Arcade-style racing games are most commonly found on consoles, but the PC isn't completely without representation in the genre. There isn't any customization to be done to the cars, no tweaking the power-to-weight ratio or changing tyres, there's just a bunch of cars available with either automatic or manual transmission and a handful of tracks to race them at. At first the player only has access to three tracks, but another three are unlocked by winning in the Championship Mode. Eventually the mirror versions of the six tracks are unlocked as well.
For over a 15-year old racing game Screamer is still surprisingly fun to play but it has definitely aged in all departments. The way the cars' drift feels rather weird and twitchy at times, even minor scrapes between vehicles can send one of the cars flying. The graphics sometimes clip so it can look your car is slightly inside a wall or another car. The sounds and music sometimes cut out. Worst of all, the game is prone to crash every now and then. It's not often enough to be deal-breaker, but when the game exits to desktop when you're five seconds away from winning a race it can be frustating. On the plus side, the game works fine with modern controllers and even supports analog devices like Xbox 360 gamepads, so acceleration, braking and controlling work with the same degree of accuracy as with modern racers.
The game has a certain charm to it. From the enthusiastic announcer (which can be turned off) to just drifting your way through a corner, the game's just plain fun. There are some additional gameplay modes like Slalom where you're supposed to drive through gates in order to get more time to finish the race with, but they weren't that special and the game doesn't even track the best results in those. Even the Time Attack mode is a bit lackluster, I found it more enjoyable to just play normal races and aim for the fastest times on those.
GOG's release of Screamer is my first time ever playing the game for me, so I don't have nostalgia goggles on. I still found it enjoyable and fun to play to the point of mastering the tracks. Here's hoping GOG will also bring Screamer 2 and Screamer Rally to its catalogue.
