"Both far better and far worse than before."

WHO?
You are Sam "Serious" Stone, a strong do-it-all hero out to save the universe.

WHAT?
The Earth has been attacked by the alien lord Mental. After a trip back in time to stop the invasion, Sam takes a spaceship into outer space to destroy Mental himself.

WHY?
Because if you don't do it, the Earth meets its end.

HOW?
By picking up weapons, ammo and health, and blasting anything that dares block your path.

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GRAPHICS
The first Serious Sam game showcased beautiful wide open areas and tons of enemies on-screen at once, and this sequel is no different. You will travel through lush forests, active cities, villages, plains, and fight sometimes as many as 30 monsters at a time with little to no slowdown. Thanks to its very vivid, almost cartoony set of colors, the environment is easy to navigate and the enemies are easy to spot. There is also no constrainment feeling at all - where some games would make the level feel like an enclosed area floating somewhere in a virtual space, Serious Sam really gives a sense of scale and makes the world appear much bigger than what it really is.

SOUNDS & MUSIC
A satisfying combo. The music is good and appropriate, and while lacking a tiny bit of oomph in some places, provides a specially nice accompaniment at other times. The sound effects are plenty and massive, enough to really get a feel of the weapons being held in your hands. However, the NPC dialogues are mediocre at best (all friendly alien races, no matter who they are, share the same set of "Hi!" "Hello!" and war cry sounds.) As well, the voice acting in itself is poor. While this isn't a particularly important detail in such a casual game, the fact remains that some more work could have been put into it, as many of the cutscenes look amateurish.

NAVIGATION
The menus are simple, easy and quick to navigate. There are however some bugs here and there, such as the game failing to register mouse clicks in menus sometimes, or the inability to scroll through the messages on Sam's personal computer during a level (strangely, scrolling is possible while the level loads!) Some options that could've been there are also missing. I'll come back to this one later.

OFFLINE GAMEPLAY
The Serious Sam games pride themselves on extremely tight and intense battles. You will be fighting several enemies at a time. The controls are responsive, and the game levels are well thought out. They even make sure not to throw any cheap shots at the player. For example, in a scene where Sam must fight on top of a small copter-boat, the edges are turned into invisible walls for the duration of the flight so as not to have the player constantly fall off the edge. The same applies to many other areas. There are also a few vehicles and cannons that can be put to use, and provide an additional layer of fun to the game. Somehow, the game also features lives - but with a twist. Sam is given three lives at the start of each level. If he loses them all, he can still play through the level, but his score won't be registered at the end. The array of weapons features a standard set (pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers, rifles) but also has some fun specialties like a tracking pistol, a grenade launcher, kamikaze birds, and even a handheld cannonball launcher. The set is large and actually useful - every weapon can and will be put to good use.

ONLINE GAMEPLAY
The original Serious Sam included the standard array of modes. Now, Serious Sam II features only a very restrictive co-op mode. The famous Enemy Multiplier is gone, leaving us only with the enemy strength booster. The strength booster also lacks balance, as a booster that's set too strong will make some time-based events and bosses theoretically impossible to beat, seeing as one can set the boost in order to widen the gap between enemy and player (such as 400% extra enemy health per extra player in the game.) All joined games with no exception have proven to be extremely laggy, with many instances of enemies and bullets simply hanging frozen in midair, while the first Serious Sam game could handle battles twice as intense without breaking a sweat. Plus, the lives system is still in place, with the exception that once a player loses his last life, he is forced to either wait for the level to finish or quit then rejoin the game. All in all, the online part of the game simply has no value, lacking in both thought and execution.

DIFFICULTY
The AI is set to predetermined patterns in most cases, but they have enough to make them fairly unpredictable sometimes. In a sense, the game follows an arcade-style AI programming, which works. The game features five difficulty levels, which affect how much damage the player can endure, and caters to almost every gamer type, from the first-time player to the hardened Serious Sam player.

REPLAY VALUE
Despite a game that takes a little over 11 hours to complete, the experience is very satisfying. The levels are quite large and varied, complete with a story that both holds together and manages to be incredibly funny, parodizing various other popular FPS games and even shows like The Flintstones. It's also a good idea to come back and look for the various secrets hidden throughout the game, as many of them are simply funny to unlock and watch.

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GOOD
-Frantic, intense gameplay.
-Several funny things to watch.
-Difficulty levels for all types of gamers.
-A set of weapons where actually all of them can be put to use.

BAD
-Lack of some menu options (especially for online play) and bugs in the menus.
-The online part is purely symbolic.
-Sub-par voice acting and NPC sound effects.

SO WHY A SEVEN?
Let's clear this up: the game scores a near ten-ten when it comes to the offline game. However, because the online game is known to have extremely high potential (as shown by the beautiful battles I fought in co-op on the first Serious Sam game) and yet blatantly fails to deliver, one of the game's main sales pitch falls right down the drain.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/05