The poor bird has a bomb hanging from its neck, and upon release the parrot flies forward in a zig-zaggy pattern until it collides with an enemy, at which point it explodes and a lot of splash damage is distributed liberally. My favorite has to be Sam's parrot, which is straight out of something like Worms. Just about all the standard projectile- and laser-based FPS weapons are there, of course, but there are also some real gems. I played the game with all weapons enabled, and it's worth mentioning that there really are a lot of weapons in this game, and they cover a very diverse spectrum of destruction. Suffice to say, if you liked the first game(s), you'll feel at home here. There isn't all that much to be surprised about: the game has cutting edge graphics, cooperative mode, like a billion guys on the screen, and holy shit things explode. Quite frankly, the game is about what you would expect from a sequel to Serious Sam. So, the bottom line here is that I was curious about Serious Sam 2, which I got a chance to play at QuakeCon. Plus, there's cooperative mode, which is heartbreakingly uncommon in PC gaming these days.

That put me in the right frame of mind for a game that's basically, well, mindless. From the first moment I heard the layered screams upon screams of headless exploding guys with bomb hands runing at me from all directions, I was hooked.

I found it hilarious but I also felt like I wasn't pissing on anyone's dreams by laughing at it. (Of course, I could leverage similar complaints against certain other PC shooters.) With Serious Sam, however, I knew I wasn't supposed to take any of it seriously. Despite how ludicrous it was, I couldn't help but feel like I was actually supposed to think this stuff was really awesome, instead of the hilarious byproduct of a self-absorbed 15 year old goth who covers his homework with doodles of demons. However, Painkiller was just too overwrought for me. Both games were self-consciously over-the-top, exorbitant and gratuitous. I did, however, have a lot of fun with Serious Sam. An internet search might reveal my less-than-exulting review of the game. For my part, I didn't have any fun with Painkiller. They're not for me, anyway, at least most of the time. Those games tend to be the more directly-marketable type rather than bullet points such as 'Unprecedented expression and realism!' and 'Confront the true horror of war!' they tend towards sentiments such as 'OH MAN THERE ARE LIKE A BILLION GUYS ON THE SCREEN!!!!' and 'HOLY SHIT THINGS EXPLODE!!!!' Certainly we've had ambitiously modern and progressive titles such as Half-Life 2 and a rather tiresome glut of World War II epics, but there have also been more stripped-down titles such as Painkiller and Serious Sam. In the past few years, we've seen several high-profile shooters which unquestionably evoke the FPS design philosophies of old.

Serious sam bomb guy