It's not cerebral, it's not strategy and it's obviously not Halo. But here's what Serious Sam is: frantic, challenging and sometimes overwhelming. The enemies of Mental, the extraterrestrial trying to wipe out humanity, flood the screen in wave after wave of homicidal mayhem. The levels themselves are big, in some cases huge, but the whole game is relatively straightforward. The challenge isn't in finding your way around or outsmarting the hordes of baddies. It's in fighting them off when they come after you by the truckload. Almost every battle is the battle to end all battles, and there's no mistaking the sense of relief and accomplishment when the dust settles. It's twitch gaming as it should be done.

And you'll learn quickly to identify the different enemies by their sounds. Each is quite distinct and it helps to know what you're up against before they get right in your face. Surround sound comes in handy when you're surrounded and you've learned to recognize the different enemies. The enemies themselves are well varied, too. Headless bomb throwers, armless monsters that are more teeth than body and giant, machine gun-wielding scorpions are just a few examples. The main character has a few select quips and observations, but most of the sounds come from the bad guys and the weapons unleashed by both sides. These could have been a little more distinct, but all in all they do a fair job of relaying a satisfying feeling of destruction.

Because this version is basically two games in one, Serious Sam is extremely long. How long depends on you, as each level has several secret areas you can discover for bonus points. Most of these areas are maddeningly hard to find. The only motivation is the point rewards, which lead to extra lives, but you might be better off just getting better at not dying than spending the time required to find all the extra goodies.

Adding to the longevity is support for system link play and a co-op mode. With multiple players and a lot of enemies on the screen, there is some occasional slowdown. Otherwise, Serious Sam moves along at a nice pace. There are enough multiplayer options to keep a group of friends busy for a long time. The only thing missing is Xbox Live support. Rounding out the features are options to turn off the blood and have it replaced with "hippie" gore, which makes monsters bleed flowers or confetti. This option, combined with a few different difficulty levels, make Serious Sam easily adaptable to a variety of audiences.

One hurdle in front of Serious Sam on his way to popularity could have been the bad batches of disks sent to retail. Judging from various message boards, there were a fair amount of copies being sold that were unplayable. The bad news is that Take2 (the parent company of Gotham Games) chose not to recall those copies. The good news is once you realize the problem is with the disk, Take2's customer support is outstanding. I mailed them my copy and had a new copy in my hands within about four days. Manufacturing problems are a reality of any business. How a company handles these problems makes all the difference.

It's hard to say why Serious Sam did so poorly and is already going for a measly $20. It could be the bad disks and the accompanying bad word of mouth. It could be that the market for old school twitch gaming (which isn't online) is dwindling faster than the ratings for Survivor. Whatever the case, Serious Sam could use more attention.

Serious Sam brings a lot to the table in terms of personality, longevity and difficulty. Whether it's the kind of difficulty you appreciate is up to you. One thing's for sure: Serious Sam doesn't have an identity crisis. This game isn't trying to be anything it's not, and it does what it does extremely well.