Serious Sam is a textbook case of "don't knock it until you try it." The original version of Serious Sam was quietly released for the PC last year, and at a budget price to boot. It looked like some mindless, throwaway shooter on first impression, but the game's good-natured humor, distinctive style, and insanely fast-paced, over-the-top, and nonstop action made it stand out from the budget-priced and major first-person shooters on the market. It featured a great cooperative play mode, a surprisingly impressive 3D engine, and by far the biggest battles of any game in its category, thanks to the engine's ability to throw a seemingly limitless number of monsters at you at any given point. It was also a game that anybody could enjoy, and for all these reasons, GameSpot's PC side bestowed on Serious Sam: The First Encounter its highest honor: Game of the Year. A follow-up, the aptly named Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, was released earlier this year, and it somehow managed to be even better, with a greater variety of far more creative levels. Now Xbox owners get to experience both games joined at the hip, and with a new coat of paint and a few other twists for good measure. More importantly, though, the Xbox version retains the original games' off-the-chart intensity levels, and Serious Sam--which was always an arcade game at heart--feels right at home on Microsoft's powerful console.

Serious Sam on the Xbox combines both Serious Sam games for the PC into one package.

Serious Sam plays much like any other recent shooter, but faster. An auto-aim feature in the Xbox version offsets the lack of precision associated with the analog aiming scheme, and if you've played Halo, then you know what that's like. Of course, Serious Sam has a completely different style--there's some real depth lurking just beneath the game's surface, but it's much more lighthearted and frenetic than Halo. Serious Sam expects you to be constantly prepared to face off against dozens of different types of monsters, many of which require different types of tactics to defeat. Fortunately, each weapon in your arsenal of more than a dozen is well balanced and useful, whether against certain types of foes or in certain situations. You'll use a majority of your weapons during each level. Some battles seem to stretch on indefinitely, never letting up, only escalating and never giving you the opportunity to catch your breath. Even if you do know what's in store around the next corner, defeating wave after wave of monsters is never an easy task, as your reflexes, your precision, and your endurance will constantly be put to the test. You'll also need to keep your ears open, as each enemy makes distinctive noises, and you'll often hear your foes before you see them. Time seems to stand still during some of the more hectic battles--it'll seem like you're fighting an endless onslaught of foes, burning up all your ammo for all your weapons in the process. Suddenly it's over, and you'll hear yourself exhale as though you were holding your breath for all those minutes. The action in Serious Sam is the highlight of the game. Calling it mindless is selling it way too short.

It plays like a shooter, but it's much more intense than most.

Serious Sam's proprietary 3D engine renders large, wide-open spaces and indoor environments effectively. Although the level architecture in Serious Sam is fairly basic--you'll quickly lose track of how many wide-open arenas you've fought through--such settings are perfect for the game's large-scale confrontations. In between skirmishes, when you do get a chance to admire your surroundings, you'll notice some of the details in the 3D engine. All the environments in the game are drawn using clear, colorful textures that look good even when you get right up close to them. Some decent lighting effects make the levels more true to life. The engine also has a few unique effects, such as pools of water that reflect shimmering light onto the walls nearby. The sheer size of the levels is pretty impressive. Sam runs very quickly, but you'll still feel like you're moving quite a distance to get from one end of a level to the other. And what with hundreds of bad guys standing between you and the exit, once you finally get to the end of the level, you'll feel a real sense of accomplishment.

The great number of enemies is also possible only because of the engine used to make the game. The monsters in Serious Sam aren't the most detailed in the genre, but they're memorable and they look fairly good and are animated smoothly. It practically goes without saying that they bleed like crazy when you shoot them (though options are available to turn the blood off or change the color to green or "hippie," where monsters bleed flowers and confetti). It's great that the game can throw dozens upon dozens of them at you at a time, though you'll see the frame rate take a hit when the action really heats up. At any rate, since many of these monsters are fast, accurate, and powerful, having to take on so many of them at once is an experience that you won't soon forget.