L'urlo degli arcade racing che viene dal passato: bentornato, Screamer!

[Custode]

Era il 1995, se non sbaglio.
A quell'epoca Milestone si chiamava Graffiti, la PS1 impazzava e il cabinato di Ridge Racer, seguito poi dalla conversione pressochè perfetta su Playstation, era per me meta di culto e pellegrinaggio in sala giochi il sabato pomeriggio: invece di pensare alla *iga, colava copiosa bava per quei poligoni grezzi con texture pixellosissime che sfrecciavano granitici a 60 fps davanti ai miei occhi.

E sta caspita di sconosciuta software house italiana, dal nome ridicolo di Graffiti, fa uscire esclusiva PC, quello che verrà ricordato nella storia del videoludo come il Ridge Racer italiano, il primo Screamer.

Da lì il resto e storia, fatta di picchi altissimi, Screamer 2 accellerato 3DFX, credo di aver rubato i soldi ai miei per comprarmene una, Moto GP, e di cadute nella mediocrità assoluta.

Oggi esce Screamer, "Hero Racing Arcade" che di quel lontanissimo clone di Ridge Racer riprende solo i colori saturi e i 60 granitici fps, un gioco di corse arcade impiantato in una struttura fortemente narrativa e story driven, quasi una visual novel o un anime dai valori produttivi altissimi, da quel che ho visto giocandoci, dove le macchine non contano più in quanto tali, ma è il guidatore inteso come personaggio selezionabile e le sue abilità a rendere le vetture ognuna diversa dall'altra.

Ho pagato 70 Euro per avere tre giorni di accesso anticipato e altri ammennicoli estetici, cosa mai fatta in vita mia prima d'ora, perchè sì, attendevo questo Screamer come, per me, il gioco più importante dell'anno, perchè io con Ridge Racer e cloni ci sono cresciuto e fatto all'ammore, in barba a chi l'amore lo faceva davvero, come giusto a quell'età, con tutte le mie amiche che io semplicemente mettevo in secondo piano e sacrificavo sull'altare della nerdaggine e cazzaraggine più assoluta.
Comprai nel 1995 il primo Screamer a occhi chiusi, e non avevo un PC che fosse in grado, non dico di muoverlo, ma nemmeno di farlo partire.
Potevo non fare altrettanto con questo, che mi parte e mi gira come iddio del videoludo comanda?

Fate così:
il gioco non è perfetto, non è il capolavoro assoluto che volevo, pretendevo e che i primi provati dei mesi trascorsi lasciavano intravedere. Probabilmente lo bestemmierete, perchè la narrativa sì, ok, ma io voglio correre, non leggere una visual novel, perchè il gameplay osa fino all'assurdo del contorcimento delle falangi per gestire tutte le meccaniche di accelerazione, attacco, difesa e drifting pennellato della vettura, perchè cazzo, urlerete, come me, urlerete come addannati quando riuscirete a fare, in questo gioco, la gara della vostra vita!
Leggetevi questa recensione, che esprime ogni mio pensiero in merito:
https://www.finalround.it/recensioni...mer-recensione

e poi decidete voi.
Io ho deciso da tempo, bentornati Graffiti.

[Custode]

Patch Day One uscita puntualmente ieri:

Hello Screamers, thank you for your support during the pre-release!

The following patch aims to eliminate the difficulty spikes that some people reported in The Tournament, and brings with it a lot of bugfixes.

The Tournament changes are written to be spoiler free in case you haven’t yet reached a certain Episode in your playtrough.


The Tournament


Fixed the difficulty widget in the chapter selection referring to the AI Difficulty instead of Tournament Difficulty

In races where you need to beat a specific time, changed the description to read Beat the Record instead of Personal Record

Episode 3: fixed a character not saying its dialogue line during the post race cutscene

Episode 3: fixed a car stopping during the post race cutscene

Episode 10: fixed a background being white during the pre-race dialogue

Episode 16: tweaked teammates AI so that it performs better and more consistently at all difficulty levels

Episode 20: decreased AI performance on the Challenge Focus difficulties

Episode 23: decreased AI performance on the Story Focused and Balanced difficulties

Episode 26.3: decreased AI performance on the Story Focused and Balanced difficulties

Episode 30.3: changed race objective to only require 1 KO instead of 3

Episode 32: changed the target time to beat the event on Story Focused and Balanced difficulties

Episode 40: fixed a background being black during the post-race dialogue

Episode 40.2: decreased AI performance on the Story Focused and Balanced difficulties

Episode 57: slightly decreased AI performance on the Story Focused and Balanced difficulties and changed the race objective to require a different number of KOs depending on difficulty instead of being always requiring 3 (now Story Focused: 1, Balanced: 2, Challenge Focus: 3)


Cars


Fixed Aisha’s spoiler flaps not animating when steering or drifting


Online


For the launch period we temporarily deactivated the additional modifiers that could be applied to races when playing Screamer’s Mixtape (like Instant Overdrive, Power Shift, and others). The modifiers are still available to use in private lobbies without limitations. We’ll evaluate re-activating them at a later date.

Fixed a bug were successfully Striking Aisha was not rewarding Sync to the player performing the strike


General


Fixed the Hunter achievement not triggering unless the objective was completed under 30 seconds even if the achievement doesn’t have any time requirement

Fixed the Lavinia’s Master and Gregor’s Mastery achievement having their icons inverted

Fixed a rare bug that caused some pieces to detach from the cars during races even if said pieces didn’t exist. These pieces had collisions and could interfere with other cars behaviors, causing instability or random explosion during races

Fixed subtitles appearing slightly off timing during some cutscenes in all languages

Numerous other bug fixes and improvements

[Custode]

Linko una bellissima disanima storica di Milestone e Screamer, dagli albori della società, fino al loro bellissimo arcade racing protagonista di questa discussione, un vero e proprio tuffo nel passato...e nel futuro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOrsXMftTWI&t=1485s

[ray_hunter]

Originariamente inviato da Custode

Linko una bellissima disanima storica di Milestone e Screamer, dagli albori della società, fino al loro bellissimo arcade racing protagonista di questa discussione, un vero e proprio tuffo nel passato...e nel futuro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOrsXMftTWI&t=1485s

L'ho vista anch'io domenica e ho fatto qualche lacrimuccia.
Screamer 2 fu il mio primo gioco PC, rispetto al primo la guida era decisamente più "realistica" e le macchine avevano una fisica nettamente migliore.

La grafica era fuori di testa tanto che TGM gli dedicò una copertina che era uno screen del gioco ritoccato (pesantemente).
Il sistema di gioco era arcade ma passavamo le giornate e tirare giù anche il decimo a giro: il sistema di guida era bello punitivo e sporcare 2 curve in un giro voleva dire perdere...
Per appeal al divertimento mi suscitava paragoni con il mitico F-zero!!!

Screamer Rally fu un po' deludente in quanto esattamente identico al 2.
A differenza di quello che si dice nel video io ricordo una patch che lo faceva girare senza problemi con le 3DFX.
Lo spettacolo non era dato tanto dal bilinear filtering ma dalla fluidità che ne scaturiva a 640x480: a quella res andava a meno di 30fps su qualsiasi CPU.
Ciò cambiava radicalmente l'esperienza

[Custode]

E nuova patch:

Hello Screamers! With this patch we're adding a highly requested feature and set up for future updates by fixing bugs that affected stability and gameplay.


New Feature - Pause Menu Tutorials

When playing in any Arcade game mode, all gameplay mechanics Tutorials can be accessed with a new dedicated button in the Pause Menu. The very first time you enter any Arcade game mode this menu will be opened automatically.


The Tournament

Fixed various Róisín text dialogues saying 'fuck' instead of the Irish slang 'feck'. This is done to make those lines correctly reflect the spoken dialogue.

Fixed minor inconsistencies between various spoken and written dialogues.


Cars

Noboru: raised collision shape of the car to avoid unexpected collisions with the track in certain circumstances.

Fermi: raised collision shape of the car to avoid unexpected collisions with the track in certain circumstances.


AI

Fixed AIs performing a Perfect Boost every time they used a Boost. This fix affects all difficulty levels and all game modes.

Fixed various performance bugs with the AI Assist option , which caused its performance to be lower than intended.


Online

In order to improve the online experience, we're doing changes to how matchmaking operates. Searching for a lobby might take longer, but the resulting race should offer a more stable experience.

Increased lobby timer before a race to 2 minute. This allows for more people to join a lobby before the match starts.

Fixed the issue where, during Matchmaking, the game wasn't progressing to the Lobby screen after a match was found.

Fixed a bug where performing certain actions with Mr. A and then exploding would cause him respawn on the track slower than intended.

Fixed various bug that could cause unintended behaviors when joining a Lobby while in a Party.

Fixed players distances not being present in the leaderboard during races.



Checkpoints

Fixed Checkpoint Drones having collisions on all Tracks.

Tracks

Fixed invisible collisions in the Steel Bowels track that, in extreme cases, could impact cars handling.

Fixed the rain sound being played in the Misty Hills track.


PC Only

Fixed the game not starting correctly when Serbian is set as the system language.


General

Fixed the Boost HUD sound not stopping if the Boost HUD disappeared immediately after being triggered.

Changed the description of the Hunter achievement/trophy to make the objective clearer.

Fixed some cutscenes using UK English subtitles instead of US Subtitles when setting US English as the chosen language in the Options.

Numerous other bug fixes and improvements.

[Custode]

E nuova patch!

Hello Screamers! This patch brings new features meant to improve the online experience, and adjustments to The Tournament difficulty.

New Feature - Online Connection Quality Indicator

Added a new indicator to all Online game modes that shows the quality of the connection to the server.


New Feature - Online Join as Spectator

When searching for a new race online it is now possible to join lobbies that have a race already in progress. When this happens the player joins the race as a spectator, to become an active player as soon as the next race starts. Lobbies already in progress that are not full are always prioritized by matchmaking over new lobbies.


Unlocks

Fixed an issue where various unlocks were not properly awarded when achieving the required conditions. Players that have already reached the conditions will have the unlocks available as soon as they start the game.


The Tournament

Event 38: reduced the aggressivity of the AI at all difficulty levels. This makes the Event easier overall.

Event 66: reduced the frequency of AI using Overdrive during the event, making it easy to catch up to it.

Fixed an incorrect subtitle for an Akane line in the first cutscene of Strike Force Romanda.

Fixed an issue where, when Traditional Chinese was selected, subtitles where shown in Simplified Chinese instead.

Fixed an issue where in the US and UK languages some cutscenes showed the \n characters at the end of some subtitles.

Fixed subtitles being desynced in the Event 66 cutscene.


Cars

Fixed an issue with the customization of Hope's car were the right mirror of the Color 02 set was not changing color correctly.


AI

Fixed an issue where Neural brake/throttle was slowing down the vehicle when nearing the limits of the track during a turn.

Fixed an issue where AI performance was decreased between races when performing a specific set of actions.


Time Attack

Fixed an issue where exiting the game mode as soon as the Time Attack was over could trigger an unresponsive game state.


Online

Relaxed the ping restrictions to join an online race.

Decreased lobby timer before a race to 1 minute.


Tracks

Fixed various locations on the Hawk Trail and Tireburner tracks were colliding with track limits at high speed could cause the car to explode.

Fixed the invisible collision at the entrance of the shortcut in the Steel Bowels track.

Fixed an issue on all tracks of the final environment were invisible collisions could disrupt the cars behaviors.


General

Fixed the Hope's Mastery achievement/trophy not tracking progress correctly. Unfortunately, in order to fix this bug we had to reset the achievement in game's progress. If the achievement/trophy was already in progress tracking will resume updating once the previous value is reached again.

Numerous other bug fixes and improvements.

[sertopica]

Uuu me lo ricordo, mi ricordo anche vagamente dei problemi che avevo a farlo girare in ms dos.

[pierluigip]

uscita la demo

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4...creamer__Demo/

[The Void]

Non me lo ricordavo mica così Screamer in verità, i primi due che giocai io erano si racing arcade, ma non erano jappizzati in stile anime. A me personalmente la demo non è piaciuta .

[Viridian]

su TGM lo hanno recensito bene

secondo me merita

però sta cosa che ormai devono infilare per forza la storia e i personaggi pure nei racing a me non piace proprio...