Split/Second review

Every so often a paradigm shift comes along in my gaming life and I spend the next few years chasing the dragon, so to speak. Although drug references are most likely inappropriate given the placement of this review, I am hard pressed to compare my first experiences with the Burnout franchise to anything else. I was so taken with that revolution in racing that I have been waiting for the same ride ever since. When I put this to paper, I realize that it sounds unfair to any car game I have placed in the tray for the last number of years.

I bring this up because it is important that the reader understand the unrealistic expectations I had placed on Split/Second before it had even made it’s way to my front door. Having watched game play movies I knew that I was in for an amazing visual experience and this game did not fail in that respect at all. In fact after all that preamble I have to say that Split/Second has done something very interesting in the world of cart racing games (to call this anything else would be doing a great disservice). The idea of largely destructible landscapes is an appealing one, very appealing actually.

And this game gives it to us in spades. In the first track we find ourselves speeding under the burning wing of a crashing 747, jet engines taking out other drivers in the rear view. That kind of debris dodging doesn’t so much punctuate the game as define the game play all together. Throughout the week I spent with it, I found my self weaving between exploding gas tankers, catching air off of fallen ferry car decks and sidestepping a massive cargo ship as it got knocked off it’s skids and slid into the harbor. The speed and chaos of the game play was so accelerated that, the one time I coxed my girlfriend into the room to have a look, she had to leave clutching her head to go lie down for a while.

The over all visual and auditory experience of the game was striking. The depth of the sound effects in combination with a screen completely obstructed with burning debris, gave me an immersive feeling, the game was rich in moments of complete faith. I would be flying along and trigger an oil tank truck to explode, taking out an opponent right in front of me and have to rely on my memory of the track ahead for fractions of a second. Fractions of a second were all it took for things to go horribly wrong in Split Second.

The story that drives the game is simple enough and in it’s defense, new to this genre. You are a contestant on a new reality show in which, you guessed it, a bunch of contestants race for their lives. I don’t think it’s one of those things where if you lose some villain comes and shoots you; the character’s involvement seems voluntary enough. I say the “for their lives” bit because, given the style of the races it’s clear that, no matter how many points your harness has, you’re not walking away from any of the crashes. It boiled down to a very thin plot, which I count as a check in the win column. The last thing this game needed was a bunch of lengthy and poorly written cut scenes. Split/Second includes the usual race/contest types, straight racing, time trials where you get to try out new cars, eliminator races (the last place car is taken out until there is only one still rolling around the track) and a couple kinds of special events where a helicopter launches missiles at you or you have to drive past a series of flat bed trucks that are loosing explosive oil tanks. I found these last two more frustrating then worthwhile but am willing to concede that if I were any better at dodging explosive objects I might have enjoyed them. The game also had the standard multi-player options, split screen races on tracks you had unlocked in one player. It also has online multi-player options.

All in all, I think that the game delivered in a couple ways. I would often get up after a race and realize that I hadn’t blinked in way too long (always a good sign). I also think that the scope of the destructible landscape was impressive. The thing that stopped me from keeping the game any longer was the actual triggering of the landscape explosions. In the end, the entire game was just drifting around corners to get the power meter up and then spending that power to trigger epic explosions in an attempt to take out your opponents. I really do like this aspect of the game play, I just though that it wasn’t enough to carry the game on it’s own. I found myself yearning for more close interaction between cars. The way that another car reacted when I slammed into them or cut them off left me wanting. It brought me back to a time, pre-Burnout, when it seemed as if all cars had force fields. I miss that sweet period when I could nudge someone’s back tire and send them just out of control enough to watch them hit oncoming traffic, causing a pile up. Those were the days.