Screamer – Review
An arcade racer with a modern anime inspired narrative, made by a team with proven chops in racing games….”yes please!” The new Screamers is a unique offering for the arcade racer space, and in the absence of any new Burnouts or Wipeouts in recent years, this is a very welcome release for fans of the genre.
Be under no illusions, Screamers is a suuuuuuper arcadie track based racer. But it has fresh cyber-punky cars made to slide and boost round roads with reckless disregard to all in sundry. Its very approachable racing mechanics are supplemented by quite a good story, with a cast of anime characters from around the world, such as Ireland, Germany, South Africa, South America parts of Asia and more.
I liked the global cast of racing crews. All have their own story but with an underlying interlocking narrative. I dug the international vibe, but each speak in their own language, which means A LOT of reading of subtitles. Which I am actually gutted about. I eventually got so sick of reading subtitles, I started to hammer ‘skip’ to get back to the racing! Not ideal I know, certainly don’t ask me what happens in the later parts of the story. I have no idea.
The racing is heavy on the drift and light on brakes.
This is a real-deal arcade racer with heaps of speed lines, sweeping corners and it oozes style. A very cool design choice I loved was how changing gears effects ‘boost’. Hitting the gear-up button, works like a timed reload in Gears of War, a fantastic idea that I’m amazed I haven’t seen it done before. Every well-timed gear change gave a boost of speed, a satisfying crackle of exhaust, and a surge of colour. It made all my endorphin receptors fire, every time.
Much was made by the game makers, of Screamers twin stick steering system. So, the left stick is steering and the right stick is sliding or drifting control. Gotta say, I found it to be just a gimmick. The best thing I did was go into control remapping and put them both on the left stick. All of a sudden the game was far, far more fun to play.
The standard fair of Arcade, Story, Garage and Multiplayer modes are on offer here. With car skins, parts and cosmetics for each racer and car unlocked through the game there is a constant feeling of progression. That said, so many are locked behind a story mode that does start to drag due to all the reading, I think a better method of unlock, like credits from various modes, would have been a better option.
Overall, Screamers is a gorgeous game, with a better than expected narrative and slick racing mechanics. I would have appreciated a fully english voiced dub of the game, but thats just me being a picky, single language speaking weeb. Frankly, I would have looooved this effort and story to have gone into a modern cyber-punky WipeOut game, but hey, this is still a very solid alternative and worth your time and money.
