Our near-future society is in dire need of the impossible. People are disenchanted and bored with merely virtual satisfaction. Recent years have seen humans indulge in ever more extreme pastimes to feel alive.
However, there is an organization looking to bring easily extreme experiences closer to society than it has ever been. Far off our familiar shores, away from prying eyes, is the ScreamWorks International Research Facility. On their floating, man-made islands, ScreamWorks is developing a class of rides no simple theme park could dream of.
ScreamWorks future aim is to deliver danger on tap, on our doorsteps, and snaking up our office blocks. Whenever we want it, the ultimate of adrenaline rides will be just around the corner.
For now this is pure science-fiction, but out here, in the deep ocean, creativity and engineering are smashing boundaries. Understanding the science of terror and the limits of destruction is precisely why you are here—To build higher, hit harder, and scream louder.
THIS IS SCREAMRIDE.
An issue with the overall presentation of ScreamRide is the fact that it re-uses the Portal-esque testing facility concept, including an AI that will either compliment or talk you down depending on your results. Whilst this setting is an effective fix for the morality issues when basing an entire game around crashing theme park rides, but the resemblance is a little uncanny at certain points of the game. I wouldn’t call this a big issue, or even an issue for some at all, but I found this to be a relevant point whilst analysing the game’s presentation.
One of ScreamRide’s most notable visual features is the sheer amount of visual destruction, which is impressive, even though a lot of the debris is composed of simplified items. Crashing a coaster or ride vehicle into a building is a simple delight to see, and when you add explosions to the mix, a visual spectacle of chaos follows. However, the frame rate does seem to suffer quite a bit when certain mechanics are applied. Whilst riding coasters, building and launching vehicles into the sky didn’t do much to affect the frame rate, it did seem to take quite a few drastic dips during destruction sequences and re-constructing the levels. These dips weren’t quite that subtle, and the engine did seem overly stressed during these moments. Whilst the advanced nature of the environments of ScreamRide are a clear explanation of these issues, I did find these drops quite distracting, though it’s unclear wether this is due to hardware limitations or programming faults on Frontier’s end.
ScreamRide’s soundtrack consists of a collection of original electronic songs that fit well with the futuristic setting of the game. The song selection is decent, and due to the nature of the symphonies you won’t find yourself being too bothered by repeat performances. That being said, as well-made as the soundtrack is, ScreamRide should be a good contender for playing your own music throughout your gameplay sessions, which I did find myself doing after the first hour or so.
The second, and much more enjoyable game mode is “Demolition”, in which players unleash their primal instincts and launch pods and coaster cars into the air to destroy structures around the map. The player is given multiple types of pods and cars that each have their own special feature, which vary from gliding and rockets to explosive charges, which help you cause even more destruction. Whilst the basic concept of Demolition is pretty simple, the destruction is what easily makes it the best mode of the game. Launching your pod onto the map isn’t as easy as you’d think, as you have to time your throw at a specific time in the rotation to reach your goal. You can slow down time and get an additional aiming line to aim more precisely, but for those who want a bigger challenge doing your throws at full speed is actually pretty redeeming if your throw works out.
Whilst the main campaigns of the game are quite limited in length, users interested in custom content can unleash and share their imagination by creating custom levels. The sandbox mode gives you the ability to use all of your unlocked content to create levels with custom tracks, structures and objectives, which lengthen the game by quite a bit, but only if you’re interested in either building or downloading custom content. Sandbox mode is quite extensive, and in some ways it’s the saving grace of a game that really consists of a very small amount of content considering the pricing.
*NOTE: Whilst sandbox mode is available on both versions of the game, sharing features are not available on the Xbox 360.