In the years since 1998, most companies have gone out of their way to make the next Half-Life. This isn't such a bad thing since Half-Life was a stellar game by any standard. But most developers seemed to look down on the old-school Doom paradigm, where if it moved, it was to provide you with a moving target, and if you had to read something, it was so you could have a breather from the shooting.

Enter Sam.

Serious Sam is a vibrant game about shooting things that move. The multitude of enemies are practically crawling off the CD-ROM, all presented in a beautiful engine that loves to spray blood. The weapons array is standard fare, although like everything else in this game, it has been brought to life so passionately that you can't help but like this rocket launcher more than any other rocket launcher ever. The same goes for this chaingun, this plasma rifle, etc.

Ammo is plentiful, even in the later difficulty levels. The AI is stupid, but when they number this strongly, it would be odd for the enemies not to use blind mob tactics. If you want Halo's intelligent elites and haunting pack hunters, play Halo. If you want to be attacked from every angle by lightning bolts, missile launchers, lase rifles, giant balls of fire/acid, or headless people with bombs in either hand charging straight for you, then step into the shoes of Serious Sam. There's even a running scoreboard! How long has it been since you played a computer game that gave you meaningless points?

It all culiminates in a boss battle to end all boss battles. This boss is so huge that it is unthinkable that even with unlimited ammo you might be able to topple him. Firing a rocket at this monstosity is the rough equivalent of someone implementing a killing blow against a human with a particularly small bead of sweat. But you will topple him, and you will know that you have conquered one of the most enjoyable games to be released in a long time.

That's what this game really does well. Fun. There is not much to it, but there is a lot to be said for basking in carnage with impugnity. The multiplayer is equally fun, and it comes complete with an ardent community who have already supplied scads of additional maps and mods for the game. There is a cooperative mode, but it loses much of the game's tension since respawning is either without consequences or confined to the console-like repression of finite lives. Neither is acceptable. There needs to be a mod where, like Halo, the dead player needs to sit out until the other one is safe. Or something. Cooperative play is too cool to screw the entire experience the way the initial release did.