Screamride

Microsoft is always keen to impress with games that experiment with both mechanics and aesthetics. Screamride is the latest title that attempts to dynamically evolve the action genre by blending core elements within a bizarre situation or with outlandish themes. An action game with Roller coasters is the latest offering.

There is no narrative as such, other than you’re the new employee at the Screamworks company, who focus their efforts on building roller coasters and testing them out to further science and humanity. You are tasked with impressing the robotic overseer by completing various tests. The overseers herself does her best to make us laugh, but falls short trying to outwit the infamous Gladous from the portal series as the dialogue is dry and the jokes feel that they’re on repeat. The game’s satirical nature grants us over the top humour which works well implying extreme visual comedy within a colourful and graphically nice looking world.

However it’s the game-play that excels here, as we're offered three distinct and dynamic game modes to enjoy. Overall, Screamride is a puzzle game but each mode contains various elements that integrate different mechanics and experiences from each other. Players can throughout the main campaign play any mode they wish in no particular order. So if you’re not a fan of one certain mode, you can completely ignore it and move onto another more pleasing game mode.

The three modes include Ride; where more of a racing element is introduced as players are tasked to ride various roller coasters in order to gain points by grinding, boosting and finishing the track quickly. Engineer mode allows players to create various tracks in order to complete roller coasters or set up a means to cause mayhem and destruction. The third and final mode Destruction, is by far the best. Players are given an amusement cannon which allows a number of different capsules to be launched at some unsuspecting structures and cause massive damage to earn points.

The level of detail that goes into the destruction and the high end physics are simply astonishing and wonderful to observe. It’s a sheer joy as your interactions will create such mind blowing and impressive results. I do have a minor fault with how the camera will at times go awry when you launch a capsule towards your target. Feeling as though the game might be cheating you as it limits the predictability of how your throws will go or how the physics will alter rather oddly.

The overall campaign is pretty short, even to play every mode throughout, the game can last anywhere between 5 – 7 hours, and this includes retrying some the levels again. But there are a host of extras such as a level editor that will keep players going long after the main campaign is finished.

Yet with these minor setbacks, the game is still highly entertaining. With it’s over the top destruction and visual bliss, there is an immense experience to take part in that dynamically brings something new to the action game genre.