In 1997, Genki released a racing game. Not that racing game - it was called MRC for the N64.
Far as we can tell, nobody bought it.
We already talked about it once, 5 years ago. Now we're talking about it again. Not entirely sure why. Anyway, new episode.
https://t.co/2gTiSyGCrh
Massive thanks to everyone who've taken the time to respond to this so far. Our next pod recording is on Screamer so trying to get a temperature check on how people feel about the game and it has been useful.
Screamer hasn't been a hit out of the gate, with middling word of mouth and a very low player count for a new release.
A sign of the times in terms of the appetite for full-price AAA arcade racing games that aren't Horizon; or a confused release strategy from Milestone?
I've got several Friends that completely wrote the game off because of stupid nitpicks. It took developers away from ride 6 and that's why it's bad, The art style between the cutscenes and the real game conflict, It's a milestone game It can't be that good, The visual novel sections aren't laid out correctly, the translations aren't perfect, twin stick drifting bad... I mean I streamed it for 2 hours for them just to have a good look at it and they did nothing but bitch and bitch and bitch...
Okay, great I don't care about any of that. The game has probably the most intelligent boost and combat system I think I've ever seen in a racing game and it's incredibly fun. It's the first arcade racer that rewards you for driving well instead of driving dangerously. That's cool. Plus I appreciate a racing game having an actually intelligently written story, Even if the writing is a tiny bit of a rollercoaster between edgy and serious.
Literally the only criticism that I think was valid out of all the things that they said, the price. Apparently milestone didn't do any regional pricing, so although the game was mostly fairly priced here in the US, apparently around the world it is f****** ridiculous. I can sympathize with that. But almost every other problem they had was nitpicks and criticisms that are in my opinion totally unfair because they're judging it against a game that doesn't exist.
Screamer does exist and it's a very good game. Perfect, No, but worthy of building off of absolutely.
@ingueferroque How many other proper Arcade racers that aren't kart racers do you know which releases at a Β£60/Β£70 price point? We don't have too many examples to use nowadays
- People seem unsure of the control scheme, and the lack of a demo doesn't help. 2h may not be enough to get a hang of it.
- The mindset of "dollars per hour" in pricing hurts Screamer, even though it does have a lot of content
- People wanted a story, but don't like VNs I guess