I quick-saved about 19 times in my first hour of Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter. That's a quick-save about every three minutes or so.
For many of you, I think that statement alone will explain whether The Second Encounter is a can of worms you want to open. For everyone else, let me be succinct: Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter is a relentless string of cheap shots, monster closets, instant deaths, bombastic weapons, and irreverently juvenile humor. Serious Sam is designed around ever escalating crescendos of over-the-top violence that will likely see you quicksaving mid-battle with the prescient expectation that a giant enemy will spring over that wall in the distance firing rockets that you couldn't possibly avoid in time that will kill you, instantly. If the idea of a die-rinse-repeat school of shooter design makes you want to hurt yourself, you can get off the Serious Sam train right now; if that sounds like a party to you, then read on.
The Second Encounter is, well, the second "HD Remix" remake using the Serious Engine 3, and given its nature as a $20.00 downloadable, it makes a decent enough impression visually. While levels are simple from a geometry perspective, they're huge, with atmospheric touches here and there. You can also pull out to third person, which can be quite useful. However, tilting the camera up exposes the limitations of this addition -- as much as two-thirds of my view was often obscured by tall grass or other bits of the environment. It does make the chainsaw more useful in more situations. PC players may have to consider when and where they use the third person view, as it appears to put a noticeable dent in framerates, though the game otherwise runs pretty well. At 2560 x 1600, my Core i7, Win7-64 system with dual GeForce GTX 260s managed to hit at or above 60 frames per second most of the time, and my home PC's aging 8800GT managed decent performance at 1920 x 1080 as well.
Unfortunately, the audio sounds even worse than its age would indicate. The Serious Sam property started as something between a budget and full retail title back in the early 00s, and strong sound design was never a priority. Full of stock sound effects straight from CD-ROM adventure titles almost a decade older than the original Second Encounter release, this HD remake might actually hurt your ears. It's even more unfortunate, then, that you absolutely need to hear what's going on in the game, given its propensity to spawn hordes of enemies upon even the most innocuous item pickup. It's all monster closets all the time in Serious Sam; you'll be more surprised when you're not ambushed than when you are.