Serious Sam: The First Encounter

The Good
The guns are varied and satisfying, the graphics look really good.

The Bad
Serious Sam feels like something a ten-year-old would make right after downloading a Quake level editor. It consists of simplistic, very linear levels and almost constantly throws wave after wave of enemies at the player without any design concept or actual sense of progression. Even though some enemies are actually interesting to fight when they're first introduced, they become utterly tedious as you fight them again and again in almost identical circumstances. The entire experience becomes simply tiring already in its first half.

Croteam probably meant to create something that would reject the more complex gameplay mechanics of newer action games at the turn of the century and return to the '90s classics. The thing is, games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Unreal are not just pure mindless violence. Intricate level design is an essential part of their identity, absolutely crucial to how engaging they are - something the Serious Sam developers seem to have completely forgotten.

The Bottom Line
Serious Sam is a tiring and tedious FPS focused on endless enemy spam. 3/10 (officially Worse Than Daikatana)