A New Game Endures; or, Screamer Still Kinda Claps!
Having been announced at the 2024 Game Awards, today marks about two and a half years since I was made aware of Milestone's latest entry into the racing game genre. Screamer, a reboot of an old racing game franchise from the MS-DOS days when Milestone was then known as Graffiti, initially hooked me HARD. Cyberpunk has always caught my eye as an aesthetic, and CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 left me badly wishing for a good racing game with that kind of vehicle design. So, when Screamer's announcement trailer hit while I was watching the awards, I flipped my shit. Because of course I did.
However, once gameplay trailers were released, that excitement almost immediately died. Screamer wasn't going to be like any other racing game I've enjoyed in the past - it, like Inertial Drift before it, was going to have twin-stick driving controls. I toiled and tossed about the game, wishing I could enjoy it but knowing I didn't feel 'connected' to Inertial Drift's control scheme and thus likely wouldn't connect to Screamer's.
But, of course, if you've read my blog before, you know I was more than elated to be dead fucking wrong.
What remained to be seen, however, was whether or not Milestone's latest (and, frankly, greatest) was going to last. I'm not really talking about post-launch developer support, although the game has received a decent amount of post-release updates. Instead, I'm talking about whether or not the game would still have its hooks in me after I get tired of playing it for the first time. I tend to play games in rotations, with racing games being a common genre for retread. Older NFS titles, Race Driver GRID, BeamNG and Automation are the types of games that find themselves in regular rotation. Nostalgia can be found in playing modern classics like NFS Carbon or Race Driver GRID, while ultimate creative expression can be found creating a car from top to bottom in Automation and importing it directly into BeamNG to drive what I've created. Other racing games end up trickling in when I need something fresh, like TheAdmeister's Spec-II mod for Gran Turismo 4. Sometimes, games outside my preferred genre end up stopping by for a visit, like Counterstrike 2 or Echo Point Nova.
Point is, I don't consistently play a video game for very long; I'll play one particular game for a month or two, then put it down and play something else. So, the real test of a game's merit, to me at least, is whether or not it enters my 'regular rotation.' If it's a video game I love coming back to because it has a style or experience I can't get anywhere else, that's my standard for a Damn Good Video Game. I'd go as far as saying any video game with that kind of staying power is at least an 8.5 out of 10.
Screamer, as I'm now learning 4 months out from its release, is absolutely in regular rotation.
While walking to the grocery store about a week or so ago, I decided to throw a bunch of songs from my various playlists into one massive MegaList on Tidal. One of those smaller, concentrated playlists that got dumped into it was a playlist of songs from racing game soundtracks, and that included many songs from Screamer. So, while picking out some fresh potato buns to buy, Hex Archive's "BubbleGun" begins playing in my ears, and shivers roll down my spine as I place the buns into my basket. The soundtrack still passes the test for me - it still makes me feel just as intensely satisfied and energized as it did when it first hit my ears.
Earlier this week, on a whim while hanging out with one of my partners and my roommate, we all decided to give Screamer's split-screen mode a shot. We hooked my partner's Steam Deck up to the TV, divided the (relatively sub-optimal) controllers amongst ourselves, and gave it a shot. Sure enough, the game fucking flew. While operating at a modest yet consistent 45 frames per second, three-player split-screen wasn't just playable; it was really enjoyable!
As soon as I got home, I needed to play single-player modes again. Overdrive Challenge, Score Challenge, 30-lap single races... I just needed more Screamer. This deep desire to play the game after being reminded of its existence is a core element of what pushes a video game into my regular rotation. So, while it may be too soon to confirm its longevity, I can at least validate beyond shadow of a doubt that Milestone's cyberpunk, twin-stick racer is a Certified Banger.
Oh, and one more thing: I'm the 7th best score and top Frederic driver at Ashes to Ashes in Overdrive Challenge. I crushed my previous record, achieved with The Announcer which was still a top score for that character. From the Top 20 to the Top 10 after just a couple hours of fucking around.
So, like, not only am I still really enjoying this game after my first series of play sessions, but I'm also still taking it very seriously. So that, I think, can be just more evidence that Screamer is one of the best of the best.
Initially, I was just going to end this blog post here after gushing and gushing about how much I still love this game, and how happy I am that it's still enjoyable to play. But given the state of the video game industry these days - and especially the state of the racing game genre - I feel like I need to address what it actually means to have a brand new game enter what I'd consider to be my hall of fame.
Of all genres in video gaming, racing games have been and still are the most bland, uninteresting, samey genre of fucking games. Forza Horizon 6 is just another Horizon game but set in Japan, EA and Criterion have been dead silent about any developments on a new Need for Speed game after their attempt at rejuvenating the genre with some style fell flat (and has not been in my rotation at all for the past year and a half), Grand Theft Auto 6 has had its shine sanded clean off after Rockstar and Take-Two's illegal union busting efforts, and the most exciting development in the future for the genre isn't even a fucking racing game. (It's American Truck Simulator's Road Trip DLC from SCS Software. Specifically, the Dodge collection is what I wanna get.)
It has been a very, very long time since a new game of any sort has entered my regular rotation. It should say quite a lot that the most recent addition before Screamer is just a ROM mod that overhauls a far older game to the point of being fresh again. (That's the GT4 Spec-II mod, for the uninitiated.) This is kind of where my preferred genre is at; it's in a total void of simultaneous oversaturation and under-innovation. iRacing Arcade has been the biggest shake-up to the genre outside of Screamer, and it's just because of its aggressive simplification of simulation racing and its visual style. It's not really anything new, it's just taking existing concepts and twisting them a bit.
I'm not gonna be the one to predict where the next innovation will come from, nor what it will look like. I'm not stupid; I know how hard it is to innovate on "car go vroom." There's only so much you can really do with that. Even so, there are just so many fucking racing games that kick so much ass, so long as you look back into the genre's history. That's because they provided an experience you couldn't get anywhere else at the time, and in some cases you still can't. What does The Crew Motorfest give you that you don't get from Forza Horizon 3, other than different cars? What does Project Motor Racing get you that you can't get for Assetto Corsa in higher fidelity and simulation accuracy from modding teams? For fuck's sake, what can you get from newer Need for Speed entries that you can't get in higher quality from the franchise's own history?!
Yet, here's Screamer, standing only as a pair with Inertial Drift as the only racing games where you drive a car with two analog sticks. Screamer has become one of the freshest, most interesting and genuinely fun racing games of all time, and it was only released four fucking months ago. I really, really wish more video game critics actually saw how much this game does for the genre. Its campaign is a fucking visual novel for god's sake! With VOICE ACTING! In ALL KINDS OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES! What other racing game fucking does that?
But, whatever. I get it. Maybe it's an acquired taste or, like Raycevick stated in his video, "I love racing games, they suck," maybe it's too stiff a shock to the system after over a decade of stagnation in the genre. I don't know. All I know is that Screamer is a fucking all-timer. It's going to be a cult classic for years to come, and I get to be one of the few who recognized its position in the history of racing games as it released.
Thanks, Milestone, for taking a risk. I dunno if it'll pay off in the way y'all wanted in sales or review scores, but for me, this game will probably live forever in my heart as one of the absolute best of all time.