Seriously.

Just a quick note to let you know that if you're a PC gamer and have Steam installed, and you have any fond memories of first person shooters the way they used to be done - the DOOMs, the Duke Nukems (well, really just the one Duke Nukem...) - Serious Sam: Episode 1 HD is on sale this weekend for under $7 on Steam, and based on the couple of hours I've spent with it, it's worth checking out.

If you didn't play Serious Sam when it was new back in 2001, it was considered a throwback of sorts even then; it's a very different animal from what first person shooters have become.  Serious Sam has no cover mechanic, no squad tactics.  Most of the weapons don't even have a reload animation, because you just fire them until you're out of bullets.  This is not a bad thing.  This game is not about sophisticated AI (they're mostly completely braindead), or stealth, or careful aiming or ammo conservation.  It's about being rushed by hundreds of enemies and frantically dodging while holding down the trigger until they stop coming.

In that respect, I suppose it might share more with Left 4 Dead than it does with any other modern shooter.  But basically, Serious Sam has always been a revamped DOOM, and that's what it still is in this high-def update.  They haven't changed the level design, or the bad guys, or the guns.  What that leaves us with, though, is all the things that were great about Serious Sam 8 years ago - the crazy enemies, the over-the-top weapons, the absolutely huge outdoor environments - but with much prettier graphics, 16 player(!) online co-op, Steam achievements, Steam cloud support, and nicely implemented ragdoll physics.  That's a formula you can't get anywhere else right now, and $7 is, I think, a very reasonable price.  It looks good and runs like a dream on my not-top-of-the-line rig, and fighting through it with a friend is time and money well spent.  If that sounds like your bag, you've got the rest of today to get it cheap before it goes back to $20 tomorrow.