Shout Out / Serious Sam

The page contains unmarked spoilers for all games except 4. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

As a parody of old-school first person shooters, the Serious Sam series has countless of references to pop culture and other games. Behold!

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The First Encounter

• The title screen has Sam proclaiming "Sam I am!". One of the achievements in the HD version of TSE is also called that.
• In the first level, after a lightning bolt strikes the first enemy to come after you, Sam whistles part of the main song from the musical Singin' in the Rain.
• In the second level, at one point a boulder drops down and starts rolling toward you. Sam begins whistling the Indiana Jones theme.

The Second Encounter

• Cucurbito the Pumpkin's enemy bio states that Mental got the idea for him after listening to "a band whose name had something to do with destroying vegetables".
• At the start, Sam can swim the small lake behind him and reach a secret phone booth where he claims he's been waiting for "some blondie guy... forever".
  • While crossing a rope bridge he whistles the Peruvian song El Condor Pasa.
• After grabbing a crystal skull in one of the early levels:
  "To be or not to be - that is a serious question."
• To Monty Python upon picking up the Chainsaw in Medieval Poland:
  "Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK!"

Serious Sam II

• Klawdovic is named after Clodoveo◊, a parrot in the Italian comic book Alan Ford, which was very popular in Croatia where the developers are from, where the parrot was named "Klodovik", which in Croatian has the same pronunciation as Klawdovic.
• Yagoda the Witch, one of the minor enemies, doubles as a reference to Baba Yaga, a witch character from Russian fairytales.
• The P-Lah chainsaw melee weapon in this game is now a gauntlet chainsaw.
• Across the entire game, both Sam and the Sirius Great Council make reference to a "blondie guy who's been taking FOREVER".
• Sam introduces himself to the Sirian Great Council saying that he's Sam. Serious Sam.
• Near the beginning of the first level is a domesticated green velociraptor that can be ridden around like a horse. His name is Dino, pronounced "DEE-noh".
• The Simba chief and his villagers keep calling Sam "Samus".
• In the penultimate level of Planet M'Digbo, he can't get past a door and at one point screams, "WILMAAA!".
• Before facing Prince Chan at the end of the Chi-Fang levels, the cutscene is highly reminiscent of an old Asian movie, including voice-dubbing not matching lip movements.
• During the first level of Planet Kleer, Sam says after NETRICSA suggests him to pick up the Rocket Launcher^note As if it's not enough, the game even emphasizes the reference by capitalizing the first letter. Oh, and for bonus points, the level itself is called "Unreal Wasteland".:
  "I love picking big guns. It feels so Unreal."
• In the intro cutscene to the second level of Planet Kleer, Sam keeps screaming "Warriors, come out to playyy!" while smacking two Kleer bones together.
• The boss of the Sirius Moon chapter is called "Boss Hugo", possibly named after the cologne of the same inverted name.
• In the end of the Sirius Moon chapter, Sam calls out to the alliance fleet about to attack planet Sirius "Are you with me?" Among the responses are: "Acknowledged!" "Ready!" "Affirmative!" "Roger!", "Rabbit!"
• The levels containing the three challenges Sam must overcome in order to be free are named "Be quick or be dead", "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Jump in the fire".
• The list of names of the people staying at Mental Headquarters consists of himself, The Joker, Lex Luthor, Darth Vader, Doctor Moreau, and O.J. Simpson.

Serious Sam 3: BFE

• An early graffiti in the first level says "Do Gnaar dream of electric sheep?"
• The posters in the secret "Yard of Fame" in the first level include a few, such as "Look behind you, a Three-Headed Gnaar!", "Furry for Krystal since 2010" and "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite game on the Citadel."
• After Sam meets the Spider Hatchlings for the first time, he whistles the Spiderman theme.
• After the first battle with the Alcor Class Warship:
  All your base are belong to us, mother fucker!
• At the end of the level "The Lost Temples of Nubia", after finishing the last Khnum:
  "Another one bites the dust!"
• During Sam's last conversation with Hellfire, she screams, in the middle of the firefight, "They're coming outta the goddamn walls!"
• In the Jewel Of The Nile DLC, Sam talks about a Noodle Incident involving goats. Sort of like a certain Ellis trying to tell a certain story where there was a goat.
  • Upon reaching Abu Simbel, whose entrance is locked, Sam says "Looks like Wally World is closed. Moose out front should've told me."

Serious Sam 4

• At the beginning cutscene, when the destroyed satellite is shown, Rodriguez says that instead of a soldier, he could have been "a wrestler, a porn star, maybe both".
• While Sam is looking for the Holy Grail in the church, he wonders which of the saints' statues he should look: John, Paul, Ringo... George.
• A secret area in an early level consists of a Haemovore with Dracula's traditional hairstyle inside an open coffin. When you interact with it, it says "What is a Sam? A miserable little pile of one-liners. But enough talk. Have at you!" before attacking.
• Secret Big Rocket Man Pyrone is one to Big Man Tyrone.
• If you take a good look at it, the Draconian Pyromaniac is basically a Pyro from Team Fortress 2.

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem

• Siberian Mayhem’s Igor Ledov is based on Russian punk music icon Igor Letov.
• Right at the start of the first level, there is a small damaged doll that can be found past some pipes at the beach. Interacting with it causes it to disappear and black lines along with an upside-down rainbow to show up in the sky, referencing Death Stranding.
• Another secret involves Sam rapidly gaining speed by falling through a blue and orange portal positioned directly above one another.
• One of the potential outcomes of the wheel of fortune in the second level's Christmas challenge summons a miniature Draconian Burner with a blue visor. His summoning is accompanied by the musical cue at the start of an Among Us round, along with the message "Can you trust him?"
• The last three chapters are named after Siberiade, Roadside Picnic and Crime and Punishment.
• After meeting One-Eyed Olga in Siberiade, there's a holy hand grenade at a shrine in the graveyard right next to her church. Interacting with it spawns a Kamikaze with a Holy Halo and two holy hand grenades instead of bombs, which explodes into health pellets along with a "hallelujah".
• Under the bridge at the end of the Siberiade level one can encounter a passageway that contains a bonfire, with a bossfight with a few Abyss Watchers ahead.
• General Brand gets to be a boss fight in Siberian Mayhem, and he has learned a few moves from Senator Armstrong.

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour

• The keycards you need to collect look almost identical in appearance to the ones you find in Doom.
• Duke Nukem has a secret cameo in the south-west corner of the second level, giving Sam some cannonballs for his adventure.
• Among the weapons in Sam's arsenal are the Railgun and Lightning Gun from Quake, here called "Erasergun" and "The Shaft" respectively.
• Similar to the above, two more weapons are based on the Flak Cannon and Bio Gun from Video Game/Unreal, named "Scrap Cannon" and "Ooze Gun".
• One of the secret weapons you can obtain is the "Lightersaber". It's description even states that is based on a weapon belonging to some knights in an empire that existed "a long time ago and probably very, very far away".
• There's a Companion Cube that will spawn in a random location in the penultimate level.

Unsorted

• "That was a nasty dive and I'd swear it reminded me of something... wait... let me remember..... hmmm...it has something to do with a 3rd person view and a woman...hmmm........Venice...hmmmm...nah, I can't remember."
  • In Double D, Sam also mentions that he knew this athletic girl once who was interested in raiding tombs for treasures and had the nicest pair of... handguns.
• In Double D, the player can find the secret Grave Before Time, with the skulls of the main characters. The player can also find the Secret Useless Machine.

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