[raggi]

Serious Sam was always a killer LAN party game. Not necessarily because it was the sexiest title of the day, or what anyone had planned. Serious Sam won the LAN party because even when every other game died under some driver issue, thermal issue, update problem, whatever, you’d load Serious Sam and it would just work. This continued through the later series too, hell of someone’s machine was completely dead in the water it would also reliably split screen and handled input well enough for split peripherals. The systemic parts of the game were truly exceptional on the reliability axis.

[skhr0680]

Serious Sam looked amazing for the shitty hardware it would run (FAST) on.

On a similar note, Counter-Strike never looked good, but was popular for a long time because it ran great on toaster PCs

[josefresco]

Counter-Strike was/is popular because gameplay is awesome. Players stayed long enough that even "toaster PCs" could run the engine. It was never "cutting edge" even after major upgrades.

[emsixteen]

It was popular because it was fun.

[Q6T46nT668w6i3m]

I think this also explains the continued success of World of Warcraft.

[delecti]

There's a lot to be said for "good enough".

[raggi]

Also, the many speaker sound of “aaaaaaaaaaaaah” was delightful

[m463]

I remember getting through some battle and coming on a room FULL of ammo of every kind. First time, it was awesome. But gradually ammo caches started making me say "Yikes!"

[test1235]

noone's mentioned the gargantuan size of the bosses!

playing co-op, running with your mates across the plains, blasting rocket trails into the distant horizon across the gorgeous clear blue skies at the biggest boss you've ever seen, with the pumping music thumping the whole way through, while you're trying to fend off what feels like hundreds of mobs ... I don't think I've experienced anything of that scale and intensity since ... one of my greatest of all time

[m463]

lol, that's right!

"Wait, that guys is taller than BUILDINGS!"

[account42]

Also every time you find a secret with some nice loot you just know that once you turn around it's going to spawn some more "presents" on you.

[hk1337]

"aaaaaaaaaaaaah, yourself" was the best response.

[mikeryan]

In the late 90s, I managed the EA Tech Support website. The support/QA* teams would have massive after-hours gaming sessions playing Serious Sam. It was the only FPS that ran consistently on our work PCs, and it was a ton of fun.

* At least at that time, EA QA and Tech Support had a lot of overlap; support guys would be come in-house beta testers in the Summer when they were trying to get games done for the holidays and do Tech Support in the Winter around Christmas when the calls went up.