Another staple of the franchise is the way it lures the player into picking up a lone health or ammo box that spawns enemies that you have to fight as a punishment for picking up the bonus. The character of Sam is often seen as a parody of Duke Nukem. Humor is a large part of the game and it's exaggerated nature often parodies many staples of video games such as floating weapons and spawning enemies.
Although simple at face value, the game has a lot of substance and does the few things it does well, which has allowed it to garner numerous critic's awards. Games analogous to it's style of gameplay are the Doom and Quake franchises. Serious Sam is one of the few games to successfully feature arcade-centric first person action in a 3D environment after the arrival of sophisticated, more slowly paced first person shooters like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and Half-Life. It is the first half in a two 'encounter' series where the second one is Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
The game stars Sam 'Serious' Stone, a super strong, super bad ass warrior from the future.
Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a first-person shooter developed by Croteam, a small developer based in Croatia.
