Serious Sam - The first Encounter

Genre: FPS | Players: 1-4 | Developer: Croteam

Note: the version reviewed here is the classic PC version, not the HD remake of 2009.

The best way to describe Serious Sam is to say that it is to Quake likes what Duke Nukem was to doom likes: It's his unhinged, degenerate cousin. the one that hops naked on the table at the wedding of your sister. and starts to write his name on the tablecloth with his piss. 

Only he does it with a perfect gothic font, in  ancient Latin, and his piss smells like Channel N°5. this is what Serious Sam amounts to. The game is stupid, linear, doesn't require much strategy (only in how you're going to handle the inhuman mass of enemy he's throwing at you, sometimes up to more than a hundred at a time.), it's obnoxious and quite impossible to take seriously. 

But it's fun, the controls are as good as it was possible back then, and on top of that, for a game of that time, it was beautiful. forget gloomy corridors, even if there are some, you'll spend a lot of time in a gorgeous, colorful recreation of ancient Egypt. At the time, Serious Sam was a breath of fresh air between the corridors of Unreal, Return to castle Wolfenstein or Quake 3. 

All in all Serious Sam is nothing new, but a damned good and well made nothing new. 

Similar games (some are more serious *wink wink*): Serious Sam the Second encounter, Soldier of Fortune, Duke Nukem 3D, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.

4 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAWW!!!!! out of 5.

Buyer's guide : PC/PALM OS/Xbox/Xbox 360. FPS on Console are Heresy.