The original Serious Sam is considered a classic here at GameSpy HQ. Granted, the idea of flooding the screen with waves and waves of enemies wasn't particularly brilliant in itself, but it was done with so much style you had to take notice of the surprise game from Croteam, a developer that virtually no one knew of to that point. Levels were bright and colorful. Bosses were HUGE. The game -- gasp! -- had humor. And it was a mere $20, which was worth it just for the co-op play -- we had one memorable night where we eight of us finished the game in a few hours, and we're still talking about it today.
After the release of The Second Encounter in 2002, however, things have been pretty quiet on the Serious front. Aside from some console versions and a brief showing at GDC, there's been virtually no news on the Serious Sam front until this year's E3, where we got our first in-depth preview of Serious Sam II. This week, the fine folks at 2K Games invaded GameSpy HQ to give us an even closer look at the game, scheduled for release this fall.
Expect a lot of debris whenever Sam's around.
Serious Sam II picks up at the end of The Second Encounter, as Sam chases down the villainous Mental into space. There's some wacky story where the denizens of a planet called Sirius recruit you to gather parts to a medallion to help defeat Mental, but it's really just an excuse to send you planet-hopping and from one frantic firefight to the next.
Along the way, Sam will visit seven different worlds over the course of over forty levels, reportedly longer than both Serious Sam and The Second Encounter combined (more on that shortly). As you might expect, the worlds are bright, colorful locations, starting with a Hong Kong level... or at least what Hong Kong would look like if you put it on another planet and populated it with swarms of bad guys with churning sawblades for hands.
Another level is set in a world of giants, and, bizarrely enough, looks like something ripped straight out of Pikmin. Instead of trees, huge blades of grass form the landscape, occasionally broken up by a empty soup can or some other ginormous object. According to 2K Games, other levels include a planet of Elvis worshippers (!), a King Kong-inspired level, and an obligatory lava level.
The hover saucer is just one of the many vehicles being added for Sam II.
Sam's arsenal is similarly inspired. You can expect the usual array of chainguns, a rocket launcher, grenade launcher and sniper rifle, but it's the more unique weapons that we're guessing will inspire the most excitement. A saw blade weapon shoots out spinning metal wheels of death, and can be rotated vertically to turn it into a potent melee weapon. There's the "Klodovik" bird, which is a parrot-looking thing that carries a bomb and drops it on the nearest enemy ... or you, if you're not careful.The cannonball launcher returns, but this time it's got a pressure gauge and a red siren that hoots and flashes with the cannon is charged and ready to blow. There's also a bomb weapon, which wasn't actually working in the build we were shown, and yet looks so cool that we can't wait to see it in action (kinda like that kung fu Yakuza midget from the Simpsons .... when it goes off, you just know it's going to be cool).
Over forty enemies are planned for Serious Sam II, including our favorites, the screaming kamikaze bombers. Unlike the original Serious Sam, they're no longer headless maniacs with bombs for hands -- now they've got bombs for heads, but they still run at you screaming the entire way. 2K Games also promises more memorable bosses, and told us the developers are aiming to break two videogame records with Serious Sam II: the most enemies on screen at a single time, and the biggest boss ever. As we were told, if you thought the final boss in Serious Sam was huge, expect that to be the size of the enemies BEFORE the final boss in SSII.
One of the biggest additions for the Serious sequel is something that's become commonplace in many shooters: vehicles. And while there will be some predictable mounts like APCs and and turrets, there are more unique vehicles like the Serious surfboard and hoversaucers. The one that looks the most fun, however, is both a vehicle and a weapon: the rollerball. Looking like something out of American Gladiators, it's a large spiked ball that Sam can climb in and push along from the inside, trampling enemies three times his size as he rolls along.
The Rolling Ball allows Sam to steamroll any enemies that get in his way.
(the ROLLING BALL is basically a crystal type ball wich crushes all the MINIONS and Monsters wenever they get in the way of our APNA SERIOUS SAM baba 
)
Croteam reportedly began work on Serious Sam II after the release of the Xbox version in 2002, and the action is powered by a graphics engine that's all-new from the ground up. Despite graphics that are a major leap over the original game, and waves and waves of enemies running across the screen, the framerate held up through the various demo levels that were shown to us. We're already having visions of running through the game in co-op mode, which will once again be supported (thank you!).
Maybe the only thing we'd question about the Sam sequel is the decision to make the game longer and sell it for full price, instead of the $20 nuggets the first two installments were released at. Maybe it's just us, but we're tired of $50 games that lose steam halfway through, and the price and length of Croteam's first two games were something we wish we'd see more of. Apparently, however, the time and larger budget needed to create the new engine meant SSII couldn't be released at a $20 price point, so Croteam's now tasked with keeping things interesting twice as long this time.
On the positive side, it probably won't be much longer before we see how it all turns out. The game is currently scheduled for release this fall, and a demo is scheduled to be released before that. We're ready. Seriously.
