Serious Sam II Review

Serious Sam II is a no-nonsense, straight up, in your face, take no prisoners type of first-person-shooter. There is no room for epic storylines or intricately designed set pieces here, instead it is 100% pure fast paced action and mindless shooting. Honestly, it makes Doom 3 (which is pretty darn simple and linear) look like brain surgery. That isn’t a bad thing, though, because you get to shoot a lot of stuff with some really cool guns. Some days, that is exactly what you’re looking for.

Gameplay

The game’s story follows series protagonist “Serious” Sam Sloan (a Bruce Campbell wannabe) as he tries to rid the universe of a dude named Mental by collecting pieces of a medallion that have been scattered across several worlds. The story isn’t the important thing here, though, and seems more like an excuse for Sam to spout unfunny one-liners. The important thing in Serious Sam II is the extremely fast paced action that will see you slaughtering hundreds of enemies as you make your way from point A to point B. No other game of recent memory throws as many enemies at you at once as Serious Sam II which makes every enemy encounter extremely hectic and very thrilling. Your arsenal is made up of some nifty variations of standard FPS weapons along with other weird things such as bomb carrying parrots. There are a couple of little complaints, though. The levels are pretty linear and the game uses an extremely generous auto aim feature, but the focus here is on action and blowing enemies into clouds of goo and Serious Sam II does that very well. It is pretty mindless, but the different weapons along with turret and vehicle sequences keep it from feeling too repetitive so it is an enjoyable experience overall.

Co-Op Play

What makes the game even better is that you can play four player co-op in system link or over Xbox Live. There aren’t any standard deathmatch modes or split screen play, but the online co-op is very well put together. You get to run through all of the single player levels with your friends, which is always fun, but you aren’t forced to stick together. You can run around and find secrets and other things while everyone else fights the huge swarms of enemies. How you play is up to you. Another nice feature is that the number of enemies is increased depending on how many people are playing. It is still a whole lot of mindless shooting, but playing with other people makes the game a whole lot more fun.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Serious Sam II is impressive. The environments you explore are detailed and very colorful and look great overall. The characters also look pretty good and the enemies you’ll face are all off the wall crazy in their designs. Amazingly, the game maintains a silky smooth framerate even when there are dozens of enemies on screen at once which keeps the action fast and furious. My only complaint with the graphics is that the cutscenes are noticeably grainy and none too pretty. Everything else looks great, though.

The sound is also well done for the most part. All of the crazy weapons are matched with appropriate sound effects and the music also matches the zany nature of the game. There is quite a bit of dialogue, but the game tries too hard to be funny and a lot of Sam’s comments and one-liners fall flat.

Bottom Line

Serious Sam II is a more simple and straightforward first-person-shooter than most Xbox shooters, but there is still quite a bit of fun to be had here. Not every game needs branching levels, complex controls, an epic storyline, or advanced tactics other than point and shoot. Some days you just feel like shooting stuff with really big guns and Serious Sam II does that better than any other Xbox shooter I can think of. Even better is that you can play four player co-op via system link or Xbox Live which cranks the fun level up to eleven. Overall, Serious Sam II is a fun, funny, satisfying shooter that is undeniably entertaining. There are better shooters on Xbox, though, so I can’t give it a complete recommendation, but it is definitely worth a rental and you can decide for yourself if it is worth owning from there.