Serious Sam: The Second Encounter takes the award for best budget game because it raises the bar not only for budget games, but also in some ways for the whole first-person shooter genre. It has huge outdoor environments that look terrific on both low-end and high-end graphics cards. Yet the game engine still manages to throw tons of enemies at you without bringing your system to a crawl. The game doesn't take itself too seriously and has many humorous hidden secrets to find. You'll also find a solid multiplayer mode with both deathmatch and cooperative play. All of this is wrapped up in a package that costs less than $20. What more could a gamer ask for? Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is the sequel to GameSpot's 2001 PC Game of the Year, and we couldn't have asked for a better follow-up to one of last year's most surprisingly great games.

Other Nominees:

 
Deadly Dozen: Pacific Theater
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Flanker 2.5
WWII: Desert Rats