Posted on: February 13, 2009
hansschmucker
Verified ownerGames: 843 Reviews: 3
Arcade racing at its best
Let's get one thing out of the way: If you look for realism, look somewhere else. And I don't mean just the graphics, but also any kind of physics. You won't find them here. Screamer was the PC's response to Ridge Racer and it manages to capture much of the charm early RR titles had. The graphics: The graphics were beautiful at the time and among the best you could get for PC. And the bright and lively style still works to a certain extend. The environments, while not overly detailed still provide a solid experience and the car models work beautifully. Neat little effects like the reflecting windows of your car or video sequences playing on screens beside the track provide a little liveliness that many other racers from that era lack. The downside is that this game cannot make use of any kind of 3D acceleration and in order to pull off the impressive amount of detail for the environments and cars, the viewing distance had to be limited. In other words: you get the dreaded pop-up effect quite often. Also, anything beyond 640x400 is totally out of the question. However, these limitations are purely visual: The tracks have been designed in a way that doesn't punish you for the game's shortcomings. If you have played this or similar games during that era and are able to look back with fond memories, then you will enjoy the graphics, otherwise the resolution and limited amount of detail might be a dealbreaker. Sound The game includes a very nice MIDI and CDAudio (enhanced versions of the MIDI sounds) soundtrack. It's really hard to describe, but sufficient to say that it has a bit of an 80s sound to it. Instead of trying to describe it, I'll just tell you to look for it on YouTube. Besides that there's the usual arcade commentator and quite frankly, he can and will get on your nerves... but can you imagine an arcade racer without it? The Gameplay Race around a track. Do it as fast as possible. Simple, right? Well, no. Not in Screamer. In the absence of any kind of physics, you don't just have to steer to get around corners, you have to break and slide through them. Time your breaking perfectly and you'll slide through the corners beautifully. Time it a little bit wrong and you'll smash into the nearest wall. Likewise, crashing into one of your opponents will usually result in the one who's on the front racing away as if nothing had happened, while the one at the back comes almost to a complete stop. In other words: don't collide with them. It all comes down to timing your moves perfectly and the game can be pretty unforgiving, however after the initial irritation, you'll come to love it. It simply captures the simple arcade style perfectly. The Conclusion is very, very difficult. Basically, if you like modern racing games like DIRT or Burnout, then this won't do you any good. However, if you grew grew up with Arcade machines like Ridge Racer or Cruisin* World you'll be reminded of all the good times you had playing them. My view is the later one and that's why I'll give it a 4/5.
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