To preface this review, I will mention that the game was updated with new optional features that somewhat break the original balance of the retail release. Some of my later criticisms can be alleviated by simply turning these gameplay enhancements on, however I’m writing this review from the perspective of someone who played the original.

The Stern Samuel series had it’s ups and downs, it’s identity never really solidifying into one singular vision. The setting and characters get recycled game to game, placed in different thematic contexts, but that ultimately matters not, as the intended experience is always the same.
Blast hordes of enemies with big weapons in cool places.
Serious Sam 2 is often viewed as the black sheep, only preceded by SS Advance, but coincidentally also comes closest to the original vision for the very first Sam game. But let’s cut the crap and talk about what this game is like.
The story I would view as pretty much standalone, as the first two encounter games only get used as a vague setup to showcase Sam’s heroics, before being summoned by three thinly veiled Star Trek references. Go fight mental, he’s like the bad guy, but to get him you totally need this mcguffin that broke into 5 pieces.
Yeah, that’s the gimmick, you go to 5 distinct planets to collect pieces of a medallion, each featuring about 4 levels each, the game being neatly segmented into chapters, with one final chapter after you acquire all the pieces.
To the games credit, the variety of locations is very high, and the games cartoony artstyle really works, at least for me. The game even holds up Graphically, featuring some pretty gorgeous scenery for it’s time.
What often doesn’t work is the games attempts at humor. When you have a story so light and uncaring for the 4th wall, you at least need good jokes to sell the parody. SS2 can be funny, but often for the wrong reasons. Stilted delivery, sloppily animated cut-scenes, reference humor, and some unfunny jokes that are trying way too hard for a chuckle. Sometimes the jokes feel entirely lost in translation. If anything the game feels very earnest, and in that I actually enjoy it, often having a chuckle from the sheer absurdity and straight faced antics Sam pulls off. Most of my enjoyment comes from the environmental humor, boatloads of easter eggs, goofy designs, just a world that feels both cartoony but also somehow tangible.
My nostalgia alone can make me forgive a lot of the narrative shortcomings, but the gameplay is where I reach an impasse. Much of the gameplay remains the same from the previous games, different weapons that are stronger against certain enemies and vice versa. Enter an arena, enemies spawn, shoot them all. If you’ve played a shooter before, this isn’t anything ground breaking.
Enemies and guns remain the same pretty much, only being redesigned to fit the new contexts. But there’s a lot of tweaking on top. You get a dedicated grenade button, reducing much of the hassle of clearing enemies in a pinch, but never really feeling OP. There’s also vehicles now, which are actually kinda OP if you play carefully. There’s also new homing bomb parrots (Hilarious I know), and a new starter pistol on top of the revolvers, that you will literally never use past the first level.
While all the gameplay is there and pretty fun, this game is notorious for it’s rather unbalanced higher difficulties, where you can get soft locked by literally running out of all the ammo in the level.
Probably my main issue with the gameplay however, is how the game turns towards a massive slog nearing the end. The game constantly reuses the same waves over and over, spawning them in very slowly, and it just wears on your attention span. Sometimes they spawn enemies individually, and it’s very clear how small some levels truly are, if you take away all the waiting and needless grinding. There’s no visceral adrenaline feeling to defeating the same goons in the same pattern over and over. And after you slog trough the final levels, you’re rewarded with probably the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ final boss level I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing. It’s just shifting walls on a flat grass field, with dozens of enemy spawners, culminating in a literal bullet hell segment in about 3 cubic meters of space, before dropping the final boss on you, which involves slowly chipping away at his health, while kamikaze drones swarm you every 3 seconds.
If there ever was pure CBT in a videogame, this level is it, and I’m never going to beat this game again, at least not in Single Player.
That said, most of this is contained to the very last chapter, and up until than the game manages to be somewhat fair and fun.
I really don’t know if it’s good or bad, but the game absolutely beams earnest effort from the (at the time) fairly small team of devs, which got a briefcase of cash to develop the game of their dreams, and this very much feels like that, someones dream project, uncaring for any convention or even the players own sanity. If that sounds like something you’d like to delve into, give it a try, but beware.