This game!
Man, Serious Sam: Next Encounter is just absolutely bonkers, and I wish more companies were willing to try to make FPSs like this. It seems as though the FPS genre has been co-opted by people who are interested in "cinematic" storytelling, and what Serious Sam has shown me is that the genre is perfect for the old-school arcade experience. Don't get me wrong, games like Half-Life and Bioshock certainly have a place in my heart, but there's nothing quite so satisfying as a game that is just over the top videogame-y.
Next Encounter was the only Serious Sam to be developed from the ground up for consoles, and while it was originally released as a budget title for the PS2 and the Gamecube, it doesn't show. Well, besides in the graphics, which are just atrocious. Seriously, this game looks like an above-average N64 game. But no matter. The looks don't matter so much. They're serviceable and get you from point A to point B.
Taking perspective out of the question, what Serious Sam is, really, is a love letter to shmups and beat-em-ups. The game feels like the grandchild of Smash TV, Gauntlet, and any number of bullet hell games. Rehashing this type of gameplay is of course not all that revolutionary, but in the time before and since Serious Sam was released, it's not really something we've seen too much of, which is unfortunate. It seems as though Serious Sam was right on the cusp of more (I hate to say it) "serious" game experiences, and its overwhelming silliness maybe didn't catch on like it should have.
You play as the titular Sam, a wisecracking dudebro in the vein of Duke Nukem, although minus a lot of the personality. You've been sent back in time to stop a… mutant creator? I don't know. The story and the characters, like the graphics, don't matter. Nor does the fact that you have giant dudebro weapons at your disposal. What matters is the glorious, glorious gameplay.
Basically, this game does not fuck around. It has no qualms about sending dozens, if not hundreds of enemies your way, and it's your job to mow them all down. Ducking and weaving through the enemies and making mincemeat of them is perhaps more complicated than in the aforementioned Smash TV, but it's still a good comparison. Like in that game, you're basically thrust into a room full of enemies, and you have to eliminate all of them before you can move onto the next room. There's occasionally some light puzzle solving, some platforming (the less said about this, the better), and some driving sequences. But it's all about shooting and dodging, and in this respect, it's more successful than most FPSs I've played in my life in that I actually found it fun.
Part of the fun comes from the challenge level. The AI in most modern FPSs is pretty daunting. I remember having the shit scared out of me playing Half-Life 2 and realizing just how lifelike the enemy behaved, and games where you kill other humans realistically have always been a bit of a thorn in my side. It's just not something I enjoy participating in, even if I can see the merit when it's done properly (a la most of Red Dead Redemption for instance, as long as you're not going after the morally reprehensible "achievements"). Serious Sam eliminates those concerns by having really dumb AI, but a lot of it. The challenge, then, isn't like in most FPSs where you have to learn the patterns of a particular kind of enemy, or do targeting on a specific body part, or even to use the correct weapon, mostly. In Serious Sam, your challenge is to shoot everything that moves, and the supposed "dumbness" of the AI is really just the old bullet-hell standby of patterns that the player has to decipher. The challenge in an FPS version of this, then, is to be able to figure out the patterns without having a clear view of the whole situation.
I'm not really much of a wizard when it comes to dual analog control, and I admit that I often found myself wishing for Wii controls, but the twitch gameplay style on offer here is really well controlled with the Gamecube pad. The controls are simple enough (although starting a level with the "B" button doesn't really make a lot of sense), and the rumble of the Gamecube pad when you fire your ridiculous weapons is pretty satisfying.
So what are we left with here? Yes, it's an FPS with a bit of baditude (although of a more knowing variety than, say, Gears of War), but mostly it's just a ton of fun that requires reflexes more than intellect. It's a mostly pure videogaming experience, and that's something that I value in FPSs and games in general. If you've got a Wii, a Gamecube or a PS2 lying around, give this game a shot, no pun intended.