One of the more memorable tales was born out of the original Serious Sam, where 8-10 members of the crew spent a night playing through the entire game, start-to-finish, in co-op mode. Thanks to the over-the-top nature of the game with endless waves of enemies, it amounted to a few hours of complete mayhem, culminating with some of the biggest end bosses any of us had ever seen -- and a comical amount of yelling emanating from every corner of the office.
So, with the release of Serious Sam II just a few days away, we managed to finagle enough copies of the final game out of publisher 2KGames to get a 6-man co-op game running Friday night, and it didn't disappoint. In fact, although Serious Sam II is a bigger game and we had to cut things far short of the end, we still got a pretty good idea of what's in store once the game hits shelves.
All of Serious Sam II, like this Hong Kong-inspired level, is infused with an abundance of color.
There's a story in Serious Sam II, but it'll be easy to miss even if you're paying attention. The evil Mental has returned, and you're sent to a variety of worlds to collect fragments of some medallion, or else something bad will happen. The story really isn't important; it's just an excuse to send you to a variety of brightly colored worlds with all sorts of crazy enemies to blow up.
Serious Sam II is made up of 40+ levels spread out across seven episodes, with the opening world of M'Digbo. For a game that ultimately boils down to thousands of enemies running at you, there's an attempt to offer some variety -- sometimes you're pushing forward at full speed, while other areas force you to stand your ground against waves of bad guys before you can move on. Most of the levels are in huge, outdoor settings, from forests, canyons and large cities to more unique areas like "Giant Junkyard," where you'll feel about ant-high surrounded by ginormous flowers, tin cans, and insects populating the area. (Pikmin, anyone?)
