Screamer Review

There are plenty of anime shows and movies out there centred on racing. Initial D, Redline, even the classics like Speed Racer are all worth a watch. It seems rather rare, though, that we get racing games with an anime flair. Thankfully, developer Milestone (who definitely knows a thing or two about the racing genre) is back with Screamer, a long-dormant IP. Although one of their oldest series (with Screamer Rally being their last release in 1997), the MS-DOS titles are a far cry from how this new iteration looks!

Including high-octane, arcade-style driving sounds exciting enough, but combat mechanics and a twin-stick control system? Okay, Milestone, now I’m really intrigued… On with the review!

If you’ve ever played an arcade racer before, chances are the controls were basically one trigger to accelerate and the other to brake/drift. With Screamer, things are a little more complicated. For starters, the left stick controls your car's movement (no surprise there), but the right stick controls the angle of your drift! If you played the criminally underrated Inertial Drift, then you’ll get the idea, but if not, know that whilst it’s simple to execute, getting that perfect drift will take some time to master. I’ll admit, I struggled with it at first, often just tilting the stick all the way to the side I wanted to drift into, which usually resulted in me getting up close and personal with a wall. The key was to gently move it as you drive around a turn, much like how you’d turn the car normally with the left stick.

That’s not all that makes Screamer stand out, as it has plenty of other mechanics that keep races constantly exciting. For one, the Echo system is a unique mechanic that has you building up two Sync gauges, with one tied into speed and the other on attacking and defending. Your first gauge on the top left of the HUD acts like a boost meter that slowly fills up as you drive and drift, which works by holding L1 and aiming to release it when an indicator hits the “sweet spot” for max efficiency. It’s similar to the active reload system in Gears of War (just with fewer chainsaw guns and men on steroids), though you still do get a shorter boost if you miss the window.

In addition, although the cars are semi-automatic and will change gear up and down on their own, if you shift up when prompted, the boost gauge will fill much faster. Again, another small mechanic, but one that, as someone who usually plays racers in automatic mode, took me a bit of time to get used to. That said, I actually think I might switch to manual drive across all games in the genre now, as that extra bit of control really adds to the immersion.

Finally, we’ve got the combat mechanics mentioned earlier. No, your vehicles don’t bust out a 10-hit combo (as awesome as that would be); rather, you strike your opponents whilst guarding from getting rear-ended. On the upper-right side of the HUD, opposite the boost gauge, is a meter tied to your offensive/defensive capabilities. Tapping R1 will activate a shield, whilst holding it will activate a quick burst of speed that will take out any unshielded vehicle in your way. It’s a short-range attack, though, so you’ll have to ensure someone is close enough to pick up the KO. Connecting with, and subsequently destroying, an opponent always felt very satisfying!

Completely filling both gauges then allows you to activate your ultimate move: Overdrive. This combines both the boost and strike, allowing you to quickly catch up to anyone leading the pack, then smash them into oblivion. There’s a catch, though: if you hit a wall or a bumper too hard, it’ll be you that explodes! It’s a fun risk/reward system that can really help you take the lead, but it can also be tricky to use on tight corners, with one wrong move basically ensuring that you won’t be winning that particular race!

Head over to the Arcade sub-menu, and you’ll see there are a decent variety of game modes available. Race! is a straight-up free-for-all, whereas Team Race has you and one or two other drivers competing to be the team that earns the most points. Both of these modes also have plenty of options that can be altered and saved to create new rulesets, which is a great feature that can then be taken online with friends to really mess with them!

There’s also a Time Attack and Checkpoints, the former seeing you vie for the quickest lap time, the latter seeing how long you can race through checkpoints before the timer runs out. Score Challenge is more of an interesting mode, and it almost feels like an arcade-style ladder in a fighting game, with short, medium, and long options available that determine how many races are in each event. Then there’s Overdrive Challenge, which tasks you with surviving for as long as possible whilst in Overdrive mode. Remember, one slip-up and it’s all over!

The most interesting of its modes, however, is the Tournament; a dedicated story mode that chronicles five different teams and their journeys through this mysterious racing tournament. This was much more polished than I’d expected, and everything from the animations to the voice acting was genuinely impressive. For a racing title, I was surprised by how much I became invested in some of these characters! The Tournament is definitely the highlight of Screamer, and despite some of the scenes dragging on for slightly too long, it was nevertheless a really enjoyable mode that I hope other racing developers take note of.

Gameplay in Screamer may take a while to get to grips with, and the lack of any detailed tutorials certainly doesn’t help. That said, the fast, frantic racing never lets up for a second. Combined with some gorgeous futuristic vehicles and tracks, and this is a really solid racing title. Even in terms of performance, there were zero frame drops or visual issues to note, the whole experience was totally bug free!

With lots to unlock from new characters to customisation parts for each vehicle, there is plenty to do here. Whilst the story mode may not be for everyone, if you like a bit of chatting between sliding around corners, then Screamer may be the title for you!