After having a blast playing "The First Encounter", I just had to play the sequel as soon as it came out. I loved it, and it marked the peak of the franchise.
The games picks up right where Serious Sam Stone left off as he leaves Ancient Egypt aboard the SSS Centerprice. Unfortunately, the ship is damaged and crashes in South America, and he's forced into another adventure to find another alien ship, all the while fighting off hordes of Mentals minions.
Rather than staying confined to a single region in the same era, Sam travels forward in time and across three different locations: Mesoamerica, then Babylonia, and finally Medieval Poland where you obtain the Holy Grail. Once more, the levels are huge and beautifully designed and well-detailed, with the aesthetics to each time period perfectly fitting. On a side note, NETRICSA is noticeably quirkier, strengthening the games humor.
The game's difficulty and action are amped up, with more numerous enemies and a few new stronger ones like Cucurbito the Pumpkin and Fiendian Reptiloid Demons. But luckily, you're able to counter this with new weapons like the chainsaw, flamethrower, the always useful sniper rifle, and the serious bomb to clear out large numbers of enemies during tough encounters. You also had power-ups to help you in battle, like serious speed, damage, and invincibility.
Aside from those changes, the sequels formula didn't expand on the first game. The graphics, gameplay and sounds are all the same. But, even so, this game still definitely trumped any of the disappointing sequels that followed. The HD remake is still available on Steam if you want to try it out.
