surprised to hear anyone say anything positive about serious sam 2, but everything he said about it definitely makes sense
I fucking love SS2. Tons of wacky weapons,levels,enemies, everything looks nice and colorful, and just feels satisfying to shoot things.
Jokes aged like trash but they still got some charm to them.
And had fun playing coop with one friend back in the day.
I played both SS2 and SS3 last year and surprisingly, 2 struck me as the better game. It has a broader variety of enemies, weapons, environments, set-pieces, boss fights and so on compared to SS3, and generally the core gameplay is just better. The maps are creative and use open spaces well, and it knows exactly what enemies to throw at you and when. Ranged enemies fire projectiles as in the original games, and along with melee-based enemies like kamikazes, kleers etc they keep the player on the move and allow you to dodge incoming attacks.
SS3 took a big step backwards in that regard. It doesn't use open spaces as well, there's little sense of variety in any way, and it has far too many hitscan enemies that force you into hiding. Not to mention the semi-invulnerable, semi-invisible, teleporting Witch-Brides that hold you in position and slow your aim...
Serious Sam 2 was honestly great, if fucking insane. It also had a feature, that I wish every game had and that is if you hit the 'N' key (IIRC), you can modify the viewmodel in-game, so you can center the weapons, flip them upside-down, make them smaller, larger, whatever you want.
https://i.imgur.com/gEREo3d.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TpbCIq3.jpg
I had no idea. It's per weapon too so you can set them however you want. Why is this not a thing in every game?
SS2 is great, people who say it's bad just look at the cartoon graphics and leave it at that without deeper analysis.
as someone who's a BIG fan of serious sam who exclusively plays on serious difficulty and fucks around in the editors a lot, i think TSE and SS3 are tied as the best main series games in terms of gameplay, and SS2 is the worst. SS2's balancing is all over the place, and there are lots of other annoyances such as invisible walls EVERYWHERE, the terrible checkpoint system, lots of areas where you can get softlocked (often from enemies getting stuck, especially the physics-based ones), huge enemy roster with only a few being used consistently and only like 2.5 old enemies, no proper netricsa (just bootleg cortana instead)... it's still fun, but it's VERY flawed, and these issues on top of the super controversial tone are the reasons why croteam decided SS2 is noncanon and is going to be replaced in the storyline by a new game after SS4
from what's been revealed about SS4, it might end up being the best game yet, and i am absolutely ready to destroy that preorder button when it dares to show itself
Feel like he was a bit too nickpicky and harsh in this one compared to his other videos, it was almost exhausting to watch at times.
I am now inspired to play through the second encounter, I bought it on GOG some time ago but never really started moving through it. The feedback in this thread about SS2 is very intriguing to me also.
SS3 isn't as bad as he's making it out to be.
Honestly I could never bring myself to replay the full game. The first half is so slow and boring. But there are a ton of cool fights and set pieces near the end. Also the DLC is pretty good.
The game appears to have a strong dissonance between its largely realistic visual style and its gameplay style, almost as if someone made super mario styled arma 3.
Being a pretty casual Sam fan (Painkiller and Flying Hog's games are more my flair) I gotta say I prefer 2 and Second Encounter to the other entries. Level and enemy variety are up at the top of my must-haves list for a horde shooter, and good-feeling weapons are a close second. Those wide-open levels in 2 MASSIVELY spoiled my appreciation for all other horde shooters.
I really wish croteam continued going with that cartoon/realistic artstyle of TFE and TSE HD, Sam 2 is too over the top in that regard and Sam 3 is the complete opposite, just bland and "realistic" for the sake of realism. Sam 4 looks like it's gonna be a bit better than Sam 3 but it still has that kind of style.
He doesn't mention this at all, but a lot of Serious Sam 2 was cut. The whole game has a rough around the edges feel as a result, as it's clear Croteam had grand ambitions but had pressure from 2K to get the thing shipped. Remember, this is an era before Steam, or if Steam did exist when this game was out then we were only playing Valve games on it, so self-funding wasn't a thing.
We'll likely get a Serious Sam 2 redux after Serious Sam 4 though, which is good - I'm kinda tired of the games being prequels.
Brought up offhand that SS3 used assets from the unnamed Croteam military shooter - it's also heavily rumored that Croteam was outsourced to make content for Doom 4 (the canceled Doom game that would later become Doom 2016) and just re-used the stuff for their own game or something.
The more you know here.
I finished TSE at least twice in recent times (past years notwithstanding) but for some reason I can't bring myself to play TFE - Guess this is my daily reminder to play it again
I played the SS2 demo as a kid but never got to experience the full game, does it run properly on Windows 10? IIRC it's also available on Steam?
Yes and yes
SS2 was hard to swallow because the tone was just off the wall. SS was always a silly series but I couldn't help but roll my eyes at exploding unicycle clowns, asian stereotypes, and SECRET FOUND: SECRET SEXY BUSH!!!
And I remember the game just breaking itself completely, at one point it felt like I was going to random levels and there was no story cohesion whatsoever. I think this was due to the flawed checkpoint system people have mentioned, this was a decade ago so I'm not certain on what was going on but it really took what little left I had in me to beat the game.
It's genuinely insane to think about the amount of games released between 2009-2012 which borrowed elements from MMS games, and I still can't believe that SS3 bought into it, especially the first portion of the game. Sprinting, ironsights, hitscan grunts, and a considerable about of reloading guns, it takes a while to see any environment which isn't the same grey/brown corridor and street.
I recently started replaying SS3, and whilst it's not as bad as I recall, it's still a pain to get through. And it's quite the oddity, who were they trying to bring in by having the game take on contradictory elements but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. At least we've moved away from restrictive gameplay trends, and that audiences, devs, and publishers are more open to a wide spectrum of FPS games; allowing for a lot more diversity and the chance for old franchises to return with new blood.
The plus side is all the variation you face instead of just desert desert desert. It cracks me up to no end that the city in the trees is called Branchester.
This is one feature I want them to keep because the default movement speed (even in FE/SE) is painfully slow when you need to move through large spaces.
TSE>>SS2>TFE>SS3
TFE and TSE both have a near perfect gameplay loop. TSE improves upon TFE monotonous level design and scenario variety.
SS2 is a divergence as a whole, some good, namely variety, but mostly bad.
SS3 brings back monotonousness of TFE while shitting on the gameplay loop.
SS2's double shotgun definitely deserves more recognition. It's just so fucking good.
Serious Same II and The Second Encounter are the best and there's definitely a potential for an even better Serious Sam game.
Yeah about that...
https://youtu.be/p89ZCqjfYQY
I hated it at first but I found myself appreciating it later because they were clearly having fun creating all that nonsense and it felt contagious.
ngl, TFE strikes me more as a tech demo with a morbid running gag of punishing your FPS pickup kleptomania by spawning enemies right on top of you for seemingly inconspicuous pickups. If there's anything I learned, it's that collecting +1 pickups isn't worth it because it usually results in you being surrounded by gnaars, kleers, marshhoppers, variations and combinations of the former and a wall coming up behind you that spawns in scorpions to shoot down at you.
The second encounter has some ultra shitty pickups too, such as its habit of giving you lots of health only to then immediately nullify it by throwing 500 monsters at you in a tight space.
SECRET ROCKET FESTIVAL HAS BEEN ACTIVATED
SS2 also had an exploit where you could play as any enemy or even objects in the game.
I always used to play as that french headless kamikaze to trick players, sadly it broke level triggers so I played as the chicken model instead lol.
The memories flooded back what a great video!
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