Serious Sam II demo blasts onto DLX

In 2001, The Gathering released Serious Sam: The First Encounter into a market that saw first-person shooters blossoming. However, Sam was different in that he actually didn't take himself seriously at all. The lush, colorful environments were a stark contrast to the largely industrial and gloomy settings of other games in the genre, and its use of humor and entertainingly demented characters bucked the normal trend.

Serious Sam II is set to shoot up PCs next month, bringing with it the same blend of color and humor of its predecessor. However, gamers who can't wait that long to try out the sequel can download the new demo from GameSpot DLX today.

The demo features one single-player level, the Seriousopolis Uptown, which has five levels of difficulty. The single-player tag may be misleading, as the demo lets gamers sample the ambitious cooperative mode by letting up to four players tackle the level simultaneously (the retail version will let an astonishing 16 people team up).

Serious Sam II is currently in development by Croteam and will be published by 2K Games. The M for Mature-rated game will retail for $29.99 on the PC, and it will be released for $39.99 on the Xbox. For more details, head over to GameSpot's recent hands-on of the shooter.