A Climactic Encounter

You definitely run backwards less in this title. Innovations such as the "weapon-wheel" allow you to change weapons quickly on the fly, so you can strike back at the baddies quickly. The environments are tighter, forcing you to take the fight to the enemy and the scoring of the combos means you can't sit back and pick off distant bad guys, you have to get in the thick of it.

There's definitely a big gag in having this "mini" version of Sam pulling the strings this time round. Scale is so important in Serious Sam and so having the "Mr. Big" be "Mr. Small" fits in with the slightly wacky humour. We don't want to spoil the climax of the game, but when you do finally track down the mischievous little scamp he might try turning the tables on you by bringing his own Serious firepower to the fight.

You'll see the Kamikaze you know and love from the first games in Next Encounter. But you'll also see his brother, the new Mark II Kamikaze Warrior. He has a huge stick of dynamite strapped to his back, ready to go off like a giant firecracker. Whereas the old kamikaze had lost his head, literally, this new Kamikaze has his head intact. It's his mind that's missing. This is a kamikaze that loves his job.

It's a super modified Serious harvester. Maybe in the future, they'll make harvesters this good but for now there's nothing like it.

Well, there are 12 weapons in all. When you factor in the alternate ammos, there are probably well over 20 variants. Wait till you see the laughing gas or the homing bullets. They're neat.

Defensive? No, attack is the only form of defence that Sam knows. If you're surrounded on all sides by crazed grunts, you can shoot off spiders and they'll seek out the prey. Rather than lying them down in advance of a fight, they're more useful as a "fire and forget" type weapon. And they look funny.

We ditched the telephone boxes this time round; it was way too expensive sending them all the way back in time. Bad dress sense? When your day job is blasting aliens across the planet, there's no point in dressing up; you're bound to get messy. And to be honest, Sam's so busy travelling through time he's probably a decade or too out of fashion. Sam's more Blam Blam than Bling Bling.

The monkeys are nasty; they hide up on roofs and on walls. And you're too busy laughing to remember to kill them. Other than that, I'd watch out for the Octochops. They get in real close and slice you up. They are tough to take down too, so you'll have to outmanoeuvre them and keep pumping them with rockets.

We spent a lot of time simulating the mental processes of the deranged minds of the zombie creatures that had been brainwashed by Mental, setting up their motivations, senses and memories. And you know what? They still just see Sam and charge.

Look out for the water; we've got a real sweet water effect. Lots of destroyable stuff: you can smash statues, pots, barrels etc. as you're blasting through the worlds. Atlantis looks plain weird and beautiful. Wait till you see the gravity-defying Tower of Confusion.

By default it's turned on. You can turn it off. Friendly fire only becomes an issue when there's a power up or vehicle you're racing towards. Strange how easily the finger can slip on the sniper trigger when your buddy is just about to jump into the jeep.

Play the game, and if you think it's too easy, we'll eat our shorts. The auto-aim helps just enough to smooth over any stick-fumbles but you definitely need skill to pop the bad guys if you're playing on anything other than the easy mode.

Nukem who?

We played the Serious Sam games on PC and Xbox a lot. We played Smash TV, Ikari Warriors, Contra, all the classic shoot-em-ups. I think the aim was to get that classic feel, make sure it controlled just right and give it that modern 3D look. We were really pleased when we saw how natural it was to add all the arcadey stuff - combos, killing bonuses, checkpoints - into the Serious Sam gameplay. Sam is the evolution of all those classic run and gun games.

Stealth is fun. As are dialogue, puzzles, tool manipulation, whatever else you get in the modern FPS. But we're losing the shooter in First Person Shooter. Sam is a type of game that developers have stopped making, but that people really hanker to play. People are already tired of sneaking and are itching to get shooting again. Sam lets them shoot.

We're really looking forward to seeing what Croteam do with their next Serious Sam. Serious Sam has always been about mayhem, pretty looking mayhem and the next generation of hardware is going to allow more mayhem and prettier mayhem. Online will only get bigger and Sam has always been about bringing friends in on the action so is really well placed to ride this wave.

Punch? When we could damage our games playing hands? Nah, we'd blast 'em.