	Serious Sam II
	Developer: Croteam Publisher: 2K Games Release Date: Out Now Players: 1-4 System Link or Xbox Live	Words By:
I have no idea why Croteam thought that Serious Sam needed a storyline, the square-jawed T-shirt ‘n’ jeans wearing hero is back - the ‘plot’ is something to do with Sam’s nemesis ‘Mental’, a big magic medallion being broken into five pieces and various badly-drawn aliens called the somethingoranothers who need Sam’s help to retrieve the pieces and stop Mental’s attempts to…. – Jeez – who needs plot, cut-scenes and dialogue in a game like this? To me Serious Sam was a Doom/Duke Nukem homage/spoof, and does it need a plot or a reason to go shoot stuff? – The hell it does. Surely the pure blasting action that has made the series (mildly) famous is all you need, and it’s as far away from the likes of Halo, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Far Cry Instincts, Chronicles of Riddick or Doom 3 as you can get whilst still being a first person shooter, it’s gaudy, loud, brash and proud. You play each shortish chapter and simply blast everything that comes your way – and they ALL come your way because the enemy AI is as simple as the core gameplay – they ALL run towards you shooting, growling, snarling snorting – some even scream at you – yep, those headless weirdo kamikazes have returned, only this time they have bombs for heads! Guided through the game by some female computer called Nettie (or something – it doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t), it’s almost impossible to get lost, and all she does is inform you of the bleeding obvious or congratulate you on what you’ve just done. The play areas, some of which can be quite big, are as linear as they can be without actually being a dead straight corridor. So this is a simplistic game for gaming idiots who can’t think, sneak or snipe then? - Well yes, it’s probably best suited to idiots like me, but can still be strangely therapeutic as you strafe, back off, pick up ammo, power ups and shoot–shoot-shoot (and shoot again). Keep shooting. Sometimes seemingly forever, because often the constant skirmishes go on just too long to be enjoyable, and I found myself close to turning the Xbox off on a number of occasions, purely through repetitive boredom… Can you get RSI for playing FPS? – Would it be called FPSRSI? – And could I get a sick note for it? – What with this and the calluses I got from constant throttle/boosting in Burnout Revenge I’m having a hard time of it lately, I can tell ya... Sam's armory is fairly typical, with the ubiquitous pistols, double-barrelled shotgun, Uzis, chaingun and rocket launcher –as well as some imaginative others. There are some emplacement weapons and Sam even gets a sniper rifle this time, but its use is severely limited – not surprising when most of the game is fighting hordes of identical enemies on a battlefield rather than sneaking through a bombed-out village or a steamy jungle. You can also dual-wield various weapons and there are some novelties like the enemy-seeking homing-parrot-bomb. With experience you find that some weapons are better in certain situations and at certain ranges, but to be honest the ammo is so abundant that you can finish the game with the third weapon you pick up – SS2 isn’t about tactical thinking or ammo conservation. Pick ups are everywhere, in crates, out of crates, some are kind of “hidden”, but most ‘hover’, old-school style above the ground and even glow with a blue aura so you couldn’t miss them if you tried. The vast amount of health and ammo pickups are justified though, because if you up the difficulty to the max like I did, the enemies don’t get more numerous (how could they?), they just get tougher to take down – to the point where you’ll hear insane, wild cackling suffused with cries of despair – and then realise it’s you. If it sounds like I have a problem with the no-brainer gameplay, well then yes I do; there's a 'temperature gauge' late on in the game but the only real attempts at innovation are the ability to carry/throw/put down objects with the ‘black’ button (in order to get to previously unreachable ledges), the old-style ‘spawn-out-of-nowhere’ enemies, and some almost tacked-on feeling vehicles spread thinly throughout the game... But the biggest problem with SS2 is the way it looks. The game is very brightly coloured and although there are some nice textures here and there, some decent smoke effects and at times it manages to paint a pretty overall picture. But the numerous enemies and friendlies lack detail and smooth animation and apart from some more organic settings than before (and by ‘organic’ I mean lots more trees and water), and new, even weirder monsters, Serious Sam’s latest outing looks hardly any different to the first game on Xbox which appeared some two years ago. The game even has the same ugly horizontal screen-tearing problem on occasion when you turn to look – and that is serious! Okay, now this visual horror is hardly a rare occurence on the Xbox and I’ve been told by several developers that this is because they do this to keep the frame rate solid, which it does - regardless of the number of enemies on screen the remarkably hectic action stays smooth. It’s just a shame they didn’t figure out a less eye-scratchingly ugly way of doing it - less enemies/fx perhaps? (the Gamecube ‘Serious Sam - Next Encounter’ didn’t have this problem). And yes the trees look fairly good and it’s still cool how they get blown to smithereens during battles, but OH MY! the "water" (which at best looks like painted cellophane wrap and at worst looks like crinkled foil) is just terrible. e.g. After one particularly lengthy battle you come over a hill to a pretty view of a fairy castle, with the ocean down below… you walk to the cliff edge to admire the view, and the hideous “sea” texture glitches and warps all over the place as it tries to perform its bizarre "reflection" routine – honest to God, sometimes it’s like Halo's lapping waves never existed… As the game wore on (and I use that word advisedly) the enemies got bigger and bigger, but no cleverer or easier on the eye – this left me far from being excited to see what was coming up on the next level for a good part of the game. Even various vehicles and animals to ride don’t alter the samey gameplay for long enough to warrant their inclusion - you can predict what’s coming next, and there just aren't enough surprises, and when that happens a game becomes a bit of a chore - even if it's fun for short bursts. But stick with it and SS2 can certainly excite due to its frantic nature, and unusually enough, the levels and design really do improve as the game goes on, but when the scariest enemies in a game full of alien gigantic monsters are in fact clowns on unicycles, you have to wonder what’s gone wrong. Exploration to find the secrets spread around on each level soon gets exasperating too, as the use of invisible walls to hem you in gets on your wick, and who cares about a score at the end of a FPS level these days anyway? – haven’t games evolved beyond that? I reckon you’ll be hard pushed to find them all, and if you do, you deserve a medal (and probably need psychological help, or a new game). Despite the sameyness of many of them, there are a few highly enjoyable levels though, and some rather good (if typically mental) boss battles. To avoid spoilers I won’t say anything more than that we loved the Micro Machines-style map, getting chased by a huge mech named Hugo was spectacular, and that the best boss for me was a purple dragon that sounded like Julian Clary - you get the idea, this game is mental, and it doesn’t care what you or I think of it. Serious Sam II does everything it can to excite and entertain, and despite all the gripes contained herein I grew to like it, after a very shaky start to our relationship. Kudos to Croteam for attempting some cornball humour (including a few subtle pops at Duke Nukem) and including fun co-op modes (via system link and Xbox Live), but they do little to make me want to play it for long – it’s just too one-paced (and that pace is frantic), too simplistic - and I think that although there’s certainly a place for an all-out blaster in the market, gamers are far too discerning and demand more from their games these days, both in terms of gameplay and looks. You have to allow for the fact that Serious Sam 2 is a budget game, but unfortunately it plays like one too – treat it as the gaming equivalent of a quick takeaway burger and you won’t go far wrong – it’s just a shame they forgot the fries and the large Coke to go with it.

Best Bits
- Fast, frantic blasting action that gets better as it goes on
- It’s quite a big game
- The ‘giant’ section
- Some um… “imaginative” enemies
- System link and online co-op
- Cheap

Worst Bits
- Lacks variety and thus gets old very quickly
- Isn’t as funny as it wanted to be
- Despite loads on-screen, the graphics fail to impress


by: Diddly