Serious Sam 2

Original Release Date: October 11th, 2005
Developer: Croteam
Publisher: 2K Games

Summary

At some point after the release of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, the people at Croteam apparently got experimental with how they wanted to approach the series. Either that, or you can ‘blame’ the precense of new publish 2K Games for pushing the developers to make the game a little more cartoony and a little less serious (pun intended). This makes some sense, when you see that the original two games have been remade ‘twice’ (an HD remake and then a VR version) and the second game isn’t even included in ‘Serious Sam Fusion’. In my mind, it’s probably a little bit of both, since Croteam did create the spinoffs that predated Serious Sam 2.

That aside, Serious Sam 2 is a bizarre game that I can’t say I totally enjoyed. Is it a bad shooter? No, of course not. If you came to this game wanting to blast apart hordes of monsters with big guns, you came to the right place. If you were expecting a great sequel to the first two games, you did not, because Serious Sam 2 jettisons a lot of the ‘serious’ aspects of those games (monster and environmental design) and turns it into cartoon parody, with nonsensical monsters and levels that are ridiculous and often living parodies (like an entire fairytale kingdom land ruled by Elvis).

While Sam in the first two games spouted one liners from time to time, and his AI often had snarky text quips, this game turns Sam into something ripped straight out of a British cartoon from the 1960s. At first, I was mildly entertained by this, but it wears on you after many hours of various, one punchline cutscenes and ham-fisted pop culture references. I remember thinking to myself, about 8 hours into the game, that ‘I am shocked there hasn’t been some Benny Hill gag.’ Without providing any spoilers, something close enough to said gag took place in the end credits.

In terms of gameplay, the game sees almost all the standards of the first two titles kept, and it adds vehicles, grenades, and the random ability to pick up and throw certain objects (useless in combat but used for finding secrets). In the end, I can see that there is some value in this game, if you can get past the needless slapstick and cartoon goofiness. It makes sense to me that this game has seen zero sequels (Croteam’s titles since then have been spinoffs and prequels, apparently).

Technical/Presentation (6/10)

Gameplay

Serious Sam 2 retains the structure of the original game, including the boosters and some of the platform elements from the Second Encounter. There aren’t any real puzzles in this game (like the first two), but like the originals, you’ll have a few stages where you have to collect X number of items or find a switch or something to open up the next area. Serious Sam 2 keeps the same gun designs (although they are styled differently) and adds grenades as a stand-alone button (fantastic). Vehicles are also present in various levels, and I personally liked these segments, because they offered a different approach to the normal grind of ‘fight the hordes.’

Stuff like this isn’t awful, despite my aversion to vehicle segments in FPS games

Visuals

Serious Sam 2 continues the tradition of having bright, wide-open areas for its levels, and the dial here is genuinely turned up to eleven. While the first two encounters were centered in historical areas, Serious Sam 2 takes Sam to 7 different celestial bodies (six planets and a moon). Loosely, you can define these as: ‘Africa-like area, swamp, East Asia-like area, lava planet, snow planet, and sci-fi city). Unlike the originals, you run into a variety of NPCs, and while I originally felt it strange how empty (outside of enemies) the original two games felt, I quickly grew tired of the goofy natives and their bobblehead-like designs. They babble and occasionally talk, and it sounds like the dialogue (even the women) is the work of one or maybe two dudes.

Yes, this is a Saturday morning cartoon FPS

The enemies in the game feature only a few returning monsters, although there are many that are similar to creatures in the first two encounters. All of the monsters in the game are comedy set-pieces, and even the monstrous ones are usually comedically designed (the devil monsters feel like cartoon versions of Doom beasts). The Beheaded Kamikaze from the original, which gave me conniptions, have springs for necks and serious bombs for ‘heads’. It’s all just a bit bizarre, especially since the first two games, while peppered with ‘Duke Nukem moments’ still have a very grounded setting (although the settings in the originals were open, light, and colorful for the most part, unlike many prior FPS titles).

Different from the originals, this game also features a bunch of weird ‘arcade’ elements. There is a score tracker and a life system, with the game giving a pseudo game over when you run out of lives. The penalty? Your score gets frozen for the current stage. I read this originates, like the cutscenes and more cartoon theming, from the Xbox remake of the original two episodes. It feels tacked on and pointless, honestly.

Sound

The soundtracks in this game aren’t bad, although there’s little that stood out to me. Like with ‘the Second Encounter,’ I really started to enjoy the soundtrack near the end of the game, where they shifted to a more industrial, heavy metal track. That aside, the sound design is straight derp, much like the monster and character design. Guns sound normal, albeit unimpressive, but for instance, the kleer skeletons make sounds akin to hitting bowling pins when they die. It’s not terrible, but it was just another instance of the game abandoning the more grounded settings of the first two titles for more slapstick.

I’ve said it earlier and will likely say it again, but the voices in this game are terrible. Aside from Sam, I think the other voices were done by two men trying their hardest to put on goofy accents or talk in high-pitches or babble-speak. The dialogue is mostly limited to jokes, and while Netty has a dedicated voice actress, she has limited function outside of directing you where to go.

I would expect this degree of goofiness and slapstick in, say, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but it feels out of place in a Serious Sam sequel.

Story (4/10)

Serious Sam 2 opens up with our hero, after the events of the first two encounters, being snatched up by a trio of siblings who have the look of cosmic beings. There’s a lady with a weird voice and two old men with Jewish accents (not sure if this is exactly what it’s supposed to be, but they reminded me of Tommy Pickles’ grandpa). They theorize that Sam is ‘the One’ (the first of many explicit and occasionally cringey pop culture references in this game).

The mission is that Sam has to travel to five different worlds to recover the pieces of a medallion that can supposedly harm Mental, the overlord of the army sweeping across the galaxy. The mission will take Sam to various worlds, where he will have to assist various bobble-headed locals (who are often caricatures of various cultures) and defeat several bosses. These include a giant gorilla in an African-themed world, an obese Asian-styled ‘prince’ with a taste for cannibalism, a dragon who has kidnapped a hideous princess, a Kleer warlord, and a large bee. Along the way, Sam is helped by Netty (NETRISCA), his AI from the previous game who is now able to speak with him.

After reuniting the medallion, the three mystics (who are revealed to be living in a plain cabin) send Sam to a moon above Planet Sirius, the home of Mental. Sam raids a prison, saving many of the locals from earlier in the game, and he shoots a laser at the planet. He escapes to the surfaces but is tricked and apprehended. He manages to escape once again with the help of ‘the Alliance’ (the resistance), and he goes to confront Mental at his pyramid.

(the final boss of this game is a pyramid)

Spoiler Zone

Uhh, I can’t imagine there are really that many spoilers to be had in this game. Really, the biggest spoiler to be had is the ending, where Sam is once again evaded by Mental. Throughout the end credits, voiceovers express confusion that this is the end of the game, and a preceding cutscene showcases that the medallion Sam fought to create is one of many that the three mystics have in their cabin. Over the course of the game, there are a variety of secrets, and while I stumbled onto a few of them, most of them are just extra stuff. One spoiler involved a phone booth and receiving a call from “Sam in Second Encounter”, and since I’m fairly certain I remember seeing a phonebooth in the medieval stage, I liked that connection.

Reflection

The ending, like much of the game, is a natural extension of the slapstick that is rife throughout this game. The addition of more voice acting isn’t terrible, as Netty speaking winds up being pleasant after a while. The ‘humor’ in the game is simply too much, and I think a big part of this is because it permeates nearly every aspect of the game, not just the dialogue. As mentioned above, the humor filters into the art style, stage design, supporting cast, and enemy design. All of the NPCs in this game are just awkward to look at, with alien-esque features but also sporting tropes from various cultural places on modern Earth, like the planet inspired by East Asian cultures where you fight kung-fu zombies and floating, cross-legged sensei-types. The fairytale world is ruled by a king who is literally an Elvis parody.

There are portions where the humor did make me chuckle. The ugly princess made me laugh, as well as many quips from Netty. The fact that I think all the NPCs were voiced by like, one dude who would do falsetto tones, likewise detracted from my enjoyment of this game. I like to quip about ‘FPS games with stories’ and ‘those without.’ The first Sam games were plot-lite, but I think those were better experiences. At first, I smirked at how goofy this game was – it reminded me of the humor in those old Black & White games (and British slapstick in general), but when every cutscene is a punchline (including bosses), it wore out its welcome.

Bias/Nostalgia Tint – “Zero cringy jokes out of five”

No previous exposure to this title; have had it in my Steam library since the earliest days of my Humble Bundle account (my second bundle purchase!)

Serious Sam 2

Summary