Screamer

The golden era of track-based arcade racers may be behind us, but that didn’t stop Milestone from developing a marvellous one in this day and age. This reboot of Screamer has all the core elements of a modern classic: a meaty single player campaign with a rich story, a fantastic sense of style, a snappy arcade-style driving model with a high skill ceiling, and plenty of content to enjoy in both local and online play. Screamer is bold, exciting, but most importantly, incredibly fun, and it may just be one of the finest arcade racers in years. If you miss the good old days of fantastic arcade racers with personality, do yourself a favour and buy Screamer.

With one of the best campaigns you will ever see in a racing game and a great arcade style of racing, Screamer is one the best racing games we’ve seen this generation. Its flashy artstyle is great to look at and while there is a lot going on with it’s gameplay, once you get a grasp of it, you will wonder why more don’t do dual stick racing. With a few more small tuneups to its difficulty and car handling Screamer could sit atop the genre. As is any gamer, racing enthusiast or not, should fall in love with Screamer. Hopefully we don’t have to wait another 30 years for more Screamer.

A blazing, tumbling, and anime-infused collision of weapons-based racing and drift-happy driving, Screamer is potentially what you’d get if you locked Blur in a room for 12 months with nothing but a Crunchyroll subscription. Fabulous to look at and confidently assembled, it’s a challenging arcade racer with a clear identity to call its own. It’s true that Screamer’s high-speed thrills might be mostly neutered on its twistiest tracks, several of the cars feel more sloppy to drive than others, the central tournament mode makes some noticeable missteps with its difficulty curve, and its cast of emotional anime dandies do quickly get pretty tedious. However, with a nuanced, twin-stick control scheme and a surprisingly involved combat system to juggle, it’s a satisfyingly busy and demanding racer, and its extremely customisable quick races and four-player split screen make it a great racing option to have in your back pocket for playing with friends around.

Outside of Screamer’s punishing story mode lies a more persuasive set of challenges, time trials and multiplayer races. Yet as a whole it rarely generates the irresistible momentum that drives you to come back.

Screamer is a game of contrasts: on one hand, it offers a very deep and crafted story mode, supported by great art direction and a good technical execution. On the other hand, the gameplay feels too basic and unrewarding, with the novelty represented by the dual stick steering system quickly wearing out, and limited power-ups that fail to deliver the chaotic fun that we'd expect from an arcade racer.

Screamer is an excellent, high-speed racing experience that takes big swings in controls and game design. The racing feels exciting at every moment, and the big single-player mode gives you plenty of tracks to burn rubber on. Much of the story lands flat or doesn’t have enough juice to cover the narrative’s runtime, but it provides enough of an excuse to keep getting back on track. The side modes are a little shallow, but that’s only frustrating because racing in Screamer is just that much fun.

Although it doesn’t quite have the heft to go bumper-to-bumper with games like Forza Horizon or Burnout, Screamer is an incredibly sound arcade racer that, unfortunately, cocoons so much of its exhilarating, challenging gameplay in a bloated campaign that claws for any semblance of focus.

Screamer tries to blend anime storytelling with arcade racing, but the result feels disjointed and ultimately boring. While the visual style and split-screen multiplayer are welcome, the repetitive structure, weak driving mechanics, and poorly presented story that’s easy to skip drag the experience down. It’s a unique idea that never truly comes together.

Screamer doesn't just harken back to a specific, lost era of arcade racing games — it marks a beautiful evolution of the arcade racer. It's not just faster and more engaging than other racers, but it's also more innovative, with ingenious systems assembled by designers with evident passion for the genre. A sequel might tighten up shortcomings in its presentation, but as it stands, it's already pretty much the ideal arcade racing package. If you're a racing game fan, do not miss it.

The arcade style of the races is crisp and difficult, and if you find yourself bored by the plot, feel free to skip through it.

Screamer is quite simply an incredible arcade racer, with stellar presentation and gameplay. It’s a rare racer that can hold my attention for more than a few hours, but I’ll be playing this for a long time to come.