Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter
The glorious high-definition (HD) chaos from The First Encounter continues now in Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, a remake of the classic arcade FPS Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, which originally scored an overall of 85% on Metacritic and was awarded Game of The Month on Gamespot!
Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter includes spectacularly enhanced visuals and more special effects like Hippy and Kid’s mode, with trademark frantic Single-play, newly developed Survival and Beast Hunt modes, along with all time favorite Cooperative play. Combine those with intense Versus and Team modes for up to 16 players and in over 18 multiplayer maps, Demo Recording option, Spectators and Dedicated Server support, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter is a worthy successor to the original masterpiece.
Key Features
SINGLE PLAYER
- Various Environments and Secrets – Unleash mayhem on 3 different spectacular worlds: South America, ancient Mesopotamia and medieval Europe.
- Discover over 130 secrets including over 15 brand new ones hidden in the fray.
- Unique Enemies and Bosses – Fight with 27 nightmarish warriors in Mental’s army, including old favorites from The First Encounter like Beheaded Kamikaze, Syrian Werebull and Kleer Skeleton. Go head to head against 5 new enemies and 3 new Bosses.
- Special Weapons and Power-Ups – Wreak havoc with a huge arsenal of weapons including 3 new toys: the Sniper Rifle, Flamethrower and Chainsaw. Use Power-Ups to additionally increase your fighting and agility skills.
- Serious Editor 3 – Create your levels and share them on SteamWorks!
MULTIPLAYER
- NEW! (not seen in Classic game) Survival Mode – Try to stay alive as long as you can against continued enemies’ attacks in specially designed survival maps!
- Classic Co-Op Mode – Plunge into chaos with up to 16 players in campaign cooperative mode!
- NEW! (not seen in Classic game) More Co-Op Modes – Play even more along your friends in newly developed Coin-Op and Survival cooperative modes with up to 16 players in campaign game!
- NEW! (not seen in Classic game) Beast Hunt Modes – Fight against other players or teams while also playing campaign levels in Beast Hunt and Team Beast Hunt!
- Versus Mode – Watch all hell break loose in over 8 classic and brand NEW! deathmatch maps with up to 16 players!
- NEW! (not seen in Classic game) More Versus Modes – Fight against your friends in more versus modes including My Burden, Last Man Standing and Instant Kill!
- NEW! (not seen in Classic game) Team Modes – Compete against other teams in team matches including Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Last Team Standing!
STEAM FEATURES – NEW! (not seen in Classic game)
- Steam Achievements – Earn 50 amazingly attractive achievements to boost your social standing.
- Steam Leaderboards – See your score recorded in both single player and cooperative leaderboards.
- Steam Cloud – Store your profile online on the Steam Cloud servers, including your bindings, last played level and campaign progress.
Steam User 1
Serious Sam has always had fun arenas to mow down hordes of unique enemies, though some of the areas do overstay their welcome I cant deny the arsenal of weapons were always a blast to use.
Steam User 1
Good experience, overall the only game that came close to Serious Sam's former glory. The multiplayer component is not perfect, it's not like classic but it works good, and is a nice variation and change, sadly much more similar to Quake than to SSC gameplay vise, but still good on it's own.
Steam User 0
This game has been my whole adolescence. Probably the most fun i have ever had in a multiplayer game. Fragging since 2012
Steam User 0
Definitely a fun old-school shooter experience. It adds new weapons, enemies, gimmicks, etc. compared to the first encounter. It definitely ramps up much faster, as you already own nearly all the weapons and have fought a few of the end-game enemies by the end of the second level. There is still a sense of progression and escalating difficulty, but the game has three "worlds" that each start out with a soft reset of gear and difficulty. As always, the world design is really cool and gives you a wide variety of areas to fight in. The game still has some cheap spawns and jumpscare enemies ambushing you around corners, but drastically cuts down on it. It overall feels more fair than the first encounter, where you can reach a point of reasonably predicting where an ambush might take place and can survive them even on serious difficulty.
One thing that might bother people is that a huge amount of the achievements for the game are multiplayer-based, and while there does seem to still be a surprisingly active community for it, they do require you to play hundreds of matches to get them all. It is also worth noting that the HD version has better graphics and a bit of extra content, but that may not be enough to justify it costing more than 3 times as much as the original version does.
Steam User 0
The definitive Serious Sam experience. Just about everything in this game is perfect. If I had complaints, it would be directed at specific sections where the game takes control away from you, such as in a room where you're being pulled towards the nearest wall 24/7, and a tall room where you and every enemy constantly bounces on water. Yes, water. Beyond those sections, this game completely eclipses The First Encounter in every way, whether it be more weapons, enemy types, or generally better arenas and environments. I enjoy the first half of The First Encounter, but with that being said, the first half of this game is far better, and it stays good. Second half of The First Encounter is average to frustrating, on top of the environments not changing much aesthetically. This game ranges from Aztec, to creepy horror town, to christmasy snowy village. I love the environmental variety here. The first game is just ancient Egypt, which is a nice setting, but it's just that setting. Much better here.
Steam User 0
A milestone of the FPS genre and a quality HD remake that’s still worth trying out and/or revisiting. The Second Encounter is the superior one, having significantly more variety in weapons, enemies and environments than The First Encounter. The levels generally alternate between two styles, and while the "corridor parts" feel rather dated (mostly relying on cheap tricks like spawning an enemy right in your face), the big arena fights are just as beautiful and engaging as ever.
There’s a lot of smart design decisions here, ensuring that any strategic play like prioritizing your targets or choosing the right gun for the job is rewarded just as much as pure shooting/dodging. At the same time, the game is not afraid to test your raw FPS mettle, always throwing the danger from multiple directions or trapping you with enemy hordes in close quarters (dancing around kleers with the double shotgun is an exquisite experience).
There’s also a near-perfect collection of difficulties, starting from Tourist, which makes the game accessible even for those who never played shooters before (I really needed this back in 2002), and ending with Serious, which is a beautifully balanced challenge that ups your firepower by doubling the ammo but expects some high-level play in return.
A special mention goes to The Grand Cathedral, a last level so awesome and epic that it might make you fall in love with the game all on its own.
Steam User 0
A great remaster that surpasses the original game, it is advisable to buy this version than the first encounter, since this version brings the Egyptian levels of the first encounter, obviously the fusion version is much better, but if you don't have such a good computer, I recommend playing in this version