Xbox exclusive Screamride combines rollercoaster design, riding and destruction in an eclectic mix of fun that, while lacking the coherence of Frontier’s RollerCoaster Tycoon games, intelligently riffs on Minecraft’s popular build-it-high and blow-it-up mechanics. The game has a variety of modes – Scream Rider offers racing on rails, where turbo boosts and brakes must be balanced to keep the car on track, while Demolition Expert mode furthers the excitement by firing gondola cars at test facilities to trigger explosive destruction in what one can only describe as a gleeful Angry Birds-style. The slightly more cerebral Engineering mode needs more patience but will entertain for longer, with construction of fantastical rollercoasters. Complexity is kept in check with intuitive controls that can auto-complete partial circuits. Screamride’s extreme sports approach may irk rollercoaster sim purists, but for families the combination of design, racing and explosive havoc works perfectly.
