Serious Sam came out way back in 2001 originally, which is easy to forget given this version’s new coat of a lot more than paint. It’s a thorough – in some ways overwhelmingly so – encapsulation of a 10 year old game, released not only to honor the pure appeal of the original, but to also raise awareness of Serious Sam in advance of the big release of Serious Sam 3 this summer. As a result, it’s a little bit difficult to know how to approach this game in a review. There’s nothing wrong with the sensibilities behind it, which are arcadey and suitably disruptive in today’s overly convoluted shooter landscape, but there are a few things that were kinda busted about Serious Sam in the first place, and they’re here in full effect despite being presented in shaderrific HD.

“the game’s idea of increased difficulty is to pour a bajillion of the game’s most powerful and bulletspongey guys on top of your head”

Enemy spawns are blatantly from the Doom “monster closet” school, sans the closets. You’ll regularly see enemies simply pop out of thin air, especially at the far edges of the area you’re in , edges that you can actually get to, and they’ll still keep spawning right in front of you without so much as an effort to mask the fact with a teleportation effect of some fashion. Even more tangible than that is the game’s proneness to shut you into said rooms and send in waves of enemies until you’re blue in the face. That is hardly a new concept to this particular subset of the FPS genre – or any shooter in fact – but it’s especially grating when the game’s idea of increased difficulty is to pour a bajillion of the game’s most powerful and bulletspongey guys on top of your head. To a degree that’s what it’s always doing, but towards the very end it simply devolves into a test of patience and attention span.

Which isn’t quite as infuriating when you’re playing with a friend. Or 15 of them! The game supports a ludicrous 16 players in its delightful co-operative mode. Suddenly the gigantic spaces and the enemy numbers make sense, and even if you die you can sorta laugh about it, grit your teeth and try again together like a real couple facing a problem of some kind. Even if you’re alone, though, there’s a simple appeal to the gunning down of a billion dudes running at you in assorted patterns. The circle strafing you eventually need to resort to turns proceedings into an almost Geometry Wars like affair, and while it lays it on heavily with the desert setting there’s just enough finding a button to press and change in the scenery and geometry to keep things reasonably varied throughout.

“Serious Sam doesn’t evoke a charming 80s action hero pastiche at all, he just sounds monotonous and stupid”

With the notion of gaming icons becoming increasingly irrelevant and with characters becoming less inherently bold to fit with the times, it’s nice to have some around that just eject oneliners and kick ass. It’s too bad that Serious Sam, aside from his simple and recognizable look, is pretty terrible in this area. Drawing from the same well as Duke Nukem, Caleb and Lu Wang, arguably the most notable first person shooter protagonists of the years prior to the original release of this game, Serious Sam tries to emulate those characters but falls incredibly flat. Perhaps it’s because Croteam are Croatian and simply lack the cultural heritage of thick necked, one liner spouting action heroes like Arnie and Sly, and therefore just don’t quite get how to play on those tropes. Serious Sam doesn’t evoke a charming 80s action hero pastiche at all, he just sounds monotonous and stupid. As much as I’m hoping that Serious Sam 3 can fill the void left by Duke Nukem Forever’s rather muted reception, Serious Sam as an icon and as a distinctive character has absolutely nothing on Duke. Which is a shame! I’d love to love Sam.

“while Sam as a protagonist leaves something to be desired, there is a lot of personality and charm in the Egyptian motif and the batshit bonkers enemies”

But as a game it’s more or less the FPS equivalent of Gauntlet, and while Sam as a protagonist leaves something to be desired, there is a lot of personality and charm in the Egyptian motif and the batshit bonkers enemies you’ll encounter. Especially for the asking price on various digital download platforms – being a regular sale item whenever one’s on – and with some reasonable concessions made to its age under its facelifted exterior, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter is certainly worth your time if you’re up for some simple first person blasting. If you can fill it up with some buddies, too, it’s a complete no-brainer.