster was. The original Ghostbuster was made usable in Revolution, and the beam gun was eventually made usable in Serious Sam 2 after Update 2.90, which was released on March 23rd, 2021.
  • The Ghostbuster can't be picked up in the 1999 Publisher Evaluation build, but it can be accessed via cheats.

Related achievements[]

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution[]

Achievement Stuff of Legends
Stuff of Legends
Find the XL4P Beam Gun outside of Bright Island.

Trivia[]

  • The Ghostbuster obtains its name from the 1984 film Ghostbusters due to similarities with the main weapon used by the protagonist team.
  • In Serious Sam 4, the weapon concept was re-used as the death ray attachment for the Lasergun. The same concept was again re-used in Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem for the XPMR "Burner" Raygun, albeit with the added ability to heat up enemies and cause them to explode once they become too hot.

Gallery[]

Serious Sam: The First Encounter[]

Pre-release[]

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution[]

List of appearances[]

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