Our Sam is a bit of a misunderstood fellow, you know. "It's just mindless shooting, it'll be pretty boring," said the GAME employee in response to my enquiry as to whether he was yet to play Serious Sam II. "There's a lot of shooting, but it's definitely not mindless," I replied, "you're missing out!" I doubt I changed the guy's mind in the space of a few seconds, but for those of you who've already written Sam off as 'boring, mindless shooting' I'll be grateful for the chance to change your opinion of Serious Sam II - and you'll be grateful too, because it's awesome!

If you need to get up to speed with the concept of Serious Sam, then click here to have a read of what it's all about. As a brief summary, the original Serious Sam was a wonderfully entertaining old school blaster that clearly had 'Doom tribute' plastered all over it, sporting a deliberately superficial and funny story, endless hordes of a variety of monsters spawning in from all directions and a delightfully meaty array of weapons with which to send these fiends straight to hell! Serious Sam II retains the classic formula that worked so well, but expands upon it to add in a lot more variety than was found in the original, meaning that those of you who found SS too samey have a much greater chance of really enjoying getting stuck into SSII.

So, what's changed? On the face of it, not a lot. Mental (the entity determined to destroy Earth) is still at large and this is when a trio of three bizarre looking humanoid beings summon Sam into their presence. "You have about ten seconds to tell me why you brought me here," says Sam, "and two of them are already used up!" The trio explains that they were impressed with the way Sam battled Mental and think he might be The One (or at least two of them do, the other remains very sceptical!) They tell Sam that there is a medallion that makes Mental vulnerable to attack, which has been split into five separate pieces and hidden on five planets. Of course, it's now up to Sam to reassemble the pieces and use the medallion to destroy Mental once and for all. This usage of a clichéd and shallow storyline is deliberate, as Serious Sam never once asks to be taken in any way seriously! And so you're sent to the first planet, a tropical jungle world complete with grand architecture, ancient temples and huge cities, reminiscent of the original game.

However, you'll notice straight away that the graphics have been significantly improved. The colours are still very bold and bright, giving things that slightly larger than life cartoony feel, but there's far more detail in the surroundings now; structures and plants look a lot more intricate and realistic, the skies are lovely, with fluffy white clouds wisping across or the moon shining and stars glinting at night, even the distant backdrops look great, really giving a grand scale feel to proceedings. There's also more interactivity - you can pick up and lob objects or stack crates to reach secret areas. In the village you enter at the beginning, populated by big-headed, blue-skinned jungle natives, you can find vases and crates to destroy and grab a basketball and chuck it at the hoop.

This peaceful beginning doesn't last for long - after a quick exploration (and the discovery of a secret area if you've got any gumption at all!) the onslaught begins, gently at first with a few orks, the weakling cannon fodder of the game. While they're easy to kill, don't underestimate them - as well as the basic laser wielding grunts, there are orks armed with grenades, homing blasters and rockets, as well as ones strapped to mini-copters (which look very comical, as do many enemies in the game). Anyway, you blow a few of these guys away and then reach a sprawling slope with flashing goodies (money, ammo, health and armour) scattered between the luscious flowers, trees and bushes. A whole glut of enemies storm down the slope, but fortunately there's a velociraptor type dinosaur that you can mount and ride, blasting the enemies or just running them over underfoot. This is just one of many vehicles new to Serious Sam II - highlights include a giant hamsterball, a hovering saucer fitted with rapid fire lasers and surrounded by rotating blades, and several different air attack vehicles too, the controls for which are simple so you can get straight on with the blasting!

As well as these vehicles, there are various turrets to use at certain points in the game - machine gun, laser cannon, missile launcher and a couple of others. The ammo is infinite but the armour of the turret is not, so you have to shoot tactically when enemies are coming at you in droves, to prevent your gun from being shot to pieces or overrun and destroyed. You're also not alone any more - there are friendly natives on several worlds and sometimes your mission is to protect them from attackers, introducing another new element of strategy to the blasting. This is mostly about non-stop shooting but it isn't mindless. If you doubt that, stick it on hard mode and see how far you get without putting in any thought. By the time you reach the second world, a land of giant trees and swamps, complete with several base installations courtesy of Mental, you'll find yourself dying a lot and having to make use of cover and prioritise certain types of enemies if you want to progress.

The level designs really are excellent - the variety of locations and the combination of enemies that are thrown at you don't half keep you on your toes. Sometimes you'll be out in the open and enemies will come from all around you, meaning that you have to constantly watch your back, other times you'll be skirting around buildings and shooting through streets, sometimes your back will be against the wall as you fight desperately against hordes of a hundred or more enemies charging at you - and all this with luscious graphics and not a hint of slowdown. That graphical glitch from the first game where the scrolling as you turn caused a slight stutter is pretty much gone now; it still crops up on occasion, but is barely noticeable when it does, as you're concentrating on the frantic action.

The variety of enemies is excellent and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some enemies charge you at high speed in droves - mutant dogs, three-headed flaming Cerberuses, massive ork American football players (who can throw exploding footballs!) and huge mechanical bulls (which knock you flying when they hit you, as in the first game), along with the skeleton beasts that make a welcome return. Others come slowly but fire powerful weapons - there are demons, with tank treads for legs who fire powerful laser blasts and rocket launching demons too. And those massive mechanical T-Rexes are lethal, as are the giant acid shooting spiders, which are so huge that they tower above you as you run underneath their legs. Then there are flying enemies, like the heavily armed helicopters and the incredibly annoying and hard to kill witches, who speed around on flaming purple broomsticks, cackling and shooting blue fireballs at you. When you get a mix of enemies coming in, such as witches, flaming Cerberuses and tank demons, you have to really focus - blast those witches with careful aiming but don't let the Cerberuses get too close or they'll savage you, and dodge those tank demon blasts or you'll be toast before you know it. Every enemy, large and small, looks excellent and is well animated, while the bosses are so massive that they defy belief - I'll leave those as a surprise but suffice to say, each boss is as much of a spectacle as they are a challenge.

The difficulty curve is spot on, breaking you in relatively gently on the first world (although even this is fairly tough on Hard) and then stepping it up a notch as you progress across the other planets. It really is a testament to the developers that the combination of enemy types, level designs, scenery changes and usage of turrets and vehicles keep things fresh and interesting throughout the game's 42 levels. Yes, that's right, 42, so don't expect to complete this quickly! Beyond the jungle and swamps, you soon end up in treetop villages (Ewok style) and then briefly visit the Land of the Giants, which is graphically fantastic and features massive discarded cans, spanners, huge flowers and trees and even a giant secret poo, complete with flies that you can blast for power-ups! Toilet humour crops up now and again and always raises a chuckle, like when Sam approaches a base and his fart awakes a sleeping guard! Then there's the Oriental themed world, complete with ornate decoration and blossom blowing in the wind, and the desolate underworld region too, amongst others.

Each world has a range of distinct and very catchy music themes, which switch between the calmer version when the action pauses for times of exploration when searching for those plentiful and often tricky to find secret areas and items, and the fast-paced music for when you're blasting enemies to bits. The music really is a step up from the original and there are some truly memorable tunes in here - it's not Halo 2 but it's not trying to be and the arcade style melodies work beautifully. The voice acting is well done and funny (although Nettie, your female AI companion feels like a second-rate Cortana) but the best part of the sound comes with its use on enemies. Every enemy has their own unique sound and the excellent usage of stereo is such that you can always hear what types of enemies are coming and from which direction - in the heat of the moment you'll be using your ears as much as your eyes to make sure you don't get flanked unawares from the side or behind. The weapons effects and explosions all sound great too, as expected.

The weapons are all back with a couple of new additions - the dual pistols look cool but are a last resort infinite ammo weapon, then there's a laser weapon you can charge up to fire a ball of energy, a buzzsaw, dual Uzis, rocket launcher, rapid fire shotgun, sawn off double shotgun, plasma cannon and sniper rifle, plus the huge cannon makes a welcome return, as does the serious bomb, which clears the screen of all enemies and can be a real life saver when reserved for that vital do or die moment. The weapons have an excellent range, the ammo is plentiful and there's no reloading, so the Uzis and plasma cannon can constantly spray, while the shotguns auto-reload after every shot, so you can incorporate this very brief delay into your strategy.

On the multiplayer front there's no versus mode, which isn't a big deal. What is a big deal is the inclusion of a co-operative mode for the entire game. It's not split screen, so you have to system link offline. However, the crowning achievement is co-op mode online for up to four players! That's right, you and three Xbox Live friends can blast your way through the entire game (or whichever levels you fancy) and select the difficulty, number of lives and so on. This is so much fun and exactly the kind of thing that more games need - a versus mode really wouldn't have been that great, as the Xbox has more than enough of those already. Just look at Doom 3 to see how short-lived and tacked-on the multiplayer versus felt there. But co-op for up to four players, on the Serious difficulty level? It's brilliant fun and makes this a must have for all online shooter fans.

There's really very little here not to like - the presentation is excellent throughout, with amusing level briefings, minimal load times and a score breakdown of treasure, enemies killed, secrets found, lives left and time taken at the end of each level. There will probably be some gamers that find the action repetitive and tedious, but Serious Sam II perfectly implements its mission to make the intense blasting action as varied, challenging and strategic as possible.

Serious Sam II is an absolute blast in every respect! It looks and sounds fantastic, the action is virtually non-stop and the combination of varied level designs and scenery, masses of different enemies and usage of vehicles and turrets keeps things feeling fresh and interesting from start to finish. I very nearly gave this a 10 - the only reason I'm not is because the action is deliberately limited by the game's intent. But this really is a classy title and I would urge everyone to at the very least give it a rental, because it's arcade gaming in its purest and most enjoyable form, and as such deserves a place in your collection. Ah, Sam, welcome back old friend - I've missed you!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).