History VideoGame / SeriousSam

* BattleThemeMusic: The games have several different songs for every area, from a calm variant (no enemies) to tense battle themes which FadeIn and [[DadeOut out]] depending on whether there are enemies nearby.

* BattleThemeMusic: The games have several different songs for every area, from a calm variant (no enemies) to tense battle themes which fade in and out depending on whether there are enemies nearby.

* ''Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem'' (2022, developed by Timelock Studio and Croteam), a standalone expansion to ''4'' based on a mod by Timelock's founders.

* BackStab: In deathmatch, attacking another player with a knife from behind is a OneHitKill.

* SplashDamage: Comes from explosive weapons, as well as from the Kamikazes. Notably, playing below Normal difficulty makes the player immune to his own splash damage.
* SpiritualSuccessor:
** Sam could be considered an unofficial successor for ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'' without all the sexual and toilet humor. The fact that the first game came out the same year as 3D Realms' "''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'' will be done when it's done" announcement doesn't hurt, either.
** Croteam have also stated that VideoGame/{{Doom}} was the main inspiration for Serious Sam. VideoGame/{{Quake}} was also likely an inspiration, given the similar weapons and gameplay elements.

* ''Serious Sam: Tormental'' (2019)

''Serious Sam'' is a series of videogames (mostly {{first person shooter}}s but later branching onto other videogame genres) originally developed by Creator/{{Croteam}}.

* ''Serious Sam: The Greek Encounter'' (2012), which reimagines ''Serious Sam'' as a top-down ShootEmUp.

* HarderThanHard: Serious and Mental difficulty.

The main game series was praised for being a well-made throwback to old-skool shooters where the emphasis is on massacring enemy hordes instead of dueling small, smart squads. [[TheWarSequence And when we say hordes, we mean hordes]], especially in those nice open expanses where you truly get to appreciate how much opposition Sam's up against - and, consequently, how much of a Badass he is.

''Serious Sam'' is a series of videogames (mostly {{first person shooter}}s but later branching onto other videogame genres) originally developed by Croteam.

The main game series was praised for being a well-made throwback to old-skool shooters where the emphasis is on massacring enemy hordes instead of dueling small, smart squads. [[TheWarSequence And when we say hordes, we mean hordes]], especially in those nice open expanses where you truly get to appreciate how much opposition Sam's up against - and, consequently, how much of a Badass he is.

See also ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'', a game unrelated to the ''Serious Sam'' games beyond a similar premise of visiting ancient civilizations (albeit via simulations rather than TimeTravel with alien technology) and, with the release of the "Serious" DLC, the [[GuestFighter ability to play as Sam]].

''Serious Sam'' is a series of videogames (mostly {{first person shooter}}s but later branching onto other videogame genres) originally developed by Croteam. The games that comprise the series are the following:

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Implied to be the case with [[BigBad Mental]]. He's the [[LastOfHisKind last of a race of]] SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, and apparently [[GoMadFromTheIsolation went insane with lonelyness]], which gives him the desire to [[OmnicidalManiac wipe out all life in the galaxy every 100000 years.]]

* ''Serious Sam Double D'' (2011, [=PC/X360=], developed by Mommy's Best Games), a side-scrolling shooter released to promote ''BFE''.

* ''Serious Sam Double D'' (2011, PC, developed by Mommy's Best Games), which reimagines ''Serious Sam'' as an ''VideoGame/{{Abuse}}''-like 2D side-scrolling ShootEmUp. Released to promote ''BFE''.
** ''Serious Sam Double D XXL'' (2013, [=X360/XBLA=], developed by Mommy's Best Games). An UpdatedRerelease of the above.

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: Flavor text from NETRICSA says that the [[FrickinLaserBeams Laser Gun]] is made of titanium so as to not overheat. Titanium actually has very low thermal conductivity - a titanium laser gun would in fact overheat ''faster'' than one made of, say, steel or aluminium alloy. Not that it matters for a game firmly on the "Classic" end of the FacklerScaleOfFPSRealism, mind you.

** The Cannon. Not a HandCannon, a "technomagical" ''[[LiteralMetaphor Cannon Cannon]]'', that fires uranium-filled cannonballs that have to be pushing 200mm.

* YourSizeMayVary: The SBC Cannon's cannonballs. On the ammo pickup they're about the size of a football, when fired they're big enough for Sam to fit inside one while standing, and WordOfGod says Sam keeps them in his pocket. [[AWizardDidIt Then again, it's all technomagical]].

** The minigun, of course; 1,200 rounds per minute from a 500 round belt. Especially ''BFE'''s version, which unlike the previous versions (that shared 5.56x45mm ammo with the machine gun), fires ''.50 BMG'' BMG rounds according to the text on the ammo pick-up.

* {{BFG}}: Really, almost all of Sam's guns besides the pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles / submachine guns count. There is: A grenade launcher with BottomlessMagazines, a fully-automatic rocket launcher that never needs to be reloaded, a gigantic minigun, a 16mm sniper rifle, a plasma rifle, a laser gun that chews up enemies like a chainsaw through tapioca, and the Cannon. Not a HandCannon, a "technomagical" ''[[LiteralMetaphor Cannon Cannon]]'', that fires uranium-filled cannonballs, no less.

* ExcusePlot: [[http://www.seriouszone.com/ssgold/festory.php Can be read here. Tries to justify the action going on.]] ''BFE'' involved more story and retconned some of this, moving Sam to somewhere in the near(?) future and being a Special Forces soldier trying to stem the tide of angry monsters.

* ActionBomb:
** The Beheaded Kamikaze, which constantly screams "AAAAAAAA" as it runs towards the player, despite having no head. According to NETRICSA, they have voice synthesizers implanted in them to psyche out their targets.
** The Marsh Hopper, a OneHitPointWonder that jumps towards Sam and blows itself up on contact to coat players in toxic slime stored in its body. A good half of the occurrences of the boss health bar in ''TFE'' are merely you having to take on a tidal wave of the things all at once. Unlike the Kamikazes, they don't deal SplashDamage, though.

* ArtificialStupidity: Every single enemy is dumb as a bag of hammers. Melee enemies will simply run at you and hit you, while projectile enemies will stand still and shoot at a very slow and inaccurate rate, not even trying to dodge your attacks, even the PainfullySlowProjectile weapons. This is mostly done so they can throw hundreds of enemies at you at a time without straining system resources.
* ArtificialZombie: Dead Sirian soldiers are beheaded, resurrected and made into lightweight soldiers with rudimentary intelligence.

* AsteroidsMonster: The Lava Golems.

* BadassNormal: Sam, taking down entire alien armies since 2001. He's an otherwise regular EDF trooper dragged into this mess.

* BeamSpam: Since the game loves to throw hundreds of enemies at you, and a lot of them shoot lasers (most prominently the Minor Biomechanoids), this will happen frequently.
* BeatingADeadPlayer: You can watch all the melee enemies run frenziedly back and forth over the spot where you died.
* BellyMouth: The Gnaar are monsters without a head, containing a big eye and mouth on its torso.

* BigBad: Mental, a GalacticConqueror who is Sam's ArchEnemy. He destroys every intelligent life in the galaxy, while Serious Sam is killing his army to face him.

* BlasphemousBoast: Some fan-suggested lines recorded by Sam's actor include ones such as these:
--> ''"Praying to God won't save you now - I fragged him last Tuesday."''\\
''"I am he who gods fear."''

* {{Cephalothorax}}: Gnaars are running and punching humanoid-like monsters with their entire face on their body.
* CatchPhrase: While every game has a bunch of it, Sam is very fond of using the word "serious" as well as mentioning finding "some serious firepower" eachtime he crosses paths with a powerful weapon.

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Sam has no apparent super human powers. This doesn't stop him from tanking hundreds of bullets or multiple anti-tank rockets, ripping grown men apart, gibbing them with quick melee strikes, carrying twenty guns, dodging bullets, sprinting at 60 miles per hour, or accurately getting a headshot on a moving man-sized target, from 300 yards away, using a pistol, while strafing, ''without looking down the sights''.

* ChickenWalker: Walking Biomechanoids in the games walk in this way due to the way their legs were implemented.

* {{Cyborg}}: Many enemies are both organic and cybernetic, including the Biomechanoids, artificially built biomechanical war machines. In addition, the Arachnoids are retconned into this in ''BFE''. In contrast to the past two games, the adult Arachnoids now have their red armor surgically attached to their skin (on the front of their torsos as well as their arms, heads, and two of their legs) and their machine guns built into their pincers.
* DeadpanSnarker: Sam will sometimes take a break from his one-liners and throw out some good old sarcasm.
--> '''Sam:''' ''[walking into a room where an ambush is obviously set up]'' What are you waiting for, a one-liner?
* DerivativeDifferentiation: Sam looks very similar to Duke Nukem in ''The First Encounter'', as presented in ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'', sharing Duke's sunglasses, hairstyle, and a similar shirt. Starting with ''The Second Encounter'', Sam's hair is altered to look a bit more disheveled, his shirt became a T-Shirt, as well as dropping his glasses from the ensemble, though ''III'', a prequel, would bring back the sunglasses, albeit altered to have red lens.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Picking up a mere 1HP or 1 armor pickup might trigger an ambush with '''HORDES''' of enemies. The games are ''not'' friendly to {{Munchkin}}s.

* EarlyBirdCameo: If you pick up secret items, you can encounter certain enemy types much earlier than they would normally spawn.

* EliteMooks: Pretty much every enemy type has an Elite Mook version. Some examples include:
** The Beheaded Rocketeers have the red-shirted Firecrackers that fire out five shots at a time instead of one.
*** There's also the Zorg; while they are still disposable cannon fodder, they are basically Beheaded Rocketeers except twice as good in every way. Twice as durable, fire two projectiles at a time instead of one, said projectiles do twice as much damage, and they travel twice as fast.
** The Gnaars have the female Gnaars, which are bigger and have more health.
** The Arachnoid Juveniles have the Arachnoid Adults, which are also bigger and have more health.
** The Biomechanoid Minors have the Biomechanoid Majors, which have ''much'' more health, are bigger, and fire missiles instead of energy beams.
** Fiendian Demon Reptiloids in ''The Second Encounter'' are ''just like'' Aludran Reptiloids... except they are twice as tough, deal twice as much damage, and their projectiles travel twice as fast.

* {{Expy}}: Sam is a dark-haired version of VideoGame/DukeNukem: a one-liner spewing action hero who faces waves after waves of aliens and doesn't take himself too seriously. Other games have enemies, items or characters reminiscent of other series' equivalents.

* {{Fireballs}}: Many enemies fire them, though they seem to be favored by GiantMook types in particular.
* FirstPersonGhost: You can't see Sam's feet if you look downward.
* ForTheEvulz: Mental is kind of a douche.
* GalacticConqueror: Mental. And no, being killed in his conquests will not save you from being a SlaveMook. Just ask the Kleers, Sirians, and [[spoiler:humans]]. Races conquered and/or assimilated willingly by Mental include the Repitiloids, Zumb'uls, Zorg, Arachnoids, and Antaresians.

* GiantMook: Many, from adult Arachnoids to the Biomechanoids to Scrapjacks and Khnums.
* GlassCannon: Some enemy cannons take only a few hits to kill but will do massive damage to Sam.
* {{Golem}}: The Lava Golems are magical creatures made of lava.
* TheGoomba: Beheaded Rocketeers and Gnaars. They're among the easiest enemies in the series, and are ubiquitous enough to be mascots.

* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: Mental himself. The only thing we've seen of him in the whole series is a boney hand. In a ''spinoff''.
* TheHorde: Mental's army of course! They're mostly made up of things like robots, zombies, clones, biomachines, war beasts, and genetically engineered species, but Mental's not above just recruiting primitive races and using their own primitive technologies (such as the Reptiloids, Arachnoids, Orcs, Zorgs, and Atlantleans) to bolster his ranks.
* HumanAliens: Sirians.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Kleer Skeletons and their bolas. They're real tools, that are supposed to be thrown so that they wrap around a person's legs and trip them up, but instead they're always used as standard projectile weapons.

* InsectoidAliens: Arachnoids throughout all the games are sentient and use weapons and armor as well as their stingers for melee attack, but don't move around much.
* InvisibleMonsters:
** In some games, some Gnaars, especially at higher difficulties, are nearly invisible.
** Mental difficulty makes ''every'' monster constantly flash between invisible and visible.
* KingMook: The Alundran Reptiloid Highlanders.

* LegionOfDoom: Mental likes to recruit some of the galaxy's most notable villains into his army, like [[spoiler:Ugh Zan III (an ancient deity and one of the most feared beings around), Mordekai the Summoner (one of the galaxy's most infamous sorcerers), Prince Chan, Count Kleerofski (both local alien dictators), and the Uber Lava Golem (ancient guardian of the Alley of Sphinxes)]]. His headquarters is also the home of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker, ComicBook/LexLuthor, and [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]].
* LightningBruiser:
** Alundran Reptiloid - Highlander. Especially the Highlander's Bride variant, who is the fastest enemy in ''TSE''. And one of the biggest.
** Also, Sam himself, who can run at sixty miles per hour while carting around a minigun that's bigger than he is. ''BFE'' is not even afraid of showing him running with a ''goddamn cannon'' in his hands.
* LosingYourHead: Beheaded zombies. Especially Kamikazes.

* MascotMook: The Headless Kamikaze, who's even the focus of the first trailer for ''BFE'' and ''4''.

* {{Mook}}s: Literally tens of thousands of mooks of dozens of different types in any given game. They include alien soldiers, wild alien animals, alien mercenaries, zombies, robots, witches, harpies, clones, demons, ogres, and biological war machines. Mental's got a lot of resources, apparently.
* MultiArmedAndDangerous: All variants of the Alundran Reptiloids have four arms each. Some of the bosses in the different games also have extra arms.
* MyGreatestFailure: According to the [[http://www.seriouszone.com/ssgold/festory.php original backstory]], Sam was the captain of the starship that drew Mental's attention to humanity and [[TheAtoner he threw himself headlong, even suicidally, into the fighting to try and atone for it]].

* NeuralImplanting: An AI, NETRICSA, is surgically implanted into Sam's brain.

* OhCrap: Sam has a couple of these moments, though you can't really feel bad for him when he seems to make it his goal in life to [[TemptingFate dare the universe to try and screw him over even harder]].
* OmnicidalManiac: Mental, a GalacticConqueror hellbent on conquering the entire universe while slaughtering everyone and everything that doesn't bow to his command.

* OneManArmy: Sam himself, as you could expect from a classic FPS hero. [[ZergRush Massive hordes]], [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever massive enemies]], [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs massive hordes of massive enemies]], doesn't matter, he'll just wreck them all with a witty one-liner on the tip of his tongue. Hell, the final level of ''BFE'' has ''over 2400 enemies'', and Sam is perfectly capable of killing '''all''' of them should the player be skilled and patient. [[https://imgur.com/AcMmoiW Someone even compiled a list]] with the total number of monsters in all the games: 45.723, more than all the other listed FirstPersonShooter protagonists ''combined.''
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The Beheaded units deployed by Mental's hordes are reanimated Sirian soldiers, revived with a combination of magic and cybernetics (in ''BFE'' especially, where they have a robotic eye in the place of their head). They are extremely weak when compared to the average human, but unlike most zombies they still retain rudimentary intelligence (being able to use weak, basic weapons and obey orders) as well as move at a pace faster than a walk.

* ParodySue: Sam himself is basically a parody of the [[TheStoic fearless]] FPS protagonist who [[OneManArmy kills entire armies of monsters/aliens/whatever all by himself]] that was the default in most early shooters.
* PinballProjectile:
** The ammo from the cannon and grenade launcher qualify for this.
** Firecracker shots bounce along the ground and off walls.

* PintsizedPowerhouse: Some mooks can be seen scaled down quite a bit while retaining their combat strength.

* PreAssKickingOneliner: Expected, since the eponymous character is thought as a parody of VideoGame/DukeNukem.
* PsychopathicManchild: Mental may count as this, since he makes mooks based off horror movies, like Curcubito the Pumpkin, lives in a building with [[Franchise/StarWars Dark Vader]] and [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Lex Luthor]], and [[spoiler: destroys entire planets by throwing their own moons at them.]] Also, when ordering helicopters for his army, he simply told his staff to make a fleet of "big mofos of helicopters".
* PunchClockVillain: All of the Beheaded enemies, especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVKYWVxom8U the Kamikazes]].

* RiddleForTheAges: Despite the franchise existing for 20 years by this point we have [[TheGhost never actually seen]] [[BigBad Mental]], we know he's the [[LastOfHisKind last of a race of]] SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, but what he looks like is a total mystery (though a common fan theory is that this symbol (looking like a stylized head with horns and tentacles) seen on Sirius is a crude representation of his face.

* SchizoTech: Kleer skeletons use old ball-and chain projectiles and some enemies use classic weapons, while other enemies use weapons ranging from modern to futuristic. There is also magic involved.

* ScreamingWarrior: The Headless Kamikazes.

* SetAMookToKillAMook: When factoring in the enemies' ArtificialStupidity, it's fairly easy to position Sam where one enemy can deal damage to, if not outright kill, other enemies. The Major Biomechanoid's rockets are particularly useful to lay waste to other mooks.

* SoundCodedForYourConvenience: Kamikazes, Curcubitos, Kleer Skeletons, Werebulls and pretty much any other enemy. Lampshaded in ''Second Encounter'', where the player's AI comments that she can "hear those familiar hooves coming" right before a fight with a bunch of Kleer Skeletons.

* TheStoic: Sam takes this to ParodySue levels. Even when he meets [[{{Kaiju}} Godzilla-sized monsters]], his response is just a cheerful "you're a big'un, aint ya?"
* SuperPersistentMissile: The magic fireballs thrown by Alundran Reptiloids will ''never'' give up trying to hit the player - they simply bounce off terain and buildings as they try to home in on the player.
* SuperStrength / SuperSpeed / SuperToughness: Sam can decapitate monsters with his bare hands, carry hundreds of equipment while sprinting at 30 MPH, and take hundreds of bullets, lasers, and rockets before going down. The melee animations on the Beheaded Rocketeers and Cloned Soldiers in ''BFE'' show Sam's SuperStrength quite clearly. If the player presses the melee button while Sam's holding the shotgun or pistol near a Cloned Soldier, [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom he kicks the armored soldier hard enough to launch him 10 meters away and through the air.]] If Sam has any other weapon out, he instead quickly [[NeckSnap grabs the soldier and snaps his neck]] in about a second, one-handed and with no mechanical leverage. If the player presses the melee button near a Rocketeer, Sam just straight-up shoves his hand through the poor bastard's chest and out his back, [[AndShowItToYou and rips out his heart.]]

* TeleportingKeycardSquad: To the point of parody. Whenever you pick up ''anything'', expect a legion of monsters to attack you. And if it's any level after the first, another one after that. It gets kind of humiliating when you get your ass kicked six ways to Sunday over a health pill that restores ''1 HP''. And it's a secret to boot!
* TemptingFate: Sam (and also NETRICSA in ''II'') has a tendency to speak about something unlikely to happen or taunt a fallen enemy... only for a horde of enemies spawning right after his words.

* TranslatorMicrobes: NETRICSA actively translates other languages for Sam. This allows Sam to talk to Gnaars, Mental, and anyone else.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Implied to be the case with [[BigBad Mental]]. He's the [[LastOfHisKind last of a race of]] SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, and apparently [[GoMadFromTheIsolation went insane with lonelyness]], which gives him the desire to [[OmnicidalManiac wipe out all life in the galaxy every 100000 years.]]

* YoungerThanTheyLook: Serious Sam himself is, apparently, 22. Yet he looks more like someone in their late 20s or early 30s.
* ZergRush: Smaller enemies have a tendency to appear in ''large'' numbers. Some {{boss battle}}s are even composed of [[SharedLifeMeter a single enemy class appearing in huge numbers]]. Lampshaded by Sam in ''TFE''.
--> ''"Oh, God. Never underestimate the power of stupid things in large numbers."''

* DistaffCounterpart:
** The giant female Beheaded Kamikazes ("Femikazes") in ''Double D''.
** The Female Major Biomechanoid. Complete with GagBoobs and a purse.

* HomingProjectile: Many enemies in ''The Last Hope'' have these, being a game where almost every enemy fires a projectile of sorts. Homing projectiles are just par for the course.

* PerspectiveFlip: ''Serious Sam Kamikaze Attack!'' is played from the POV of a Beheaded Kamikaze who tries to kill Sam.

* AlienInvasion: Relegated until ''BFE'' and "4" (which put Sam right in the middle of it) to the backstory, where Sam is traveling more than three thousand years in the past trying to stop the invasion from ever happening.

* AlienInvasion: Relegated until ''BFE'' (which puts Sam right in the middle of it) to the backstory, where Sam is traveling more than three thousand years in the past trying to stop the invasion from ever happening.