Screamrider turns each of its roller coasters into a slot-car racetrack. You have to navigate your riders around hairpin turns and through loops by managing the car’s speed and lean, while timing button presses to gather turbo boosts. That’s it. Later tracks add a few more obstacles, but outside of occasionally hitting the brakes to take a sharp turn, there’s no strategy or depth to anything, with each course relying more on trial-and-error and rote memorization than actual skill.
Demolition Expert fares a bit better, but is held back by wonky camera controls. It’s basically Angry Birds in a three-dimensional space. You’re given a few different pods, and you’re tasked with launching them at various targets, buildings, and explosives, each worth a variety of points. Each pod has a different special ability; some have thrusters attached that give you more control over the pod’s trajectory, while others will explode when you press a button. Sure, it sounds cool, but thanks to the awkward camera, it’s often difficult to judge depth, leading to more than a few frustrating attempts before you finally figure out the right plan of attack.
At least shit blows up real good. Sure, the levels may be sterile and boring to look at, but it’s highly satisfying to watch theses massive high-rises crumble to bits. There’s a joy in the anticipation from the first ‘crack!’, to the next few, agonizing seconds, and then, suddenly – success. Most courses are filled with delicately placed explosives, and it’s a very real possibility that a single shot can cause a level-sweeping chain reaction. It’s pretty awesome when it works out.
Engineer rounds out the Career mode, and it’s clearly the meat of the experience. Here, you’re given a handful of track pieces, a few objectives and constraints, and are given freedom to complete them how you see fit. Building a properly entertaining coaster is a delicate balance between providing the maximum amount of excitement and keeping your riders from flying out of the car or crashing off the track. A boring track might keep everyone safe, but won’t earn you any points. Too intense, and, well, there won’t be anyone left on your ride to enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun trying to come up with creative solutions to circumvent the constrictive box each level places you in.
Actually building those coasters is mostly painless, and navigating through individual track parts is a breeze. Want to throw in a loop? Press a few buttons and it’s right there, ready to place in your track. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the camera, which seems to fight you at every turn. Even with helpful on-screen prompts like angle markers and track highlighting, it’s incredibly difficult to judge where your next piece is going to end up – and God help you if there’s a building in the way.
This extends to the Sandbox mode, which basically takes away all of the pressure and lets you make whatever coaster you want, as long as you’ve unlocked the pieces by playing Career. So if you want to just want to ignore all the other modes and tinker away on some roller coasters, you can. You just won’t be able to access many of the special, more interesting, death-defying pieces without earning the requisite stars. Of course, this means slogging through a bunch of stuff that isn’t building awesome roller coasters.
Screamride sounds like it has all the right ingredients on paper, with impressive destruction physics and a powerful, if at times cumbersome, roller coaster creation suite. But it suffers from an identity crisis, and whenever it tries to focus on anything that isn’t roller coaster creation, it falls apart. More joyful presentation could have made a big difference, but Screamride’s world is about as exciting as Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise ride. And at least Jungle Cruise has bad puns.
Supply Gamesradar
Screamride review - App Review 4u
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