Posted on: February 17, 2009

Ois

Games: 1224 Reviews: 17

Great early racer.

Screamer has all the points of an oldschool arcade racer, the closest you'll probably find to the game is Daytona USA (1993). Despite it's age, it's still fun today. Track and Car selection is quite small, but it's not really an issue. Each car handles differently, and the aim becomes to select the 'right' one to shave off that extra 1/100th of a second off your best time and finding the perfect path. A lap of each track only takes under a minute, and (what I consider a huge plus) it's quick to reset to the start and try again to gain that perfection. Graphically, Screamer is very low poly and suffers from a fair bit of pop-up, but not enough to make racing difficult or distracting. It also goes for a more vibrant colour scheme than other racers at the time and those around now. With a lack of lighting and other modern features, this works well to the games advantage (check out a few videos, or the demo rather than screenshots). Musically, we have fairly standard Allistair Brimble (ID3 tagged). This is both good and bad. Most tracks are fairly forgettable, but unlike a lot of modern racers, we are not hit with whiney rock or emo music. Instead a generic metal soundtrack takes its place. Unfortunately, there is no singing a'la 'Rolling Start', though some of you would also consider this good :) The most fun to be gained with this game I found came about from the GOG started Time Attack challenge. It's over now, but join in on the forums and compete with the rest of us (or suggest your own requirements for one).

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Posted on: March 8, 2013

bigbobo

Verified owner

Games: 80 Reviews: 2

very simple arcade racer

Compared to newer games, you just get so much more content today with the same basic mechanic/gameplay. Many games on GoG are outstanding gameplay-wise, but this one has been surpassed too many times by new games. I didn't feel an urge to unlock anything because the only unlockables were apparently a car or two. The levels were similar and I didn't find much to explore overall in the game. Good thing is that it works. If you want levels and cars to get out of the way, and focus on simple arcade racing, then this game will do fine.

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Posted on: April 11, 2014

khron

Verified owner

Games: 372 Reviews: 3

Awesome... esp back in the day

This game was simply awesome back in the day. It was an arcade title tho, so don't expect realistic handling. If you look for fast and fun retro arcade driving - try it. If you don't - try something else. Still, it's nice to see that you can still play such an old game today. It's your typical Good old Game :)

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Posted on: July 29, 2019

Galdelico

Verified owner

Games: 60 Reviews: 3

Yep, still great in 2019!

I'll get it out straight away: I LOVE Screamer. Loved it back then, still loving it to this very day. Often criticised due to its floaty, tank controls and steep difficulty, I believe it's among those - very few - classic arcade racers that aged better, and are still super fun to play. Sure, it requires a bit of practice, and it's true, cars handle nowhere near 'realistically', but once you get into the game's flow, it's a blast to play: it's fast, tense (yet always fair), the tracks are fantastic - all different to each other and equally interesting - and their design is so spot on anyone can win with any car... Oh, and the Bullet is some hilarious ride, folks: it definitely pays off the sweat required to unlock it.

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Posted on: December 24, 2020

In.Vader

Verified owner

Games: 57 Reviews: 5

Nice looker, horrible collision

This is more arcade than most new arcade racing games, to the point where the car handling is actually pre-scripted. Some corners are scripted to be always drifty, whlie others are always grippy corners or low speed corners where you need to let go of the gas. As a result a lot of the maps feel very same-y. Highest difficulty gets you rubberbanding AI. Each car has a manual and an automatic variant. Each car is different in the sense that some are better at drift corners, others are better at grip corners, or just have a higher top speed or acceleration. The cars are real life cars (just without the name, cuz licensing). I recognize the Porsche 911 Turbo, Ferrari F40 and Lamborghini Diablo among others. Music is done by none other than every 90s videogame's 8-bit audio legend: Allistair Brimble, except the music comes in CD quality instead of AdLib midi, as back in the day it was popular to have the CD-ROM in your PC also function as a cd player for any music CDs you had. It's a beautiful looking game and if you're into this type of games you might even enjoy the scripted handling, but the collision definiively ruins the game a lot - because that's also scripted. If you so much as touch another vehicle from behind, yours does a backflip. Conversely, if you're in the lead, you can abuse this to make everyone else getting near you do a backflip, because as long as your car's nose is further ahead than theirs, you can drive into them and they will be punished with a backflip. Game crashed for me after 10 or so races, until I tinkered around with Dosbox a bit. I'd highly recommend playing the sequel instead of this.

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