Serious Sam 3: BFE

Serious Sam 3: BFE is a first-person shooter video game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. It is the latest game in the Serious Sam series and a prequel to Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game's story takes place in the 22nd century, during Mental's invasion of Earth, as implied in The First Encounter. The game is set in Egypt and features a 16-player co-operative campaign mode, as well as 4-player splitscreen. The game was released on November 22, 2011 on Windows, while the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions release date have not been announced yet.^[2]
Serious Sam 3: BFE's gameplay is identical to the previous titles in the series. Having its roots in traditional '90s first-person shooters, the game revolves around the player facing against hordes of enemies in lush, wide-open environments. Unlike the original game, where the story was in the form of messages from NETRICSA (Neurotronically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer) implanted into Sam's skull, your only companion in the game, Serious Sam 3 features relatively high-res cutscenes throughout its levels that guide the player throughout the story, as well as phone calls that Sam receives from his superiors (usually Quinn).
The player can carry an unlimited amount of weapons, including a minigun, rocket launcher, assault rifle and a cannon. The signature close-combat weapons from the first game, the knife and chainsaw, have been replaced with a sledgehammer with three modes of fire (vertical strike, 180 turn and full 360 turn). There is no regenerating health, instead there are health and armor power-ups scattered throughout the levels that the player must pick up. Additionally, the levels are full of secret areas, where health, armor, ammo and in some cases, weapons from later levels can be found, following the tradition of the previous games.
The gameplay is very hectic and chaotic, with enemies spawning in by the dozen and more consistently in later levels, often overwhelming the player. The environment is partially destructible and there is no cover system, with pillars and walls constantly crumbling into a pile of rubble by enemy gunfire. In addition, explosions form piles of sand and dust, blocking the player's vision and making survival tougher. Blood and gore effects have been improved from previous instalments. There are no puzzles, however the player must find keys, pull levers and find environmental anomalies to progress.
Classic enemies such as the Beheaded Kamikaze, Beheaded Rocketeer and Kleer Skeleton return in the game. New ones include the Khnum and Scrapjack (resembling the Cyberdemon and Mancubus from Doom, respectively), as well as the cloned soldiers. The kamikaze has returned to his original design, rather than the goofy one from Serious Sam II. The Gnaar's design has radically been changed from the original game. It is now much larger, differently shaped and walks on all fours, rather than its bipedal counterpart in Serious Sam.
There are several new gameplay mechanics, never before seen in the series: sprinting, reloading, sights and melee attacks. The player can run throughout the level indefinitely. Some weapons need to be reloaded after a certain amount of rounds are fired. The pistol and assault rifle have the ability to aim down sights, which can serve as an aid in aiming, but does not affect accuracy, as firing from the hip is just as accurate - bullets will always hit where the aiming reticule is, like in previous entries. The player can perform hand kills or kick enemies to conserve ammo, depending on the weapon selected. For example, a Gnaar's eyeball can be ripped out or an Antaresian Spider's shell can be broken. This proves largely futile in the later levels, as the player still sustains damage when a melee attack is performed.
Whereas previous games jumped into the action pretty quickly, Serious Sam 3 progressively builds up the levels, getting more intense each time, with new weapons and enemies being introduced at a considerably slower rate than before, until it reaches its climax.
Serious Sam 3: BFE serves as a prequel to the original Serious Sam: The First Encounter and depicts the events on Earth before Sam's journey into the past. Prior to 2060 A.D, humanity had slowly begun uncovering artifacts and ruins left behind in ancient times by the Sirians, the famous and long-thought extinct race from the place of Sirius. Unfortunately, Mental has chosen this time to turn his attention upon Earth. He dispatches his space fleet carrying his never-endless hordes to attack Earth, leading a three year conquest that has humanity driven almost to the point of extinction. In a last ditch effort, the survivors turn to the time-lock; A recently excavated device supposedly capable of granting a single person the ability of time travel via an inter-dimensional portal. Through it, that person could reach a pivotal point in time and alter events of the past. But as the device lies dormant, they must first discover a means to turn it on.
Sam "Serious" Stone, part of the Earth Defense force, is dispatched with a detachment of soldiers in Alpha team to modern Egypt, which is occupied by Mental's alien army. Their original mission is to recon, rendezvous and extract Bravo team who are protecting Dr Stein, a scientist carrying hieroglyphics believed to contain instructions for powering up the Time-lock. Sam's insertion goes haywire as his chopper is shot down and both teams are quickly wiped out. However, he is able to recover the hieroglyphics from Stein's phone in the museum and transmit them to headquarters. Deciphering indicates there is a hidden Sirian chamber below the Great Pyramid. Sam clears himself a path to a tunnel underneath the Sphinx and descends into the Pyramid. He not only discovers the hidden chamber, but recovers crucial information and a bracelet device from the remains of what might've been Earth's last Sirian.
In order to power the Time-lock, two dormant but incredibly powerful plasma-energy generators need to be activated. Hellfire from Charlie team inserts Sam to bring both online. This is slowly accomplished and Charlie team is staged to enter the time-lock. Sam is relieved of duty and in the process of being extracted from Cairo, but is shot down once again and is forced to flee towards the lost ruins of Nubia. He is then contacted again by Hellfire. Headquarters is down, Charlie team has been completely wiped out and only she remains. She urges Sam to hide somewhere safe before being cut off, to which Mental taunts Sam with the inevitability of defeat and being 'mooned'. Enraged, Sam vows it is not over until he has had his way with Mental and his hordes, then plots a hasty course for the time-lock.
The struggle to this destination ends with Sam killing Ugh-Zan IV, the newest incarnation of the infamous Ugh-Zan III from Serious Sam: The First Encounter, at the temple of Hatsheput. Sam then calls Mental on his phone, only to be answered by Mental's daughter, Judy. Sam asks Judy to give her father a message, that "Sam's coming over to play. And by play, I mean kill him." Suddenly, he notices the moon (Sent by Mental to destroy Earth) plummeting rapidly within the atmosphere. Realizing whats about to happen, he just manages to jetpack into the time-lock's inter-dimensional portal and begins his journey to Ancient Egypt. The game ends as Mental "moons" Earth (crushes the moon on Earth's surface), destroying the planet.