While Serious Sam 4 has a few new wrinkles its biggest addition is story, and although not particularly complicated, it’s still good to see Sam’s well-established personality given a little more depth by interacting with people. Enemies swarm by the dozens and Sam mows them down with an arsenal that starts reasonable and becomes more ridiculously powerful as the game goes on, but no matter how strong the weapons get it’s still just barely enough to hold back the massive charging werebulls, endless skeletal kleer, biomech walkers armed with lasers or missiles, and of course the screaming headless kamikazes. One of the defining features of the Serious Sam series is that he’s a chattier Doom-guy or a less annoying Duke Nukem, fighting alone against the horde while a throwaway plot provides a paper-thin reason for a change of scenery between levels.

Serious Sam 4 takes place on an Earth battered but unbeaten, with Sam getting plenty of help in his war against Mental. That seemed to take care of the prequel aspect quite nicely but nope, there’s still room for one more story prior to Sam’s journey through the portal, set on a planet tired of a losing war but fighting back as hard as it can. That wasn’t quite right, as Serious Sam 3: BFE revealed, taking place just before the events of the very first game and ending with the moon being dropped on Earth as Sam went back in time. The story began in the middle, with Sam dropping into ancient Egypt through a time portal, and at the time the assumption was that Earth’s scientists had sent him back.

A long time ago in a PC with laughable specs by 2020 standards, “Serious” Sam Stone went up against the forces of all-powerful invader Mental.

Serious sam 3 secrets