h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've never visited Peer Review before, but the front page item today led me here. Forgive me if I don't understand the intent.

As a longtime casual gamer (Microsoft Adventure for DOS 2?!?), I've played many of the PC FPS games, including Doom and Half Life, and enjoyed reading the entry. In my travels thru gamers user groups, I've run across some very serious players who much prefer the "Thief" series, starting in 1998 with "The Dark Project" and continuing last year with "Deadly Shadows". Maybe not quite FPS's - First Person Action Adventure? - the gameplay is similar, but the idea is NOT to kill anybody unless absolutely necessary. I have played these and find them well done, as do the editors and 600+ reviewers at Gamespot, giving it "Great" ratings. I and others actually tried to play "Doom" this way, i.e. skulking around, hiding ,etc., while the hotshots bragged about shaving a second off their time to finish a level ... "Got it down to 14 seconds!"

At the other extreme seems to be "Serious Sam" (from Croatia!), which I own but have yet to play, and which gets even higher ratings at Gamespot - "Superb" for "The Second Encounter". An excerpt: "Though the original Serious Sam has a reputation for being a mindless action game [but rated "great" at gamespot - SK], The Second Encounter has some real depth that lurks just beneath the game's lighthearted, frenetic surface." I'll get to it ...

I realize you have to cut off the entry at some point, these are just items that came to my mind.

Theif, while ace, doesn't really qualify as it's not a 'vanilla' FPS.
I'll include Serious Sam but only if it's particularly ground-breaking.

By the way, you've got the intent of Peer Review down to a tee. It's there so users can make suggestions that may allow an Entry to one day become worthy of being Edited.

I don't consider Serious Sam a milestone in the sense of Doom, Half Life, etc. I think the novelty was the lack of seriousness , the wild action , and ... especially ... the low price of $20 from day one . All of which appeal to me, but probably does not fit your entry. Now if I can just find the damn thing, I'll play it.

The Gamespot review of the 2001 original concludes:

"Serious Sam is essentially perfect for what it is. It's a great looking, fun-filled game that has plenty of visceral thrills and absolutely, positively the biggest battles in any shooter to date. Its single-player mode has a lot of depth thanks to the numerous secrets hidden in each level and the different difficulty options available. And the game's multiplayer mode, especially the cooperative option, rivals that of the most popular shooters available. Serious Sam may not suit those players who prefer more deliberate, more story-driven, or otherwise more serious first-person games such as Thief: The Dark Project or Deus Ex; but even these players owe it to themselves to give the game a try. Ultimately, Serious Sam is a clear lesson in what elements are necessary to make a game enjoyable. It's an unquestionably fun game from an unquestionably talented development team."