Serious Sam 2 Review

Game:  Serious Sam 2
Year (s):  2005
Company:  dev.  Croteam
pub.  Devolver
Engine:  Serious Engine 2
Type:  Old-School Shooter
Viewpoint:  First-Person
Metacritic Score: 74
My Score:  The nadir of the franchise.

Price (as of May 19, 2013)

Regular list price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $6

My Game Time: 17 hours

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=334FeWTYDCU

See Also

The First Encounter Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2011/06/serious-sam-first-encounter-review.html
The Second Encounter Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2012/05/serious-sam-second-encounter-review.html
Serious Sam 3 BFE Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2012/01/serious-sam-3-bfe-review.html

Plot

Sam must fight through several planets, gathering pieces of a medallion, in order to defeat Lord Mental.


Save System

Manual Save?  No
Quick Save?  No
Area Load Save?  Yes
Checkpoint Save?  Yes


The Progression

This was the last game of the franchise for me to play.  Carrying through the franchise we have tons of enemies, retro gameplay, some humor, giant bosses, and general quirkiness.  The Second Encounter added a few new enemies and several new environments.  Serious Sam 2 had almost completely new enemies and environments, the addition of vehicles,  new weapons, and replaced textrual plot with cut scenes.  

Then, the HD versions of The First/Second Encounter were realesed, continuing a gradual graphical improvement.  Croteam lastly went back to the basics and the original enemies and environments for Serious Sam 3: BFE.


Final Thoughts

The nearly complete departure from familiar foes, along with some jokes that fell totally flat, made Serious Sam 2 feel like a third-party knockoff.  From a plot perspective, SS2 is the last game of the bunch, and I thought the ending was very unsatisfying.  I say pass on this one.