I think it was maybe in 2003, I've played Serious Sam TSE at my friend's Stéphane House. He was a regular geek who like to have a lot of cumputers and video games. As he was buying a new computer, I bought one of his old and he burnt to me a copy of several games like Serious Sam.
First, I've played the game in Solo and make the story. As it was funny to shoot those kind of bulls with rockets, I was plainly satisfacted. The French Bruce Willis voice of Sam was crazy. Then I started to play coop to see how much it could be fun to kill bulls with rocket with another persons of the planet : Yes it was fun too. Then I stopped to play this game, as I was playing true games like final fantasy's, Parasite Eve and other shit on playstation.
I can't tell you, why, how and when I came back to Sam to play online but it happens. I was around 14-15 and I was used to go on the only existing chat at the moment, the IRC networks. For who knows I was 24/7 connected on EFNET channel. I was in a team called "Coolgamers" and we were making a lot of Warez, Hacks, Private Servers of various medias. I've asked to my sister a good nickname for Efnet and she told me Napalm_Death (I think it is a music brand or dunno...), I kept only Napalm but it was already used so I've put 01 in front of it. So that nickname was not a big thing for me. So at this moment I've started to play frags in Sam in 1.05. I was playing 1.05 because my friend burnt to me 1.05 version, I did not know what all this shit of different versions was about...
So I just entered college (2nd) and I was surprised to be in the same class than Ahmed, my skate friend of the moment. I've invited him to play sam in Lan. We were playing like noobs but were able to be sometimes in the top of the ranks (with 100 death...). We were very afraid of those dude from SAS clan, each time they were coming on a server they were owning us. At this moment I was playing like first person view only, did not know about running with knife, nothing about jumps an taking all the pups. I was very proud of my scores as I hate FPS in normal case.
The following year I burnt the game to Ahmed and also to Anis who was also skateboard mate. After that I met them maybe 5 times maximum in my life (Thanks internet. But it is another story ).
I've played like one more year like a noob, never caring of anybody. I was thinking guys with coloured nicknames or clans were people paid for playing sam, like professionnals (Youth...). One day I was playing the lost tomb, and a guy called David was playing with "The Pit" Nickname. He was French, he asked to me why I wasn't in a clan. I've told to him that I did not know what it is about. So he invited me in a MSN Messenger meeting with a dude called Phil. His nickname was S.A.S from SAS Clan. (Serious Asskicking Service). He was from England, and told me to join a private Red Station server. It was like a cannon jam with people very very skilled with it. I remember two guys, this Phil and another called Vash from Japan has insane skills with canon.
Phil learnt me to play seriously with all the basis things. Then I've joined SAS clan which was more like a family than a clan with various skilled players but a good cummunity. I remember that people were hating SAS clan as they were canon players. I used to play less and less on their server because I was more interested by maps like little trouble or Yodeller than Red Station. There were a player called Vandal in Sas who liked the same way of playing and we started to play regular public servers and give a fresh image of the SAS clan. Then Phil, has put me in leader list.
For the little story, David the Pit was a very good map and model creator, he was fan of Star Trek. He created a map with a pyramid space ship like in the movie. There were so many secrets in this map that I'm sure noone know.
Across the monthes all SAS players moved to the first C.O.D. I was almost alone. So I left SAS, Phil was furious and we lost contact. I've talked to Ahmed about creating a clan. We have called it Moroz (Why??). I remember that the first guy who joined the clan was a Russian called Baron Samedi. A shotty king. But after one month he disapeared from Sam. Another guy was called Jens and was very good too. Then Ahmed joined figona and I've joined...
... Skifia.
At this time, I was already playing sam at second degree. And I was very curious about ***JSAF the legend. He was in Skifia clan and I was thinking it would be fery funny to team with him. We teamed like noobs for some weeks, then he shot me again. Some days later he was playing without clan, so I left Skifia. He understood that, so we teamed up again. At this time, I wastalking with serious german player called Politician. He refused to enter any clan like Moroz before. I've told to him, instead of joining a clan, why don't you create yours.
Broken Souls was created, then Linked Souls. Wicked labourer, the old man, anti and ferocious guardian joined us. We had a very good friendship on the web. So good that I've decide to meet them in Finland.It was very nice to discover this country and Finish homies with my friend. Then they come visit me in France and I've met the old man again some years after in Paris. At least Serious Sam has been useful for one thing.
When we had enough people call us Linked fouls, we called the clan Molotow.
There is a million things, people, sam games to tell, but I think the most important of my sam story has been said.