Sam Stone is back to take you on another ride! Yes, that's right, Serious Sam II is going to be upon us this fall season. Any fan of the Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter games will be happy to hear that Croteam has done another smash-up job with its sequel to the original Serious Sam.

"Turn your mind off and play," was how it was described to me by a Serious Sam II developer, as he invited me to spend a few minutes playing the game at the recent E3 2005 convention. The moment I prepared to play the game, I noticed immediate similarities between the original titles and Serious Sam II. Not only are a lot of the same enemies back - hey, who can forget a guy with a bomb for a head - some of the original weapons are back to help annihilate enemies. This is going to be comforting to the people that enjoyed the game play of the first titles.

I am a big fan of the Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter video games. Naturally, Serious Sam 2 was one of the games that I was most excited to examine and play during E3. The first thing one of the 2K Games people wanted me to make sure readers understood is that this game is a true sequel to Serious Sam. Apparently, many people assumed that The Second Encounter - the title of the game probably didn't help squash assumptions - was the sequel to the first game.

The actual game will feature seven worlds, which will have about 40 different levels, plus some secret or "bonus" levels. To make sure gamers don't get tired with the same surroundings, there will also be a dramatic change of scenery in between each world. Non-Playing Characters (NPCs) will also be in the game to help Sam with his quests. I was reassured that the game will not be short enough where someone can sit down and steamroll through it in one night.

Like mentioned earlier, not only do many monsters like suicide bombers and kleers make a triumphant return, but they will be fighting alongside some foes that Stone is unfamiliar with. Not wanting to give away some of the "unique" enemies, I will just say that Croteam made sure to put some really odd ones into the game.

If the monsters are going to be updated then, naturally, gamers have to have some new weapons to play with. Some of the new weapons include an impressive rocket launcher, an upgraded cannon, grenades, and a Serious Bomb, which most likely does something neat when properly implemented. One of the more amusing new weapons that I discovered was the parrot-guided explosives, which is a weapon that shoots a parrot with an explosive attached to it.

Something that made the first two games really enjoyable were all of the modifications and custom skins that were available for download on the Internet. Some of the kookier mods include a skin that turned the knife into a banana, and a small group of skins that made Sam look like some of the former presidents. There are quite a few maps that were well-designed available on the Internet for the first two games. "The Serious Editor is going to be a great asset to people who want to play around with map designs," was what I was told.

Croteam and 2K Games wants to send Serious Sam 2 into the Guinness Book of World Records. The record they want to own is, in my opinion, a unique one: the most enemies on-screen at one time, with the number ranging between 200 to 300 depending on the location of Sam at that time. I think it'll be interesting to see how many enemies Stone has to encounter in an open area that should be able to pack at least 300 monsters.

Just like the first two games, Serious Sam II will be an entertaining game to play at a LAN party. If you haven't played Serious Sam with a friend or over the Internet before, I highly recommend it. Co-op mode will allow up to 16 players to shoot big guns and destroy odd enemies at one time.

Sam Stone will be able to cause some serious damage to enemies and assorted wildlife because gamers will now be able to control assorted vehicles in the game. One of the more original "vehicles" mentioned was a "giant spiked ball" that Sam can control which will obliterate any enemy standing in his path.

Final Impressions

The people that are hoping that game play will change in Serious Sam II will be rather disappointed, because Serious Sam II will feature the same type of game play as the first two titles.

Serious Sam was actually one of the few games that I recommended to people that weren't familiar or were not too fond of FPS games. "Turn your mind off and play," was actually a perfect way to describe what people should do when they begin playing any game that features Sam Stone. A new batch of monsters and upgraded weapons will make sure that players are in for an enjoyable ride.