Oh gawd, why? I played the demo of this back in '05 and thought it was alright, but I decided to get Quake IV and F.E.A.R. instead, and boy am I glad I did. I enjoyed the previous two titles in the series and was hoping for more of the same. In some cases, that is what I got, but most of the time it was stale mediocrity peppered with bits of frustration. Let's start with the positives, of which there are few: the graphics are pretty nice for 2005 and the sound is alright with some nice music tracks. That's about it.
Alright, time for the negatives: The cutscenes and the humor in general are fucking awful. They're animated cheaply (one was literally just Sam's ragdoll falling for ten seconds repeated a couple of times), have awful voice-acting, and are cringe-worthy due to their horrible jokes. Admittedly, there were one or two jokes that made me laugh, but they're like the bits of corn in a pile of shit; not worth it.
The gunplay mechanics haven't changed much from the previous titles, just some new weapons added to the arsenal. The changes come in the form of vehicles and mounted turrets with both of them being lame. The vehicles are alright, it's just that they're mainly used to mitigate the challenge of fighting large hordes of enemies. Several encounters amount to a large horde appearing, getting into a vehicle, exterminating most of the enemies, then finishing off whatever enemies remain on foot. Those sections are just really dull. Say what you want about Quake IV's vehicle sections, but at least they incorporated their own enemies and had
some challenge. One final note: While not a vehicle per-say, the hamster ball is an awesome addition. It's so much fun to destroy enemies in such a different and silly way.
As for the turrets, they just feel out of place and kill any sort of challenge in the level. I normally love turrets in games, but I hated them in this. I think the reason for this is that in games like Medal of Honor or Half-Life the turret greatly increases the player's firepower and allows him/her to mow down larger mobs of enemies than is common in those sort of titles. Serious Sam on the other hand has the player killing a shit ton of enemies as part of its norm, so having a turret is rather redundant even though it does make some encounters easier. Every time I use one I feel like I'm just moving a cursor and watching things die with no resistance. BOR-RING!
Next up are the bouts of unrelenting monotony, I mean the boss fights. God, each one of these are just crap. Every one of these has a stupid ass gimmick to detract from the established gunplay, with the first one and fifth using turrets and the last two requiring fucking vehicles. The most grievous example is the fifth boss fight against the dragon. The map is pretty much a circle with multiple levels (like floors, not stages) and jump power-ups littered throughout the stage. Sounds like a basic but good setup for a fun boss fight, but nope, your weapons do no damage to the dragon and you need to use turrets to damage it. Turrets that you have to find ammo for. A promising boss fight is turned into an absolute chore by the addition of these turrets. The last boss is also a complete pain in the ass as not only is it a vehicle boss fight, it's made extremely tedious by the boss's immense health bar and the sudden impotency of the vehicle's laser cannons. Ugh, so awful.
Like I said, the main gameplay itself is fine, but nothing great, or even that different for the most part. With the exception of the grenades, there are no improvements to the meat and potatoes of the game. Most of the game feels pretty tame when compared to its predecessors, even when the challenge starts ramping up. There are some fun firefights, but not enough of them to make the game worth recommending. It just feels very pedestrian and bland.
In short, this game has shitty boss fights, annoying cutscenes with lame jokes, disappointing innovations, and is completely underwhelming when compared to its contemporaries and its predecessors. if Call of Juarez is disappointing for doing too much with too little, then Serious Sam II is disappointing for doing too little with too much.