Hundreds of enemies on screen at once in an old-school style shooter, this game, people, requires nothing but a fast mouse-hand...

Serious Sam is a serious shooting game and despite the silly name is one of the best first person shooters to have ever graced the PC format. The story is extremely simple, some aliens have travelled back in time to ancient Egypt in order to change Earth's past and Sam has been sent by Earth's forces to stop them. Thus starts hours of frantic non-stop action in the first game to use the much talked about 'Serious Engine'. This engine allows for Serious Sam to display dozens of enemies on screen at once with no slow-down, it also allows for massive, expansive areas with large amounts of texture work and objects. This game certainly won't give you time to rest as you blast wave after wave of enemy with an increasing array of weaponry. Sam's main objective is to reach the Great Pyramid which has been fortified for some unknown reason, once here you'll find out it's secret and it's quite spectacular when you see it.

Leading on to my next point. The 'Serious Engine' allows for some serious graphics power and SS certainly looks the business, of course this means you'll need a half-decent PC but nothing ground-shakingly powerful. You'd expect Serious Sam to have some serious music too and it does, the music is nothing more than drum beats and the like until enemies appear then the tempo picks up and more instruments added. The music all sounds very nice and suits the surroundings nicely while still getting you pumped up for battle. The main theme of SS is odd however as it's played on a flute and is quite a nice little tune and easily my favourite in the game.

Serious Sam controls like any other First Person Shooter as it uses the WSAD and Mouse combo so little needs to be said here, the game can also be controlled from a 3rd Person viewpoint if you wish. There a
re secrets to be found in the levels for those who wish to explore and even two secret stages which cleverly connect with the main stages of play and both look spectacular featuring some amazing landscapes..
Another plus-point is that the 'Serious Editor' is included with the game and can be used to create new models and stages for single play and multi-play. Talking of multiplayer, you get the standard deathmatch, capture-the-flag style games plus a bonus in the form of co-op play which is nice to play but makes the game too easy.

Not a lot more can be said about this game, it has a lot going for it but some players may get bored by the constant wave after wave of enemies that get rammed onto the screen at an alarming rate but for those people who want a classic 'no-brain' shooter, Serious Sam is for them.
(This reviewer apologises for the amount of times the word 'Serious' was used in his review)