AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Survivability

By the way, I’m not talking about this game, so … sorry.

After finally finishing Serious Sam 3: BFE (side note, Kleer Skeletons can go fuck themselves), I originally wanted to do a feature article on the Kleer Skeletons just to vent, but I decide to start these Serious Sam articles with a bang, so today we’ll be talking about the Beheaded Kamikaze.

First up, a brief introduction:

The Headless Kamikaze is a staple enemy of the Serious Sam franchise, and is a rather simple concept: He finds you, charges towards you screaming at the top of their lungs despite having no mouth, and explodes when he gets close enough to you or dies to gunfire (Sam’s guns, friendly fire, doesn’t matter). The single-pitch yodeling they delivered while running towards you serves as a good indication that they are coming, and gives you ample time to do a few 360º turns and shoot him before he even gets close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTiTBZ5OsAo

And so, after a few spectacularly explosive kills during my first run, I was pretty confident that I can handle him. And when a single Kamikaze charges at me down a hill screaming his lungs off, I dropped him with two shots. That’s when I heard what can only be described as a symphony of screams.

Granted, this isn’t even that large a swarm, but it is the first time the game throws an entire wave of enemies on you. When my friends tried playing Serious Sam 3 on my laptop I always waited with gleeful joy for this moment. There is nothing funnier than to see them panic and spam shots 15 feet above the Kamikazes’ neck stumps as they tried desperately to run away.

Thing is, Kamikazes are literally explosive barrels on legs. so when you have a bunch of enemies bundled up together, killing the Kamikaze will also take out the others. And when you are fighting nothing but Kamikazes, you can get a rather great chain reaction if you get enough of them together. It is, in a sense, a rather well skill-indexed enemy. If you are good enough, you get to easily take down a horde. If not, you get your face blown off. Simple. The visual and audio design for the Beheaded Kamikaze is also rather great. Very well-distinguished silhouette, unique look that fits the themes of the game it’s in, and has a distinct audio cue that really can’t be ignored.

As for my preferred method for dispatching them, the starting pistol is really horrible for this due to its small clip and rather low firing rate. The minigun and the assault rifle are really good for this since you can rapidly send large amount of lead towards a whole horde. Explosives are pretty good for the job as well, since you just need to graze them slightly for them to blow up. It would come as no surprise that melee weapons are not recommended for this. It’s like taking a sledgehammer made out of explosives to fight a monster made out of fire. Or a potted plant to fight Poison Ivy.