In The Beginning....

[Pathos]

CUT TO: 13 Months ago.

PATHOS. Your bog standard "greasy wog". Moderate build, long black hair tied back all girly-like, sitting home alone with a peculiar expression upon his very much un-chiselled features. PATHOS is the proud owner of a brand spanking new Athlon 1800XP, and in scant moments, having just booted for the very first time, finds himself twitching and giggling like a - and let's be generous here - retarded cro-magnon.

PATHOS: "Oh my god this is the best computer in the world!!"

CUT TO: 2 Mins later..

PATHOS: "Man, this Office XP thing is uber cool. Who would have thought opening and closing files could be so much fun? I bet no one on the planet could open this file as quickly as i could. Watch me close now, you'll need sharp eyes - see? see that?! And now - WHOOSH! It's closed again. Like it was never there. It rules, and by proxy, so do I."

CUT TO: 6 Seconds later.

PATHOS: "I'm bored. This computer's crap. I want to play some games."

CUT TO: 1 week later. PATHOS finds himself confronted by FRIEND OF PATHOS.

FRIEND OF PATHOS: "Here. Try one of these."

PATHOS: "Oh no thanks i'm trying to cut down."

FRIEND OF PATHOS: "What? Oh. No that's my colostomy bag. Here."

FRIEND OF PATHOS - surreptitiously and amid much hand-covered coughs - hands PATHOS a shiny, almost-new burned copy of something called "Serious Sam 1 and 2."

PATHOS: "What the hell? 'SERIOUS' Sam?? Didn't i see this on Sesame Street? Not that i watch sesame street mind you ..athough they DID admittedly explain that whole 'C is for Cookie' thing rather well, i'll give them that.. man, they even managed to make it witty and byronic. Wish i'd been old enough to know how to operate a VCR! Alas, i was but 25 years of age at the time..."

FRIEND OF PATHOS [SLAPPING PATHOS. TWICE]: "Mate, are you okay?"

PATHOS: "What? Oh. Uh.. 'Serious Sam'? I feel my testosterone count dwindling as we speak. Give me a friggin' break."

FRIEND OF PATHOS [laughing both knowingly and mysteriously] (And, PATHOS notices with distaste, rather condescendingly): "You will see, my young apprentice.."

PATHOS: "Mate, you're an idiot."

CUT TO: Later that night.

Serious Sam 2 has just been installed and booted for the first time upon PATHOS' mighty uber-machine.

PATHOS: "Oh gee look at all the pretty colours - how effeminate! By golly, FRIEND OF PATHOS will pay dearly for this slight upon my blatantly secure manhood."

CUT TO: 34.5 seconds later.

PATHOS: "Oh my god this is the BEST GAME IN THE WORLD!"

CUT TO: Nerd-bedroom.

FRIEND OF PATHOS, sitting alone in some dim, mysterious corner of the world (strangely bearing a striking resemblance to a Sydney townhouse), smiling smugly and poignantly. Nearby, a baby screams.

And so fair PRINCE PATHOS kissed SLEEPING BEAUTY, who finally awoke and--

(Oh. Sorry, wrong time frame).

CUT TO: 2 weeks Later.

PATHOS: "Neh. This game is crap. Where is that FRIEND OF PATHOS nibblenut, so that i might smite him! Oh how i will smote! But hang about - what the hell is this deathmatch crap? This sounds more my thing. More testosteroney! Hmm..."

CUT TO: Roughly 42.5 seconds later.

PATHOS: "Oh my god this is the BEST GAME IN THE WORLD!"

CUT TO: The Next Day.

PATHOS thanking FRIEND OF PATHOS with roses, a blokey kiss and a voucher to have his back waxed by a team of midgets. FRIEND OF PATHOS runs screaming. One hasty explanation to the authorities later however, and a mildly-shaken PATHOS is free to go. Aside from the confiscation of his mime-porn, he suspects he got off rather lightly.

CUT TO: 3 Millenia past.

A Slow, greasy-looking native, his hair flowing all native-womanly-like against the wind, walks over a picturesque hill, knuckles scraping the ground as he lumbers along. He stumbles. Looking down, he finds he has kicked up... a ROCK.

SLOW NATIVE: "Ug! With this uber-ROCK i will build shelter! I Will build weapons! I will hunt the women and hurt the EVIL VILLAGE MEN from yonder valley! No longer will their misshapen skulls haunt my dreams! By golly! But first, i will scratch my belly and finish walking over this picturesque hill. Ug."

CUT TO: A More sensical present.

Pathos has just bought his very own ORIGINAL copy of Serious Sam 2. With it, he walks home proudly, stopping only to pat little animal heads, pinch the cheek of cute children, and smell the odd flower, by way of the public toilets. All is well.

PATHOS: "Oh my god this is still the BEST GAME IN THE WORLD."

And elsewhere in the cosmos, FRIEND OF PATHOS has forgotten all about Serious Sam 2. FRIEND OF PATHOS is now a dedicated UTK3 player. FRIEND OF PATHOS is a rat fink who will burn in hell for all eternity. Perhaps longer.

CUT TO: The Future.

GIRLIE OF PATHOS: "You're dropped nerd-boy!"

PATHOS: "Wha-! Why? Was it the hair? I fear my uber Athlon3D GOGGLES ™ have mucked it somewhat. I CAN CHANGE! This very night i will hop on the net and GOOGLE my way to relationship-embetterment! I-- *"

[sounds of struggling before a girlie man-scream pierces the computer-humming serenity]

[Pathos]

The point of the above post (before it all went sadly awry) was to ask: how did you discover/stumble upon this esteemed game? A savvy purchase? Did it tumble off the top shelf and smack you on the noggin', to the hilarity of the nearby pimply geek stacking boxes? (I hate that.) Did your equal half buy it to keep you busy at nights while she wandered the streets with her pouting lips and ready smile? Pray tell all.

My own sorry tale had moments of truth. Basically, it was a complete fluke. But where's the fun in leaving it at that?

[Sauron]

i just bought it after a review in a gaming mag and played it! Bain watched me all the time and liked it very much!!!! She helped me finishing the SP part cause she has to hit the F6 button to quicksave the game and sometimes i needed her to change the weapons for me :)
Now u also know how Bain became an Sam addict

[FUS1ON]

Very amusing post Pathos, As usual! :thumbs:

I happened across it on a ah ...........*warez* site and was instantaneously hooked like a crack junkie. I then ran (wished I taken the car, way faster) immediately to the store and bought a full version of SS FE. I started begged and pleaded to my homeys $pike, K-Pax, Chico & Manson to give this new addiction of mine a try. It affected them much the same way it has all of us.
The next thing you know the -=(OUTLAWS)=- were born and the rest is history! :thumbs:

[SALvation]

Pathos = Freak :D

I was over Lev's apartment at the time. He was reading avault.com and saw a new demo for a game that has an egyptian theme. He is an uber freak for anything egyptian so he downloaded it and showed me. When I got home I also tried it out and the rest is history...or at least documented in the MERC history page :D

http://www.gamemecca.net/merc/history.html

[Grimmy]

I had a classmate get the FE disc from a friend, he couldn't get it to work, becuase it had a big scratch in it. So we tried to get it to work, mess with CDROM settings so it wouldn't read ahead and turned the speed down to like 1x and made a good copy of it. Then checked to see if it worked, and started playing the game and the disc just got passed around hehehe It didn't last long, I went out and bought SSSE and been on it since. But lately it sucks, no one is on, hardly any servers going. Think it is time to boot it till next version and good netcode comes out, and just play some UT03 :thumbs:

[Sacrifice]

my friend showed me a demo of it and i just got so excited so i asked him to get me a burnt copy of ssse B) ....then a few day later he moves on to counter-strike!! how dare he!!

[Sirc]

I love reading Patho's posts. :wootrock:

I had just finished playing my 1st PC game all the way through (Blade of Darkness - it rocks). And was looking for my next game. I found out that Sifi still had some Christmas money to spend, so I seized the opportunity to search the web for some good FPS games. I was only acting in his best interest of course. :angel:

The review I read sad that it was an awesome FPS with continuous violence, carnage, and no real plot, so I decided that it was perfect for an impressionable young teen. :thumbs:

That was SS:FE. I played that all the way through and was hungry for more. So this time I went out and actually spent my OWN money on SS:SE. And played that all the way through too. Very enjoyable. But I never even gave a thought to playing the game online.

Then we had RoadRunner hooked up and one day I saw Sifi playing what was obviously SS but I didn't recognize the map. It turned out to be Red Station. I after watching him spend about 2 hours hiding in the shadows picking off other players with the sniper rifle, I decided that maybe I would give it a shot. So for the next week I played on Red Station, repeatedly running to get the sniper rifle and then running for the shadows to snipe people until I was discovered and killed. w00t! It was fun! Could this game get any better? :thumbs:

Later on I discovered that Red Station had a lower level, and I became an incredible grenade spammer. And then after that I found out there were other maps too! Joy! :woot:

Then we discovered Seriously! and I joined the WCFD clan and the Mercs were born and then the Outlaws were born and I left WCFD for the Outlaws and then the Outlaws and Mercs became arch rivals and war broke out and then we made up and lived happily ever after. :drink: :thumbs:

Um, what was the question again? :blink:

[TheUltimateWarrior]

I first saw it, when I arrived at chans house
to do a school report

he was playing a demo of a new game

and wanted to finish it...

I was hooked that very second

we were both on dial up, back then

so we played on dial up

month later we both got adsl :)

[Snip3r]

My dad is a Doom junkie and he saw SSE and SSFE demo on a store shelf for only 8$ so he thought he would try it out, then he told me it is an awesome game and he beat it in 6 hours :( lol So I played it and it was cool but i used the keyboard since I was used to my dad teaching me to when i was real young plaiying the first Doom :) When I went on the fragmatch I had no choice but to use the mouse so that's how I ended up as being an awesome fragmatch player....Wait......this is about Serious Sam?..... shuriken

[Pathos]

LOL Sniper.

Shogun - i did not realise you folk were all friends in "real life" before forming (all Voltron-like) the Outlaws. Nice! Just one question - the outlaws... sounds familiar. That's a clan, right? [timely "MERC-duck"] :thumbs:

Term - i have a similar problem. To complicate matters, my friends all have dialup (56k from OZ is a pimple-inducing experience at best). I obviously need some new ones. Friends that is. (FRIENDS OF PATHOS: "And with that post we have now formed a new opinion of you. Here it is.. you ready? You're an idiot.")

Salvation - methinks i spotted at least two instances of "product placement" in your post. LOL. You big corporate-type dude. Go update that MERC page. Actually, given the number of members "waiting for the patch", that could prove a sobering experience. Best leave it as is. [fickle wink]

Sirc - that's great! Cool "story" (the only improvement would have been the insertion of a "tragic greasy-wog archetype" [thumbs up]). All my dad ever did for me was make me stand in the corner. But while i was there i got to think about what i'd done. Consequently peace spread throughout the land, and ultimately the entire universe. [naive Rodenberry smile]

Thanks for all the responses - very cool! Once again a few instances of warez leading to a purchase.. how satisfyingly ironic. [lawful chortle]

Now what about the rest of you post-mongers? Come on now, don't be shy. This is a small community, with a poorly netcoded game - why on earth would you, have you, stuck around? Are you daft? Post and set that naughty, loud-mouthed Pathos straight. Rant! Belabor! Alliterate! Hell call him a name if you must. [bites back tears]

Man, i gotta stop referring to myself in the 3rd person. People will talk. More.

[Dan2]

Got tired of plodding rpgs and set out to gamespot where I viewed a mov of Sam. Couldn't stop laughing at the guys charging and yelling AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH at Sam. Went to the local mart and saw SSFE and SSSE. Snatched the SE because it has to be better, right? It's all a blur from then on.

Why am I still here and playing? Because multi-player Sam is super fast paced (in theory, I know...netcode, yada yada) and very replayable.
The icing on the cake is the good people who come here and have fun. :D

[Sirc]

Originally posted by Dan2@Jan 10 2003, 01:17 AM
The icing on the cake is the good people who come here and have fun. :D
Bingo. That is exactly why I'm still here and playing SS! :thumbs:

[Sacrifice]

i like sam :)

[SIFI]

i lost a permision slip to go on a field trip once and me and my friends got to stay in the computer lab all day, well they got tierd of hearing me talk about serious sam so a friends got a demo and installed it on a cople of computers. being a starcrat player he wasent used to fps games. needless to say he got mad when i creamed him in fragmatches and saved him in co-op :tounge: then the stupid kids got back and turned on a whole computer lab worth of crappy comps on a network and short circeted the comps

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by Sacrifice@Jan 10 2003, 02:21 AM
i like sam :)
Naw, you Love Him.

j/k.


Sifi- Great idea... :angel: :oooo: :shifty:

[TheUltimateWarrior]

Originally posted by Yuri+Jan 15 2003, 02:17 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Yuri @ Jan 15 2003, 02:17 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Sacrifice@Jan 10 2003, 02:21 AM
i like sam :)
Naw, you Love Him.

j/k.


Sifi- Great idea... :angel: :oooo: :shifty: [/b][/quote]
:lol:

[Ozzie]

the first time i found SE was when i was in comp USA i was browsin around when i saw this section with 2 computer networked wiht serious sam. so me and my dad started playing and we thought it was hella cool. we grabbed 2 copies cuz it was cheap and we werent sure if we were going to be able to copy it so we played it safe.
when we got home we played tha **** all day and made a million copies to give to play for massive town annialation :w00t:

[Pathos]

Fun tales one and all - cheers kids. :thumbs:

[OUTLAWS Behind You?]

I was at Fry&#39;s and my grandson conned, tricked, and otherwise buffalowed me into buying it claiming his cousin already had it. Actually, his cousin had played with it breifly on a previous trip to Fry&#39;s before they moved. Since it was networked, and cousin already had it, thought they could play together like they did with Diablo II over the internet.

Now he&#39;s into SOF2 and I&#39;m about the only one playing Sam. :thumbs: