This design philosophy shows itself in the plot and characters, as well as other options, as is immediately evident upon viewing the introductory cut-scene. It's definitely intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but the humor tends to feel a little cheap, and made me wince more than it made me smile. I know this sort of feel is probably a trademark of the Serious Sam IP in general, but the cheese was a bit too much here.

Large-headed, revoltingly cute little munchkin-style aliens teleport Sam into their presence and explain (in voices that truly made me wince) that he has to save the universe by collecting the mystic bits of an artifact that, once it's fully assembled, will enable him to hurt the icky bad guy who's threatening everything. He takes it in stride, and goes off rather obediently to do their bidding, and thus it begins.

The interplay between the characters as this goes on feels like it wants to be funny, but hasn't graduated from high school yet. It tends to feel like more of an appeal to the lowest common denominator, complete with the ever-so-modern stereotype of "female smart - male dumb" that rears its ugly head far too often these days. It begins with the little munchkin aliens (two idiotic, bickering brothers and the sister who tells them to knock it off and behave, of course), and repeats itself in Sam and his British-accented AI advisor … and so it goes. I get the feeling I've seen this movie before, only with better writing and more likeable characters (Sam isn't a bad guy, but he seems really generic even for his type, which is generic by nature). If this sort of thing were done with more wit, I'd be more forgiving, but it was more painful than amusing, especially with the (possibly intentionally) bad voice acting on the part of the aliens in particular. This isn't an A-list title, I realize, but I've seen $20 and $30 titles with better production values than this $40 one in some respects (prices are in USD).

Earlier I referred to the plot and characters as trappings. I don't always think of them that way, but in this case that's what they are. With a game of this kind, such things usually don't matter as much to the average player as simply being able to go off and shoot things, or blow them up. Everything else is an excuse to get to those activities, so if my negativity earlier was getting you down, take it with a grain of salt (good advice when reading reviews in general, I should know). I'm not necessarily saying, "This game is bad." It's a specialized product, and what it does, it does well. It's just a bit narrower in scope than some titles out there, and things outside of that scope tend to suffer. There are indeed many opportunities for mayhem, shooting, explosions galore and other fun things like that.

On controls: There are a few preset configurations, and options to invert look, change sensitivity, toggle auto aim … and that about does it. It gets the job done, though many are used to a higher level of detail in terms of what you can configure, I believe. The controls are pretty basic, though, so there isn't that much to change. There isn't even a manual reload button, actually (though it seems the weapons are designed so that you won't miss it much). I'm surprised they bothered with a jump button considering everything else, not to mention that the game auto-jumps for you when you get to an obstacle (something which can be a tad annoying). Mainly, you'll just be running and aiming with the analog sticks, firing and hurling grenades with the shoulder buttons, and using the occasional object or bringing up your level objectives with the black and white buttons. You can also duck, by clicking in the left analog and holding, but it isn't really the kind of game where there is much call for that sort of thing.

The enemies are very colorful, cartoony and often strange in appearance, ranging from things reminiscent of space orcs or ape-men, to demonic combinations of monster and machine. Some of them are surprisingly fragile, given their stature and appearance in general, but literally hordes of them will attack you at times, and your health can go down very quickly (this has been my experience on the normal setting, anyway). I couldn't escape the impression of being attacked by an army of angry action figures from the nearest toy store; they just had that sort of look. And if the enemies seem like action figures, the beings who are friendly to you seem more like dolls - small, babyish characters which large heads, mainly (though they mix it up a bit later on).They seem to follow the code of, "If it's ugly, it's bad, and if it's cute, it's good."

They have a good variety of weapons to kill those uglies with, and they are fairly generous with ammo for them. Some of them seem pretty similar in terms of effectiveness, so it becomes as much of a style choice as anything else. They start you off with a futuristic energy weapon, a saw which can be used for close combat, and dual pistols (unlimited ammo for these starter weapons). I found myself wishing I'd have more excuses to use those dual pistols, as they are rather cool style-wise, but with the inferior damage they do, and the plentiful ammo for everything else, there isn't much need to fall back on them. The saw was a nice thought, but having to switch back to it via the next/previous weapon buttons is too much of a pain when things are in your face, and I found myself falling back and shooting instead. A separate button specifically for a hand-to-hand attack would have been nice for those occasions, but this is unabashedly a shooter, so it's easiest to just react that way instead. As you go on, you'll find various shotguns (double-barreled and automatic), mini-guns, bombs, grenades, rocket launchers and even a bomb-dropping parrot (my personal favorite). I found it odd that the rocket launcher did not seem to do much damage, but I imagine it's a case of the designers listening to a common complaint in shooters (the multiplayer portions anyway) about rockets being too powerful. They do have a good range, though - it just stood out as odd that they didn't do as much damage as we're used to such weapons doing in these shooters.

Sam will also find himself in various vehicles (a couple of the more humorous ones include a fire-belching dinosaur and a rolling ball that looks like something out of American Gladiators). He can also hop into turrets and deal out some damage that way. In fact, when a sequence involving an assault with a vehicle or turret starts, you had better stay in the apparatus in question, or you will most likely suffer a quick death, due to the hordes of monstrous things constantly being thrown at you at such times. I recall getting knocked out of my vehicle and being unable to get back to it while being mobbed by red spiders the size of large houses, for instance. That got ugly very quickly.

I get the impression that the game is trying to be old-school in some ways, but too often comes across more like Playskool. It still possesses a certain charm, but lacks something of the grittiness or darkness of some of the classics that the game-play seems to be trying to emulate. It's definitely more towards the bright, colorful side of things. It also feels more like a Teen game, despite the Mature rating by the ESRB. It could easily have been one without much change, if any, and might have been better off that way. Don't get me wrong, I like M-rated games, and in general I applaud developers who make them instead of just going for the broadest audience, but if a game is indeed M-rated, I prefer it to be noticeably so, and to be that way for a reason. The rating just does not seem to suit the game, and it actually seems like something teens would enjoy more than some of us cranky old fellows, so it might have been better to go for that rating instead (maybe the ESRB just rated the game more harshly than the developers thought would be the case, I don't know). That being said, I'm sure the younger folks will have no trouble getting their hands on it anyway (they certainly seemed to have no trouble doing so when I was playing games that actually warranted the M rating, as I've mentioned before). From what I've seen, that's not the fault of the stores so much - it's down to apathetic parents. Well, take heart, they're not seeing much here compared to that copy of (insert infamous M title here) that you bought for them.

Is this a fun game? Sure, I've had some fun with it, though the run-and-gun frenzy gets old after a bit, and it's best experienced in smaller doses. Is it worth the price tag? It depends on your tastes. To me, it felt like a budget title - moreso than the $40 price tag would indicate. But if you can find it cheaper, or are particularly into this style of game, then go for it. It could use more in the way of modes and such to add to its lifespan, but it can be played on Xbox Live, so if that is your cup of tea then it'll last longer for you before collecting dust on the shelf.