It’s high season for COVID-19 again and I just want to see my girlfriend. Not that easy in these times, since we are still living apart from each other, her in Sofia / Bulgaria, me in Regensburg / Germany. So I finally booked a flight from Germany to Bulgaria aware of all the restrictions and rules that have to be followed. And here I am now, the plane is almost empty. I pretty much like that fact not only for less stress when boarding the aircraft. But also for the easy approach of keeping the social distance (and the amazing legroom coming with this). And to be honest, I got so used to wearing a face mask continuously that I don’t even recognize it anymore. So, the take-off is completed, the warning lights go off and I open my little netbook. And I’m wondering what to do next. Fortunately, this two hours flight gives you a lot of opportunities to think about all kinds of things. Past things. Nostalgic things. Like … let’s say … video games. Uhh, wait, let’s specify that a bit more: MS-DOS video games. OK, there we go.
For some reason, there is one racing game that always pops up in my brain when entering the retro MS-DOS nostalgia mode: SCREAMER. However, we didn’t play SCREAMER back then, somewhere around 1995. No, we played BLEIFUSS. The German word “Bleifuß” would be translated to lead foot, driving with the foot down to the floor, so to say. Don’t ask me why, but Germans are incredibly professional when it comes to renaming titles of media for no freakin’ reason. On the other hand, I still don’t get the point of the title SCREAMER. Who or what the F is screaming there? The tires when the car breaks out with a typical shallow MIDI sound squeak? This annoying commentator guy radically shouting out extremely valuable info during the race? Or just me, freaking out whenever I lose control and crash from one car into the other into the next into the wall.
Just to put it upfront: this title might be an average, arcade-style racing game, some might have liked it, some might have hated it. Or, even worse, not even recognized it. But I loved it, at least for its visual representation. And I freakin’ love ungraceful simple arcade-style games. It seems a bit random, but the first thing that amazed me like hell concerning graphics was the reflection in the car windows. Awesome! Besides, it’s just a scrolling image and has nothing to do with the real surrounding. Except for changing the texture when going through an orangey lit-up tunnel or driving in a dark blue night setting. This feature gave it such a clean and crisp look. And at that time, I haven’t seen this technique before.
Talking about visuals, I just figured out now how much depth is added to a simple racing game by introducing moving “decorations”. There is a cable car crossing the street, a plane or helicopter in the sky, or rushing traffic on the highway next to the track. This is the not always recognized, but very effective, step from repeating and static to super dynamic and way more interesting track design. I guess it’s the subliminal recognition of these vibrant elements that give you a feeling of action without knowing where it actually comes from.
And here comes also the part in which I have to state that SCREAMER reminded me (and I guess everyone else too) so much of RIDGE RACER. Even though I haven’t played RIDGE RACER before at that time (most likely I’ve only seen some videos or magazine articles about it). And it is pretty obvious that the developed creatives and creative developers from Grafitti got pretty much, let’s say, inspired by the latter. The graphics are overwhelmingly similar to Namco’s benchmark and there is always that smug guy shouting (nah, wait, we should say screaming here, isn’t it?) at you. Things about the incredibly dangerous next corner, the all-race-settling last lap, or the annoying opponent breathing down your neck. Likewise, the controls just feel like this Ridge-Racer-y unreal arcade steering. I mean, you still need a type of sensitivity in order to maneuver your unlicensed fantasy car around a bendy track. But the points and the extent of when the car breaks out of lane don’t feel like this would happen in real life. At least not in mine.
But for everything that was apparently borrowed from RR, there have also been a few nice extensions made to the game. They added a cockpit to the view modes, and it is individual to every type of car. I guess at some point in time this was considered standard, but comparing SCREAMER with RIDGE RACER, gives it a discrete touch.
The even more obvious distinction is the “special modes” section. There is not really much to it and the replayability keeps itself within bounds. Especially due to missing unlockables in these modes in contrast to the championship mode. However, it plays as a nice diversion once in a while with running over traffic cones or going one whole lap for doing that slalom thing. I don’t know what they were thinking about when naming this traffic cone wiping mode “cone carnage” but calling the slalom mode simply (and definitely way less frightening) … “slalom”.
One more thing: you can crash, meaning your car is flipping in mid-air like a circus performer. And, even more important, your opponents can too. And since the difficulty level is rising significantly throughout your racing career, it gives the whole thing some nice twist, once in a while. And besides the accidents that may or may not happen, all opponents race in a kind of closed group. This means that you don’t have the typical arcade pursuit race but a real competition resulting in more exciting fights. But that means also that you go all the way in pole position until the last corner and … bam … it happens: you crash, everyone takes over, you come in last… which will be kindly acknowledged by the commentator screaming “LOOOOOSSSER”.
Now I’m sitting here in an almost empty airplane, face covered with my mask, ears covered with my headphones playing relaxing Black Pumas songs, writing about my experience with an old racing game. One more hour until we arrive in Sofia. Article finished. Booooring…
Oh wait, I have DOSBOX installed on this machine.
Let’s fire it up !!!!
There is a nice SCREAMER-dedicated page about all unlockables, cheats and such, I’d like to recommend: https://thisoldrecliner.neocities.org/bleifuss.html