Screamer 4x4 is kinda poor version of spintires tbh. At the time the screamer 4x4 was pretty nice game but it had some fundamental problems. One was that the tires had the typical lateral grip issue where if you tried to drift a rwd car it just spun around. This is very wrong for offroad driving where the tire should dig into the ground and give more grip. Also as a game it focused way too much on drivng the sections as fast as possible. It was more of a car orienteering game than an offroad game. It even had sort of rallycross events with keeps . And it didn't have mud.
Spintires is everything screamer 4x4 should have been. You drive the car against the environment and not against the clock.
I take it as you count on physics aspect, then Spintires is the only solution. It's like RBR in terms of rally games. Speaking of that, I pray for someone who will do a rally simulation with all that it gets.
Oh wow, so many amazing old titles! So many memories! I spent countless amount of hours on 1nsane, absolutely wonderful to mess around. Same goes for Screamer 4x4.
Not if you play it in hardcore mode and with good people in multiplayer (people who complete objectives and help each other when someone is stuck). There's always epic moments, real good fun, nice teamwork. I think i've clocked well over 100 hours and am still enjoying it. You're doing it wrong...
Given no Rallying, which RSRBR2014 has got covered completely (grally has to beat this to be great, a pretty difficult job), then for off roading there's also Off-Road Drive which is ok. ( in its own way )
It is strongly recommended to use a wheel as most of the iffy reviews were clearly using the keyboard.
Not perfect but good off road fun, but it does try to be a simulator, rather than an arcade game.