Throughout the years of playing first person shooters I always looked at Serious Sam franchise with contempt and misunderstanding. Upon finally giving it a try I was left with a couple of questions. How did it manage to stay alive for more than 20 years? And why?

Playing it felt like pinnacle of anti-game design decisions. Big and empty locations filled to the brim with hordes of randomly spawning enemies which you dispose of by hold S and M1 accompanied by the worst sounds a human ear can comprehend. Sam's voice lines felt like someone was trying to copy Duke Nukem while recording voice lines standing in front of the bathroom mirror pretending to be him and failing miserably. Weapon roster is as basic as it can get without additional firing modes and look like something out of children cartoons from the 80s when nobody really bothered about design as much. Soundtrack is so unmemorable I literally had to queue my own music to stay engaged. Stuff like this was playing during my educational videos in school.

After a few sessions of this disgusting FPS slop I started thinking that there is no way all of this is a coincidence. It's a deliberate choice, right? It's completely understandable if your initial idea is to make a ha-ha funny FPS rage game that challenges players by constantly rising the absurdity of irritating scenarios. Then it makes the game enjoyable to watch rather than play yourself, due to someone else embracing this ♥♥♥♥ and ball torture. Especially if you crank the difficulty above normal. So what, the point of this game is being an interactive test of patience? It's hardly respectable. Unless you like pain and wasting time ig.

And I get it. It has coop, right? WRONG! Everything is better when you play with friends. This doesn't make the game any better. It's not a case of simple misunderstanding of magical charm this game possesses, it's a case of people misremembering the product they played during childhood and giving it way more credit than it deserves.

This came out during so called "Golden years of FPS". You had Doom, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Half-Life, Golden Eye, Quake, Halo, Soldier of Fortune, Rainbow Six, Unreal, Medal of Honor, Wolfenstein and so on. This feels like a mistake, an outlier, a bastard child of everything terrible genre had to offer. The "obvious" appeal of you killing dozens of monsters falls flat when you realise that it barely takes any skill. And after 20th killed enemy you say "can I go now?" but game goes "BUT WAIT, THERE IS MORE!" Someone could argue it's a power fantasy where all you do is crush enemies left and right... Ugh, which game that I listed isn't? Just lower the difficulty and go berserk. You'll find better level design, better enemy design, cooler and more unique weapons, enjoyable set pieces, better graphics, groundbreaking mechanics at the time and more. Just not this.

Imho Serious Sam is a massive disappointment. After this I consider trying Siberian Mayhem just to see if there are other difference beyond graphics, map size and enemy amount between the very first and very last installment.

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"GOOOOOD MORNING BABYLOOOOOOOON"