Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

Of course, if you've never partaken before, such issues will be irrelevant. Series virgins after a shooter that doesn't take itself too seriously or stop every five minutes to present a puzzle or relay another tedious chunk of narrative can slap their cash down with confidence. The cut-scenes are few, the periods when your trigger is unsqueezed, short. Considering the mountains of ammo expended and masses of monsterkind neutralised during a typical hour of play (in my first evening with the game I culled, according to the stats page, over 17 hundred of the blighters) it's remarkable that fatigue or boredom never set in. I thank the targets.

Bound together by nothing but beeline AI routines and an overwhelming urge to murder you, the 18 types of enemy are lovely things to liquidate. Hosing a herd of Kleers (giant hoofed baboon skeletons with hooks for hands) with a steaming mini-gun and watching the bones fly = Fun. Shotgunning a charging Sirian Bull then stepping out of the way as its massive blood-spattered carcass somersaults past = Fun. Frantically pistol-sniping caterwauling kamikaze bombers as they sprint towards you from all points of the compass = Fun. Slaying plagues of leaping frog-like Marsh Hoppers with a chattering tommy gun = Fun.

Actually, that last one, not so much.

The larger foes have been re-textured, re-animated and re-sculpted with real skill, but remain as implausibly stoic as ever. Beasts like the half-man-half-scorpion Arachnoids and the multi-limbed snot-hurling Reptiloids will happily sit tight as you plink their extremities from the safety of a pillar or wall. Not that helpful barriers are always available.

Having spent the last couple of days GBHing the infected with guitars and cricket bats in Left 4 Dead 2, it's not easy to get excited about Serious Sam HD's conservative gun selection. There are 10 weapons in all, ranging from a hunting knife to a portable ship's cannon. Each has its role, and has been attractively refurbished, but don't expect any fancy sniper sights, secondary fire or melee modes. Point it, shoot it, is the Serious Sam way. Even reloading is automatic. Only ammo exhaustion - the dreaded metallic click of doom - breaks the rhythm of a death-rampage.

If you do find yourself staring at a wall of galloping Gnaars or Kleers over the muzzle of an empty rocket or grenade launcher, then pray there's a comrade or two at your elbow. SSHD inherits First Encounter's famed co-op multiplayer. Not only can you slay your way through the full campaign with up to 15 chums (naturally, the larger the party, the more opposition), but you can tweak the challenge in countless pleasure-extending ways. Want limited respawns, infinite ammo, or friendly fire? Select it. Want the beasts barring your way to be up to four times tougher than the ones in the stock game? You're plainly stark-staring bonkers, but go ahead, nudge that slider.

In my brief taste of team play (finding comrades has been tricky in the run-up to the launch) I've come across no serious problems with stability or lag. Creating a game or joining one in progress is painless, and the swollen ranks of foes in communal sessions turn already impressive scraps into jaw-dislocating carnivals of carnage.