Serious Sam 2 Review (PC)

[SALvation]

After years in the making, the true sequel to the Serious Sam franchise has been released. Developed once again by Croteam, the same producers of Serious Sam: First Encounter and Second Encounter, Croteam looks to capture the same magic it did the first time when the genre was thrilled to see an old school FPS game with a fantastic co-op feature.

Before we get started, everyone take a deep breath. Things have been heated with Sam fans lately because of a few stumbles the last couple of months. After first announcing that deathmatch was cut from retail and would be implemented in a later patch, and a lackluster demo a couple of weeks ago, Sam fans have been wondering if Serious Sam 2 would not live up to expectations.

So breathe in...

Breathe out...

Cleanse your mind of any previous impressions or thoughts...

Ready? OK.

Let me start by saying this: Whoever is responsible for the content that was in the demo a couple of weeks ago needs to be fired immediately. It is obvious they have no idea what they are doing. That demo showed off a slow paced, poorly designed level that threw every weapon at you immediately, and also included one of the weaker, least fun vehicles in the game. After spending some considerable time with the final cut, I can without a doubt say that this demo was not representative of the retail release. That's good news for Sam fans.

The story behind Sam 2 is pretty pointless as it was in the first two installments of the franchise. Once again you're off to kill Mental on his home planet, and this time you are bringing with you vehicles, new and improved weapons, and up to 15 other friends with you via co-op. Co-op works just the same way as it did before, with you and your friends playing through the entire single player campaign, with an increased number of enemies depending on the number of players and difficulty. Again you share a set amount of lives (set in the options menu) and when dead, you respawn and follow the trail of gibs back to your group. Once everyone uses up the lives (there is an infinite lives option), it's game over.

Graphics

The biggest feature of Sam 2 is the use of Croteam's own Serious Engine 2. The engine, which was developed from the ground up in-house, is quite impressive. It takes full advantage of all of today's graphic card potential, including HDR lighting. It can consistently handle dozens of enemies on the screen at once, and even average gaming machines by today's standards will be able to handle it without too much trouble. Also, it was good to see that widescreen support is in the game. I was able to pick a 1680 x 1050 resolution to use with my Dell 2005FPW widescreen monitor, although I had to click the widescreen option also to get it to display right. However, the UI doesn't seem designed for widescreen as the info is still in the same spots as it would be on a normal 4:3 monitor instead of pushed to the sides. Its not a big deal but hopefully this is fixed in a patch.

Turning from the technical capabilities to the artistic look and feel, Serious Sam 2 looks and feels different this time around. The first two installments held some sort of graphic basis in reality, with enemies like the kleer, werebull, and harpies looking as realistic as they could back then (if these creatures actually existed in reality). In this sequel, Sam and his enemies have the much more cartoony and over the top look as they did in the original XBox game. At times, it feels like Sam is parodying a Gamecube action game instead of Duke Nukem as he did in the originals.

The environments and levels have also changed. While the First Encounter took place in Egypt, and the Second Encounter in mostly Myan themed levels, Serious Sam 2 takes place in a very wide variety of levels and environments. There is a good mix of wide open spaces and confined rooms, just as there have always been. In the demo, we saw a city with invisible walls holding players in. I'm happy to say this is not the case in these levels. The levels are designed similarly to the previous encounters, with plenty of exploring and tons of secrets. There are also many places in the game which will remind you levels from the previous games. It's good to see that the demo was the exception to the rule.

Sound

There isn't much sound to rate in Serious Sam 2, besides some voice acting and weapon sounds. The voice acting is done pretty well, as pretty much every cut scene (there's 2 hours of them) has voice acting. It doesn't sound over the top, although there is a generous amount of unnecessary hand waving when the characters are talking. One of the disappointing elements of the sound are the weapon sounds. Weapons like the shotgun just sound weak, and could definitely use an improvement.

Gameplay & Controls

Usually, reviewers don't take time out of their articles to mention the setup menu of a game, but I have to at this point. From the main menu on down, it feels as if it was ripped directly from the XBox version without any modifications at all. Clicking on setup items is hit or miss, leaving your best bet to use the arrow keys and Enter to make your selections. You have to be careful when binding your keys, because if you move the mouse, it binds the action to your mouse movement. The player name entry screen features an on-screen keyboard just in case you're one of those PC gamers that hates having keyboards plugged into your machine, and the final insult is the LAN/Internet selection screen features a background picture of XBox's hooked into TVs. Oops.

The good news is that because all of this was also found in the demo, Croteam was able to correct these and other issues before the retail release and have already patched the game to version 2.064b. Once patched, the setup becomes the same as any normal PC game and is no longer an issue.

Once you have finished setting everything up and jump in the game, you'll find yourself in familiar territory. The opening level will bring back memories of the opening level of the Second Encounter, and after spending a few minutes playing with the physics and running around the opening village, you find yourself right smack in the middle of things. The gameplay feels exactly the same as before, which is a good thing. Sam moves a moderate pace picking up new weapons little by little, facing increasingly tougher enemies. One thing I like is fighting a mini boss, and then realizing that later on, it's just a normal enemy. They keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Another complaint about the demo was that it felt like you had to trigger the next wave of enemies by walking to a certain point. That still happens in the final release, except you will be happy when you finally have a few seconds to regroup and take a quick look around the map for goodies. If you remember in the originals, it worked the same way as you were thrown hundreds of enemies, and then given a brief break until the next wave. It really isn't an issue anymore and the pace of enemies being thrown at you is done well.

Multiplayer

The main selling point of Serious Sam has always been its co-op experience. It's what got the game noticed when the original was first released, and will always be a staple of the series. There is one major problem though, co-op over an Internet connection is broken out of the box. To Croteam's credit, the game is smart enough to ask you to upgrade as soon as you try to connect over the net, but this is still a major bug and costs Sam some points in the MP rating department. It would be like developing Tetris and realizing after release you forgot the "L" shaped blocks. To add insult to injury, the patch's netcode isn't compatible with the non-patched netcode. So before the game even hits store shelves, the players are split into to those that do and those that don't have the patch. Of course, this isn't as bad as it seems since the only people that will actually be able to play online are the ones with the patch. The menu system also has a check for upgrades option which will look for the most recent version.

Once you do patch the game and get it going, the 16-player co-op (4 player co-op for XBox live) is tons of fun. It works just like the originals where you get a set amount of lives (or infinite), set the difficulty, and blast through the single player game in its entirety. Serious Sam 2 is also much longer than the previous 2 encounters combined, so it will definitely take multiple sittings to get through the entire game.

As was mentioned in the opening, deathmatch is not included in the retail release, but Croteam has said that it will be implemented in an upcoming patch. Unfortunately what that means is, that once you've beaten the game, there really isn't a reason to keep playing it over and over. You can change the difficulty, or look for secrets, but the meat and potatoes of the game is over with and most people will put it on the shelf once they're done. The good news here is that players will be pretty busy with co-op, and the quality of the co-op game leaves me to believe there will be a quality deathmatch patch in time.

Overall

After its all said and done, at it's heart, Serious Sam 2 is what it's supposed to be. It's a frantic, fast-paced co-op shooter with improved graphics, longer playtime, and new features. However, even though a patch has been released, some of the issues it was released with hurt the final score. The setup menu is ripped straight from the XBox version, Internet co-op is broken, and there are numerous other small technical issues. Once patched, the game feels like it should have at release, but its still annoying to have to patch your game on the first day of its release.
When deathmatch and the mod tools are released via patch at some point in the future, the replay value of the game should improve and a great mod community should be built. In the meantime, if you are looking for the same fast-paced co-op action you saw in the originals, I can definitely recommend this game at the $29.99 price point ($39.99 XBox). On the other hand, if you are a deathmatch player, or co-op never ineterested you, there isn't much here for you other than potential.

Positives

- Great graphics
- The heart of Sam is still intact
- Awesome co-op once patched
- Vehicles are a nice addition
- Lots of initial gameplay time
- Humor isn't as horrible as 99% of other games that try it

Negatives

- No deathmatch or other online modes
- Horrible setup menu pre-patch
- Internet co-op broken pre-patch
- Launched with more bugs than it should have
- New cartoony art direction

Feel free to discuss more of Serious Sam in our Sam forum, located here.

[SALvation]

I just wanted to make a note that there is not an infinite lives option in co-op in the options menu. I could've sworn I saw it but on second glance, the max is 10.

[NightBreed]

Thanks for the review, SAL I don't have it yet so I can't add anything so a few days...

Looking forward to playing it though, even with all the bad press about it..I guess I just have to see for myself !