Remembering classic games: Screamer (1995)

Assuming your pocket money didn't cover the hundreds of pounds required to secure a brand new Sony PlayStation or Sega Saturn in 1995, home versions of arcade racing titans Ridge Racer and Daytona USA were but a distant dream. If you had a family PC with a Pentium processor lurking in the home office though, there was a third option: Screamer.

Alright, look at this 25 year old game in motion now and it's like your eyeballs are being sandblasted with pixels, but at the time these silky smooth, textured polygons were the definition of arcade perfection. It had the same crisp blue skies, swooping curves and seemingly obligatory suspension bridge you'd expect from arcade racers like Daytona, but the difference was it ran on the box that you did your Geography homework on.

Your vehicle choice was made from a selection of supposedly Brand X supercars which had names like Tiger, Shadow and Hammer but bore more than a passing resemblance to the Ferrari F40, Lamborghini Diablo and Bugatti EB110 pin ups of the time. Bear in mind, these were the glorious Wild West years of racing game development where 'vehicle licensing' involved disconnecting the phone and hoping that Ferrari's lawyers didn't kick the door down.

Handling was a lurching, drifty approximation of the arcade standard bearers and perfectly serviceable for weaving through your opponents. The only problem was, this being a PC game, you were probably playing by tapping on the tightly clustered arrow keys of your keyboard, with lengthy play sessions resulting in your hand becoming twisted into a sort of quasi-arthritic claw.

Screamer’s unique contribution to the genre, though, was an overzealous race announcer with a curious turn of phrase. If you can keep a straight face while being implored to ‘brake for the snake’, you’re definitely more mature than we are.