Developer: Croteam
Publisher: On Deck Interactive

In early June something happened that had all the first-person shooter (FPS) pundits, editors and gamers buzzing with excitement. It wasn't that the long delayed Daikatana had finally been released nor was it the Earth-shattering news that id Software was making a sequel to Doom. Instead, what everyone was talking about was a tiny developer from Croatia and a stunning Compatibility Test with the odd moniker "Serious Sam." Yes, you read that correctly, it wasn't a demo or Beta, it was a hardware compatibility test complete with a full engine demo and a set of absolutely brilliant single player levels.

What makes Serious Sam so surprising is that it doesn't represent a leap forward in the genre, in fact it's a massive step backward. It's a throwback to seminal games like Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, Quake and of course Doom. Hordes of cool vicious enemies, killer weaponry and non-stop action. Story, character development and innovative puzzles be damned! Let Half-Life be king of that hill; Croteam is gunning for FPS's jugular vein with a vengeance by trying to outdo and update the gameplay made classic by Doom and its sequel.

The Compatibility Test is available for download almost everywhere that demos and files can be found. You can also find it at www.croteam.com and you won't regret one second of the download time. Be sure to grab the brand new patch if you use a Voodoo 3-5 card. The test focuses on an Egypt themed section of the game. You are Sam and your enemies range from headless minions, skeletal horsemen, bird women, giant bulls and anthropomorphic red scorpions. Your arsenal is typical FPS fare. Your mission is not important, but you get background information from some sort of computer uplink called Netricsa. With me so far? One question looms after playing the test all the way through… what the hell is going on here?

It seems Sam was captain of a spacecraft exploring the vicinity of the Sirius system. He ran into an evil force in the galaxy known as The Notorious Mental or Tah-Um and inadvertently antagonized him, which resulted in the death of lots of people. Mental basically then declared war on the Earth. Sam blamed himself for the conflict and made it his mission to bring the hurt on the bad guys. Sam got his nickname 'Serious' because he was serious indeed. To quote from the original story: 'Because he never smiled or laughed, never cried or showed a glimpse of fear, but just scowled thinking on how to get more alien blood on his knife, he got himself a nickname Serious'.