Do You Remember Serious Sam?

Do you remember Serious Sam? That game was seriously kickass. Comin’ straight outta Croatia, developer Croteam’s Serious Sam is the blood, sweat, and tears of six totally bad dudes creating what they considered to be the essence of first-person shooters: great graphics, simple gameplay, and waves upon waves of enemies to mow down. Croteam wasn’t ready to stop there, though; they wanted their game to run smoothly and look beautiful on the even most modest of computers. To do so, the team created the aptly titled “Serious Engine” to push hordes of foes and unbelievable draw distances. Their engine and ideas formed one of the biggest underdogs in the early 2000s PC gaming scene.

Following the simple saga of Sam “Serious Stone”, Serious Sam set Mr. Stone into a position to save not only his life, but the lives of everyone in the future of the planet from the forces of the overlord Mental, an understandably hell-bent individual whose desire for universal domination was nothing short of expected. Sent from the future, Sam landed in the times of ancient Egypt, and stomps ass all the way to the the lair of Mental’s general Ugh Zan The Third. With his victory in hand, Sam Stone boards a spacecraft to hopefully find his way back home.

The gameplay put forth in Serious Sam as pure and simple as the genre can get. The player character will run into a new area, be it inside or outside, and then becomes completely swarmed with monsters. Using a variety of available weapons, Sam has to cut down the oncoming masses and proceed to the next area. The next area inevitably has a new weapon or power-up that makes the next wave of fiends seem easy, until the player realizes these platoons actually have twice as many creatures in them. Rinse and repeat this process until the protagonist reaches a (literally) monumental bad guy. Small puzzles and short fetch quests are also littered about the game, but only enough to provide some kind of logical stepping stones to reaching newer and rougher areas.

The levels and arenas in Serious Sam were some of the biggest of the time, and although the game was technically a budget title, the graphics were relatively lush and colorful for what was expected. What was most impressive about the engine was the truly huge number of enemies that could be on screen at one time. Later on in the game, the player would have to deal with enemies of all shapes, sizes, and with all varieties of attack types simultaneously in order to advance. While never exactly tough, Croteam managed to give the title just enough challenge and excitement to give players a sense of full control without having them become comfortable. The balance struck in Serious Sam is something that isn’t easily put into words, but must be experienced to be understood.

Presumably to the surprise of Croteam’s relatively humble development team, the gaming market couldn’t get enough of Serious Sam. It’s success resounded worldwide, becoming an IGN Editor’s Choice and PC Game of the Year from Gamespot. Their system just worked, and the game was a phenomenal success because of its simple and entertaining nature.

Of all the things I remember of playing Serious Sam, I remember most fondly the tongue-in-cheek jokes akin to Duke Nukem, playing visually stunning expansive levels (like many PC gamers, my rig was well under the power necessary for some popular titles of the time), trying to find the least appropriate weapon to use against my foes (for fun), and wondering why a title this fun didn’t seem to be very popular. I still wonder the same thing today. Serious Sam is high on my radar for fun games to look out for in the future, and it is definitely something first-person shooter fans should own, especially considering the Gold package can be picked up for under ten bucks. A cheap but extremely entertaining powerhouse, Serious Sam represents at a base level all that is great about video games.

Do You Remember is an ongoing effort at Spawn Kill to showcase some of the great and often forgotten titles in gaming history. Be sure to check back every Thursday for the newest edition of Do You Remember.