Serious Sam II

Serious Sam 2. The game that got slapped around by early reviews like it had personally insulted somebody's grandma. These critics were either playing a different game or suffering from severe anti-fun syndrome. WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE SMOKING?! First off, let's talk about this engine. You know how some modern games need seventeen patches, three blood sacrifices, and a NASA supercomputer just to maintain 60 FPS? Serious Sam 2 just boots up and says: "Relax, cupcake. I got this." BOOM. Smooth as silk. The original games were famous for giant open-area shootouts where the screen became an active crime scene against alien life. Those massive battlefields aren't quite as common here because the engine can shove entire civilizations of screaming monsters into tighter areas without collapsing into a burning pile of spaghetti code. And guess what? IT STILL ROCKS. Like, unapologetically rocks. The graphics? Fantastic. The gameplay? Pure concentrated dopamine injected directly into your lizard brain. The humor? Absolute insanity. This game doesn't care about realism. This game wakes up every morning, snorts twelve energy drinks, and asks: "How many ridiculous enemies can we throw at the player before the laws of physics file a complaint?" And I LOVE IT. Secrets everywhere. Different strategies. Replayability for days. You know, actual GAME DESIGN. Remember that? When developers made games because they wanted players to have FUN instead of turning everything into a second job with battle passes and seventeen currencies named after gemstones? Serious Sam 2 remembers. And bless its beautiful, deranged soul for that. The amount of polish here is honestly shocking. Perfection is a myth, people. But this game comes ridiculously close. And the price? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This thing is practically stealing from itself. I've paid more money for hamburgers that brought me less joy. As far as I'm concerned, THIS is what games should be. No unnecessary nonsense. No emotional trauma disguised as "engagement mechanics." No twenty-page tutorials teaching you how to breathe. Just grab a stupidly powerful weapon and turn hordes of aliens into cosmic confetti while laughing like a maniac. Beautiful. If you've played previous Serious Sam games, then congratulations. This isn't a decision. It's a biological imperative. You buy this. You install this. You grab a minigun. You scream incoherently while seventy-seven screaming monsters charge you simultaneously. And you have the time of your life. Serious Sam 2 didn't deserve the early hate. It deserved a medal. A giant golden statue. Possibly its own national holiday. This game is polished, hilarious, ridiculously fun, and proof that sometimes all you need in life is absurd weapons and thousands of things exploding. Critics may have doubted. But the Serious Stone has spoken.

Динамічно, яскраво, весело — тут присутнє все те найкраще, що пропонують такі старенькі шутери. Взагалі гра прикольна, мені вона більше сподобалася, ніж третя частина, у яку я зіграв раніше за цю. Але, на мій смак, із цього жанру Serious Sam — далеко не найкращий вибір, хоча гра дійсно весела. Якось DOOM чи Shadow Warrior приносять мені набагато більше задоволення. 7/10

Прошли с другом Марюсом! Кайфанули! Тоже весёлая часть. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2826464964

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This game makes me happy! It's the colors, they are so bright.

For me SS2 was always the weakest entry in the series. I love TFE and TSE, SS3 as well, but this one always turned me off in a weird way. When it released back in the day I was so dissapointed because it looked like a comic shooter for kids, and it kinda is. Now all those years later, the game is optimized for new hardware, had a nice graphic overhaul, even achievements. It was fun to play trough the game two times but I dont think I'll ever go back. Its not a bad game and I really appreceate the love that Croteam gave this 20year old game, but its really just not my taste.

После прохождения узнал, что мой хост коопа сделал 11х мобов, 5х за игрока с 1000% одновременным множителем. 1000 гнааров из 10

I really wish there was a "neutral" option for reviews, but right now this is the best I can do. Serious Sam 2 suffers from a severe lack of restraint that reflects in the game's excessively long runtime. You'd think that a long game offers more entertainment due to the abundance of content, but the levels contained in SS2's episodes range from a time-wasting chore to endless waves of the same three enemy types you'll see throughout the episode. When compared to TFE and TSE you can really see how SS2 fails to deliver on the hordes that try to swarm you, and the claustrophobic nature of some levels really makes it difficult to digest this game's attempt at reinventing the wheel. TFE/TSE had extremely large levels, and that paid off immensely. The boss fights are arguably unimpressive at best and, again, a chore at worst (looking at you, Not-Spyro), and I personally could've done without facing such one-trick ponies that hardly gave me a challenge on Serious difficulty. I did not find the story entertaining past the first twenty minutes, and with a runtime placed between 8-14 hours, a game riddled with cutscenes that try really hard to lean into the cartoonish silliness ends up feeling like an eye-rolling experience. With that said, Serious Sam 2 still *partially* works as a Serious Sam game, and there's nothing wrong with starting from this one or playing it along with the rest of the franchise. The gameplay loop that I fell in love with is still there, and even if Serious Sam 2 seriously falls short of my expectations coming out of TSE, I recommend you give it an honest open-minded try before jumping to conclusions. However, if you choose to skip this game I also wouldn't blame you: it's the black sheep for a reason.

i like to believe that none of this happened and that it's just Sam dreaming while sleeping in the spaceship in Serious Sam 4 because this game is just a fever dream

Review after getting all achievements: Okay I am going to be frank here, if I were to give a rating to the first few Serious Sam games, with First Encounter being 8/10, Second Encounter being 10/10, this game Serious Sam 2 as of right now I would give it a 7/10. . . it's not a bad game, it is still combat-wise a Serious Sam title and sure it is the 'Cartoon' version (the 3rd dragon head that's Derpy from the meme) of the franchise with all the humor and designs. As for the mods especially the 'Renovation' and adding the achievement system, it really gave this game a boost in replayability, finally being able to dual-wield the weapons and mix weapons on top of that. These updates made this game actually enjoyable to get through. And people still can make custom levels/mods for it.