rather than the Serious Sam 2 design. The Gnaar's design has radically changed from the original game. It is now much larger, differently shaped, and walks on all fours, unlike its bipedal counterpart in Serious Sam. Serious Sam 3 features some new gameplay mechanics such as sprinting and iron sights. Unlike most other FPS games that have sprinting, the player is able to sprint as much as they want, but they cannot attack while sprinting. The pistol and assault rifle have the ability to aim down sights, which increases accuracy but only slightly. The player moves slower while aiming down the sights, making it impractical at close range. The player can perform hand kills or kick enemies to conserve ammo, depending on the weapon selected. For example, a Gnaar's eyeball can be ripped out or an Antaresian Spider's shell can be broken. Plot Serious Sam 3: BFE serves as a prequel to the original Serious Sam: The First Encounter and depicts the events on Earth before Sam's journey into the past. Prior to AD 2060, humanity had slowly begun uncovering artifacts and ruins left behind in ancient times by the Sirians, the famous and long-thought extinct race from the place of Sirius. Unfortunately, Mental has chosen this time to turn his attention upon Earth. He dispatches his space fleet carrying his endless hordes to attack Earth, leading a three-year conquest that has humanity driven almost to the point of extinction. In a last-ditch effort, the survivors turn to the Time-Lock, a recently excavated device supposedly capable of granting a single person the ability of time travel via an inter-dimensional portal. Through it, that person could reach a pivotal point in time and alter events of the past. But as the device lies dormant, they must first discover a means to turn it on. Sam "Serious" Stone, part of the Earth Defense force, is dispatched with a detachment of soldiers in Alpha team to modern Egypt, which is occupied by Mental's alien army. Their original mission is to recon, rendezvous and extract Bravo team who are protecting Dr Stein, a scientist carrying hieroglyphics believed to contain instructions for powering up the Time-Lock. Sam's insertion goes haywire as his chopper is shot down and both teams are quickly wiped out. However, he is able to recover the hieroglyphics from Stein's phone in the museum and transmit them to headquarters. Deciphering indicates there