Now it gets weird; they happen to be members of a fanatical cult (the Olympian Restoration Army) that thinks Emma will make a good sacrifice to the gods, in order to appease their alleged intention to vent their godly wrath on humankind on their release (don't ask). Dick Head gets himself an extra nostril in his forehead trying to save Emma while you stand around and watch! When it seems safe to move you pick up Dick's automatic and, after popping off a few wild shots and missing every single thug, you accidentally destroy the guardian statue of Prometheus. You find yourself engulfed in a blue vapour that emanates from the shattered statue. You have released Prometheus who demands your assistance in getting revenge on Jupiter (for locking him outside on guard duty while Jupe & the other gods whooped it up inside for a few thousand years or so). He decides to possess you, give you some incredible powers (like the ability to believe/understand the plot), and sends you in to save the virgin and collect all the artefacts that will give you the power to defeat old Jupe (or Zeus if you read the manual - same guy, Greek alias) Got it? I didn't think so.

   

OK, having assimilated all that, you find yourself playing Serious Sam all over again. Cool. Sam was a good blast. Actually, it's a little bit more than just SSam with new shorts and trainers. It incorporates a bit of Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, Unreal, and most other FPS's, crossed with Tomb Raider, Indy Jones and Myth (and probably a few more RPG's that I wouldn't touch with a light-sabre) and all to funky Rock music. This is not a put-down - it all works surprisingly well thanks to the development team's genius. The levels display remarkable landscapes, imposing architecture and beautifully detailed interior decors, furnishings and lighting of course. The defences of this awesome neighbourhood include the skeleton guys straight from Jason and the Argonauts, only they're in roman uniform. There are also fire-spitting harpies, flaming-axe-hurling minotaurs, charging centaurs, arrow-shooting satyrs (etc., etc., you get the idea) the best-animated tigers I've seen so far in a game, and let's not forget the Big Baddies at the ends of levels such as the awesome Giant Cyclops who chews up rocks and spits large boulders - with extreme accuracy, considering his monocular vision. Had me cowering behind a few walls for a while. Oh yes, your weapons? You get to exercise your god-given right to murder with some pyromaniac's dream tools such as the fireball thrower and nuke-gun (self-explanatory), not to mention the more temperate medusa gun (turns target to stone), acid gun (slow-acting, inflates target until they explode, heh, heh!), and the usual standard and specialist devices; sniper crossbow, lewis machine gun, minigun, shotgun, automatic pistol, grenade/mine and shovel?

   

At last someone has created some truly impressive object-shattering/disintegration animations & effects that will have you leering with destructive delight, and there are absolutely loads of objects (vases/urns/statues/mirrors/etc.) you just have got to blitz, just in case they hide essential power-ups, keys, etc.

This sadly brings me to the bad bit: Will Rock? Wouldn't Rock! I could only play the full game's first level through to the spear-gates, where, regardless of timing, I couldn't jump, run, sidle, crawl, blast or bribe my way through, despite my Prometheus-given powers. Yup, a nasty glitch that needs a 28.25MB patch (that takes about 1.5 hours to download @ 5kbps) available online at http://www.will-rock.com, to be precise.