Serious Sam 2 is amazing. It feels completely different from the previous two installments but at the same time, nothing changed in terms of gameplay, story, and mechanics.

To start off, the graphics and sprites in this game look totally different from the earlier games but are stunning, colourful and polished. It blew my mind when first playing it as a kid. The new weapon models and detailed environments are just impressive. Because the later Serious Sam games did get back to their original roots, the graphical theme of this game feels unique and I kind of wished they would continue with this style. The game feels like an outcast in the series because of its graphics.

The music is also a big surprise. The first games featured mostly metal tracks from the Croatian band Undercode, which was totally fine and enjoyable for me as a metal fan. The music in Serious Sam 2 however, features many different kinds of ambient music and fight tracks which adapt themselves to the specific worlds you are playing in. The tracks from Greendale and Siriusopolis Uptown remain my personal favorite. The sound effects on the other hand, are a little weak. They feel unfitting for the action in this game.

Speaking about worlds, Serious Sam 2 offers five different themed worlds that you are traveling to in order, to find the missing pieces of a destroyed amulet to make your arch enemy Mental vulnerable. You get teleported in by some magic nerds, ripped straight from Star Trek, and they tell you to go look for them, make the amulet whole and destroy Mental on the sixth and final world, Siriustown. Each world has a boss that you destroy to collect the amulet piece. In the end, you fight the big, freaking building, the Mental Institute that houses Mental.

What makes the game so incredibly good to me, is the humor that the developers implemented into the game. Netricsa and Sam talk a lot, make jokes and references to other games and movies all the time and the extensive use of the Gnaar enemy from the first game in the many hilarious cut-scenes, in which he is a NPC that always nags or bothers you is just epic. The first line in the game refers to a bigger game budget, and this is the reason that Netricsa, your silent AI information companion can talk now.

The enemy models are also hilarious and are almost all completely new. Only four enemies from the previous games make an appearance in Serious Sam 2, and even then, they are completely mutilated into something silly and became a joke of their former self. Just imagine fighting a pair of robot legs with a T-Rex head that has a cigar in its mouth, a witch on a broom, a murderous toy rhino with a spinning key on its back or a zombie, complete in a smoking with a tie and a big, fat shotgun.

Serious Sam 2 features a lot of hidden Easter eggs and secrets and every one of them is worth it for a quick laugh. But the best secret joke of all, is the hidden Duke Nukem skeleton, hanging from a tree with sunglasses on and a big, fat rocket in his ass. Then Sam speaks the phrase “Blondie, is that you? I was waiting FOREVER for you to show up”, a nice backstab to the development of the game Duke Nukem Forever that, at the time, was still not released yet and was the biggest competition for Serious Sam.

The game is of course, is just as hard as the other ones, but for a diehard Serious Sam fan, such as myself, I destroyed it.

A special note must be made for the cut-scenes at the start and finish of each level. It is just so funny and well-made that I never skipped any of them when playing. The game does not take itself seriously and it shows in every clip.

The added vehicles made the game also a lot of fun, although, they are sometimes very buggy.

Croteam really outdid themselves with this game and the love and effort they put into Serious Sam 2 is legendary. My deepest respect to this small, cute little studio from Croatia.

I had so much fun playing this game, when I still used the physical disc, and my first time playing, all I could feel was pure, legit joy that did not change over the years.

Still recommend this game to everyone.

Thank you, Serious Sam 2, for your participation in my childhood.