Sure, the first two episodes-Serious Sam: The First and Second Encounter-were groundbreaking love letters to old school shooters. But the span between 20 had its share of ups and downs for Sam fans. There were a lot of console releases, some good, some forgettable, and plenty of community mods for the original games. The biggest dividing point was 2005’s Serious Sam 2, a sequel that a lot of people missed and a lot more would rather forget. Sam fans know and love Croteam’s unique eastern European sense of humor, but Sam 2 was strange even for Croteam’s standards. ![]() Sam traveled to worlds themed on and populated by ethnic stereotypes, and all of Sam’s trademark enemies had been turned into goofy blood-filled toys. The pure shooter gameplay was still there and just about as fun, but was buried under an excessively cartoony art style. Maybe it’s because Sam 2 came out around the time every developer was discovering the wonders of pixel shading and bloom lighting maybe Croteam just wanted a more light-hearted feel to the game. Whatever the reason, Sam 2 wasn’t the follow-up that fans expected. Sam 3 puts everything back on track: it’s a healthy shotgun blast of nostalgia to the face but it isn’t afraid to load a few new shells into that shotgun. Like 2010’s superb GoldenEye remake, Sam 3 takes the best of its roots and mixes it with modern shooter conventions, and pulls off this combination with flair.įor starters, Sam 3 is a prequel. While BFE is a rather smarmy subtitle, it ostensibly stands for “Before First Encounter.” The game details Mental’s original invasion of Earth and Sam’s quest to reach and activate the time lock, the portal that sends him to ancient Egypt in First Encounter. Sam 3 is the first game in the series to use cut scenes but these are short and to the point, showing how Sam “Serious” Stone started out as a special forces operative and later the standout hero of the first battle with Mental’s forces. It’s a welcome addition to the series but that said, the story in Serious Sam games has always been little more than an excuse for you to shoot lots and lots of monsters.Īnd Sam 3 provides a plentiful bounty of targets. You’ll face old favorites like the various beheaded soldiers, including the screaming, bomb-wielding kamikazes. ![]() The massive dinosauric bio-mechanoids also make a return, and the giant red ones are even more dangerous and tough than before. ![]() The herds of galloping Kleer skeletons are back in force, as are the Sirian were-bulls and Scythian witch-harpies. Croteam has added a few new enemies to mix things up, chief among these being swarms of acid spitting spiders of varying sizes and the enormous lumbering Scrapjack, a clear homage to Doom’s Mancubus.Ībout the only new enemy I didn’t appreciate were the space lizard-monkeys. These screeching annoyances usually show up when you’re exploring the spooky, labyrinthine catacombs beneath Egypt.
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