Serious Sam II Updated Impressions - Screaming Bomb Men Get Makeover

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Serious Sam's screaming, headless, shirtless, bombs-for-hands kamikaze monsters that would sprint toward you before exploding might be worth a couple of million. But you didn't need a million words to describe GameSpot's 2001 PC game of the year, since it was a simple, colorful, action-packed shooter in which swarms of crazy alien monsters, including the exploding kamikazes, would charge at you in droves as you emptied out cartridge after cartridge of ammo at them, blasting away and backpedaling like mad. We had a chance to take an updated look at the PC version of the game in action, which looks even better, and more insane, than it did at E3.

Serious Sam II will again feature the adventures of "Serious" Sam Stone, a wisecracking action hero who is fighting a one-man war against an army of colorful and bizarre alien invaders. The game will feature seven different worlds that Sam will explore. We had a chance to see one in action, which was the same world featured at E3: a brightly lit world covered in jungles and grasslands, with several high-tech installations across the face of the planet. We watched Sam blast away at an army of monsters, one of which was a hulking beast with orange skin and tank treads for legs. There were also more of the galloping skeletal horse/bull creatures that appeared in the first game. All of the weapon models are normal-mapped, and although several of them are rather conventional (including a shotgun, grenade launcher, minigun, and rocket launcher), none of them look at all realistic. The shotgun, for instance, is a cherry-red color with a chamber for two gigantic shells, while Sam's old melee weapons, the bowie knife and the chain saw, have been replaced by a weapon that resembles a cross between a handheld pizza slicer and an electric circular saw. Of course, Sam also has some bizarre weapons at his disposal, like a cheerful-looking green parrot that merrily sails toward his enemies with a bomb around its neck.

We had a chance to watch a huge battle outside of an installation that resembled one of the tougher battles from the previous Serious Sam games--a mostly flat area with some objects in the world to provide cover, with enemies pouring in on all sides. To escape, Sam made a break for the installation and commandeered a machine gun turret (there will also be stationary rocket turrets, as well as several vehicles). The turret proved effective in chewing up some enemies as well as the nearby jungle foliage (the game will have destructible environmental objects).

We then skipped ahead to a different section on the same world, a ravine carved out in various paths by surrounding foothills. A herd of the new-and-improved kamikazes came barreling toward us, and it appeared as though they'd had a slight makeover (now they're no longer headless; they have oversized bombs for heads). But these guys still scream loudly while running, causing a Doppler effect as herds of them run at you from different distances and from different positions before exploding with their customary crash. We later had a chance to take a look at one of Serious Sam II's new "vehicles" in action--a version of the spherical "hamster wheel" that was used on the old US game show American Gladiators. Sam's version is covered in steely spikes, and it has a certain amount of damage it can sustain (indicated by an onscreen meter). But while he's in the object (which is actually the dead husk of an alien Sam will encounter and vanquish), he can run right over his enemies and grind them to mincemeat (and get a killer workout in his delts and quads).

If what we've seen is any indication, and we hope it is, Serious Sam II will be even more colorful, more frantic, and more over-the-top insane than the previous games (and if you've played the previous games, you know that's saying something). The game is scheduled for release later this year on the PC and Xbox.