Serious Sam II

"Fun enough, but there's really no audience for it."

In 2001, Serious Sam was released, and it was something special. It was special because it was so thoroughly un-special. Croteam had the moxie to ignore all the bandwagons of the time, and released a game that involved nothing more than moving through levels and shooting enormous hordes of creatures. It was fun, it was simplistic, it was great. A short while later, they released a second game, which was more of the same.

I have nothing against progress, but in Serious Sam 2 this beautiful simplicity has gone. It takes about three seconds to realise that something's been lost when you start the game and see characters talking to each other, rather than being shot by you. From here, the game spirals into the generic - Croteam have used, without irony, nearly every cliche of recent FPS gaming. No, make that every cliche of FPS gaming from about five years ago. Cutscenes, NPCs, allies who fight with you, allies you must defend, vehicles, gun emplacements, helicopter battles, firing modes, a computerised woman who lives inside your head and tells you what to do, half-baked physics (including basketball hoops and physics 'puzzles') - and that's just in the first hour. Unlike the first game, which did one thing, and did it well, this game does a million different things, and does them exactly the same as everybody else. And most of it gets in the way.

That's not to say it isn't fun, though. While the game may feel dumbed-down and homogenised, the difficulty is thankfully intact, and the intense bits are still intense. The amount of on-screen enemies is never close to that of the first game (an annoying habit of next-gen sequels), so battles don't feel as epic, but it's enough to stand out from other shooters. The game is also very long for a shooter, which is great value for money.

And it looks good. The nice bright colours are a welcome change from the mainstream, and the characters are solid, well-defined and animate nicely. The cartoonish NPCs look annoying, but the monsters are mostly well-designed, if unmemorable. And so long as the overrated HDR effect is disabled, it will run like a dream on even a mid-range PC, with very little tweaking required. The sound is more of the same stuff from the first two games - functional effects, adequate music. It doesn't shine, but it does the job well enough. Unfortunately, the voices are annoying as hell. Nearly everybody except for Sam and the computer-brain-lady speaks in a loud, obnoxious falsetto, and it's completely beyond me why Croteam would think this would be fun to hear - it makes Jar Jar Binks sound like Donald Sutherland.

As for the much-touted humour - it sucks. While the first games were never 'funny,' they had a charming oddness to them. This time around, the creators have aimed for straight-up comedy, and they have missed. My God, have they missed. No longer do we get the strangeness of guys running around with their head in one hand and a gun in the other, or just running around without heads before exploding - now we get 'Zombie Stockbrokers.' You know, because the sharemarket is high-larious. Mutant Pro-Footballers, Fat Chicks, an entire race of Elvis worshippers and impersonators, sped-up singing, super-deformed characters - before long, the game starts to play like a who's-who of things that aren't funny.

And the (numerous) cutscenes are worse. Terrible gags, writing, animation, direction, acting, timing - everything that could possibly make something unfunny comes together to make you reach for the Esc key on instinct. There are also in-game cutscenes triggered in the midst of battle every now and then, which is bad design, since you'll be clicking like crazy and they'll be skipped as soon as they begin.

There's also a distinct feeling of racism to a lot of the game - most levels prominently feature offensive ethnic caricatures, complete with pidgin dialogue and stupid accents. I personally see a lot of racist leanings in many videogames, and people don't always agree that they're there, but in Serious Sam 2 it's downright undeniable - from the Simbas of M'digbo with their wide noses, painted faces, feather head-dresses, bone necklaces, leopard-spot briefs, simian worship, goggle-eyed idols and tongue-rolling war cries, to the ChiChe of Chi Fang with their wispy beards, pointy hats, round glasses and martial arts prowess, it all just... shouldn't happen these days.

Overall - I mean, I'm not saying it's right... but the fact that this game was ignored makes perfect sense to me - it's a game without an audience. Modern FPS gamers will find it primitive and backwards, and old-school FPS gamers will find it cluttered and obfuscated. The idiotic cartoon characters might appeal to children, but the game is too challenging and violent for children to play. The only people left are those who, like me, are willing to put up with its many shortcomings because they bought it cheap.

For those who enjoyed the first two games in the series, and are looking for more of the same, Serious Sam 2 *does* deliver this - but it delivers it amongst huge amounts of generic flotsam. If you haven't already, I suggest you try the excellent Painkiller instead. Just like Serious Sam was a much more fitting Doom sequel than Doom 3, Painkiller is a much more fitting Serious Sam sequel than Serious Sam 2.

I'm also noticing a pattern, and it's a bit sad - in 2001, Croteam made a game in the style of mid-to-late-90s shooters. In 2005, they made a game in the style of early 00s shooters. I'm thinking maybe these weren't deliberate design choices - Croteam are just half a decade behind the rest of us.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/07