The story mode is both tiny and tonally bipolar. They have anime tropes for kids and then very particular phrasing that feels more Adult Swim.
Also they have a universal translator which can be used on animals, as well as time travel (BUT ONLY FOR RACING SCREAMERS).
dito, the music goes hard from the first moment and i’m like
What?
because so much is thrown at you in the first 30 minutes of this game.
After the fourth story cutscene (almost uninterrupted, if it wasn’t for a race … think two laps of driving if you want to call that “race” … inbetween) i had to stop and mess around with Arcade mode a bit to finally get to do what i came here for, driving.
The duel stick drifting didn’t click with me yet, and i had to check with Redout II first if i just didn’t remember how to use two sticks at the same time/together. Good news is, yes i still know hoe to do it, so i need mote training first 
other impressiones:
Roisin’s accent somehow rubs me the entirely wrong way, not sure exactly why though.
Really spoiled by Clair Obscure 33’s photo mode/effects/filters!
The story mode isn’t actually tiny. I think I misread the menu and am hitting difficulty spikes requiring retries before the 25% mark
It’s kinda sad how good Screamer is. A lot of effort has been put into tuning the mechanics and presenting a lot of content for a traditional PC/console racer, but it feels like almost nobody will play this. A rare smaller scale game that delivers on a novel mechanical remix.
You want to be in boost or generating boost always. To be in 4th gear or less = death. Sharper turns will force you down there, even when drifting well, so the sharpest terms require that you have a boost on deck. Puzzle then is figuring out how many turns can be done without relying on celebration, and how to make sure that the boost is ready when you hit those points. The rest of the time you need to be going as fast as possible. Moving in and out of turning, boosts, and manoeuvring around other opponents means that you are really engaged every second of the race. There are very few long straights on tracks, and the AI tends to stay tight as a pack, so the game is very sink or swim. Even on time attack, or other solo modes, you start to get a feeling of how the track wants you to slow down.
If I have one big complaint it’s that the game doesn’t really explain each character’s mechanics very clearly, except when you go to the character select but even there the word salad of terms obscures the functions or strategy each passive effect implies. Since the character select is not accessible in story mode you are thrown into a bunch of different characters abilities with no explanation of why they are different or how which makes them feel a bit less special when they are introduced in turn. This is a bit of a weird oversight given that the game goes to great lengths to teach you other things like boosting out of a drift, or explaining gear shift boosts. Why not put the racer abilities front and centre, and this is some big meat going undiscussed!
Also, you better learn everybody’s first names and faces if you want to keep track of both the story and, sometimes, team races. Sadly, this is where the character design sometimes falls a bit short. We have a lot of scope for interesting characters but the five teams have very muted and uniform styles. Also, the gimmick of having characters from all over the world is not as strong with two of the teams being made up entirely of Japanese racers (one Yakuza, the other a J-pop trio). There’s an Italian racer who feels like a self-insert for the Italian studio who clearly love Japanese stuff to the extent they feel like they’re treating a lot of the other cultural touch points as inherently less interesting.
This game has no ingame manual and has the audacity to keep using its impenetrable terminology to explain things like SPG and Sync boost upgrades the snozzle shift. Explain yourself!
feeling guilty for having bought it and aside from uno sessione, didn’t get around to play it properly yet.
otoh/fwiw, it definitely sounds like it followed the example of split second as an arcade racer that fully leans into its Plot/Story/World-building contrivances and doesn’t try to make them too realistic by over-explaining things to maybe convince the 0,01% that would go
hmm, you mean you could rewind in RL by creating a copy of a squaremeter of atoms in a different place by electron-printing atoms? Now I Can Buy Into Your Plot!
and instead just go “it just does that, yeah. FINITO, GO RACING YOU HOT DOG!”
Honestly a lot of the plot contrivances are very fun and it melts away anyway when I hear ‘LIKE A SHOOTING STAR….BURN!!! 
’
Hey people, who wants some SCREAMING action impressiones?
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hmmmm that’s a lukewarm reception, also reflected in the highscore lists (for Time Trials at least), on the first track i had to fight my way into the first 1500, on track 05(ish) my second attempt already is in the 350somethings — and not because i’m suddenly good at it.
Oh btw/before i forget it, only a 24mb patch? Wow, that’s efficient/seems like their first patch was fiying either so many things that there’s not much left to fix, or their first shot was pretty mature … 
Anyway, reverted back to the default input scheme before i got used to the remapped one (where i also turned into walls rather than corners), so today’s session was mainly rewiring brain, and unlocking parts/colors and trying new layout-tracks in the first area (city).
Selected Roisin this time, and turned some laps in the definitely not-F40 which has a nice, screaming engine … 
and man, in daylight you start to notice how pretty (and colorful) this game looks — reminded me even more of Split/Second!
Strong
I scream
You scream
Gimme that gimme that Icecream
vibes in those screenshots 
Story Difficulty is going up and I struggle with taking tighter turns. Can never brake the right amount for the hairpins but drifting has clicked
The music is so good! It kinda needs to be heard with the car engines for the full effect.
They hold off on introducing the strike abilities in the story mode for a long time and now that they’re there, the pendulum swing of Strike into Boost and back is very satisfying. Speed builds boost which builds strike which builds boost which builds… Riding this wave while drifting these noodle tracks and threading the needle.
The strike acts as a sort of a bootleg boost so this feedback loop can eventually just keep you moving at Redline speed the whole race if you’re nasty enough.
They’re sorta implying that each driver’s ability is generated by their emotions synchronising with the quantum engine strapped to their sports cars. Sure!
Didn’t realize this is from a team of Italians that made PC racing games in the 90s.
The team who had the WRC license for a while, nontheless!
which piqued my interest in the first place, and deservedly so, imho
this still manages to look so, so good the more time i spend with it. Also loving the dynamically-calculating-your-photo function and how that fine-tunes snapshots:
gets a clear from me!
This game has taken over my thoughts as far as gaming is concerned. I just think about Noboru’s engine sound at max speed sometimes. When I boot up the game and start the first race I think ‘Ah yes, this is what it is to be happy’
who’d have thought that this thread title, especially the Screaming part, would ring so true?
Computer, zoom in on that lower right corner of that advert i am racing by with 150 klicks on the speedo, please?
WARNING! Too much client revisions will lead you to burnout.
….. now THAT’S a reason to
for a while, heh.
Have finally finished the story stuff and am doing various challenges. Wanna write up everything in a big effort post soon
really looking forward to your impressiones, take your time!
have checked yesterday how much time i have spent in Time Trial mode so far (since i basically did nothing else than that + two races for a showcase in front of friends) and …. it has been 8h already? Time sure flies when you’re screaming…
i also think the photo mode takes up some time, because cars, pretty n stuff.
I really need to play around with photo mode more. Been too busy screaming
