Split/Second Velocity

Split/Second is a arcade style racer that is absolutely packed full of explosions. Like many arcade racers, you gain power by power-sliding round corners or drafting behind opponents. Once charged, you can cause destruction to the environment with the intention of destroying your opponents. There are 3 levels of 'power plays'. Examples of level 1 and 2 power plays are rocks falling onto the track, construction equipment swinging a demolition ball and explosives falling from helicopters. Temporary short-cuts can be enabled which the computer will sure try to make use of, but this can double as an attack if they aren't quick enough because they will plough into the closing wall. Examples of level 3 power plays include trains derailing, planes taking off and cooling towers exploding. Level 3 power plays can also act as Route Changers where part of the course will change after the destruction has happened. The quantity of explosions are high and it makes for a thrilling and fairly unique game. Due to the nature of these attacks, you can only activate them at set points around the track, but there is usually something to trigger every 15 seconds or so. You can only trigger events off in front of you though, which often is a hindrance when you are new to the track as you can't quite anticipate what you have triggered. Even if you dodge the object, the shock-wave that is a by-product can cause your tyres to lock slightly often sending you crashing into a wall. Once your car is destroyed, you instantly re-spawn so only lose a couple of seconds. Due to the races being mostly tight, you can go from 1st to about 6th in one crash which can be quite frustrating, particularly on Elimination where cars in last place are eliminated at certain intervals. Several other game types are available which are race (against 8 players), Detonator (a time trial through the circuit which power plays trigger when you reach them), Air Strike (dodge missiles fired from the helicopter), Survival (overtake as many trucks as possible which are dumping explosives on the track). There are 12 Episodes in total each with 6 races in them. Each Episode has 5 events from the game types mentioned above plus the final race which is a Elite Race which is a harder race type which you must come in the top 3 to progress to the next episode. The Elite Race is unlocked by gaining a set amount of points across all episodes. If you struggle to gain points in the current episode, you can always go back to previous episodes to improve your scores. Also, cars are unlocked at set intervals too and there are plenty of cars to choose from. Split/Second is a cool game and reminds me of Ridge Racer Unbounded. Split/Second is better for the destruction aspect, but Ridge Racer seemed more skilful and fun as a racing game with more polished graphics. Reading other users reviews of the game, many complaints criticised the rubber-banding (AI improves if you get far ahead). Since the game is full of explosions, most races are really tight and opponents rarely get too far ahead or too far behind, so personally I can't understand how people can state it as a fact that the rubber-banding technique is over-used. The problem I had with the game is that the Detonator race times seemed impossible to achieve 1st rank and so every race I could only manage 2nd.

I've played all the Burnouts, so was looking forward to this as a nice little snack before the next one.

Unfortunately it is very disappointing. I gave this two stars mostly because for a racing game it rarely matters how good you actually race!

While it looks very pretty and has a frantic pace, the 'power play' feature relies on the need for your opponents to be ahead of you.

For the game developers to make this work, they have coded the AI so that even if you drive perfectly & drift flawlessly, you WILL get passed out, often by cars that you just blew up a few seconds before. I've never seen such an extreme example of rubberbanding AI in a racer!

I thought game developers would've learned their lesson from MarioKart 64: rubberbanding AI only p*sses off the player.

The 'instant replay' feature for some Power Plays is also flawed, as any time I used it, my car kept on driving during the playback, resulting in me crashing without having any control. Did the developers even have a QA department I wonder :)?

With regards to online multiplayer, while there isn't cheating AI to contend with, you will almost certainly NEED the last/best unlocked cars to compete, otherwise the competition will leave you in the dust before the end of the first lap.

Hardly a fair introduction to newbies.

All in all a waste of a good idea. Rent Blur or NFS:HP instead.

Ace game! Every bit of this game i loved, how 1 minute you can go from driving down a bridge and then next lap its blown up and your in the underground system. 5 stars, must play!

i love this game. it wasnt well received when it first came out by the public but did very well with critics. the racing is fast and furious and stuff is exploding all around you all the time. the achievements are quite easy apart from a couple that require you to beat certain times set by the games developers. overall well worth a rent. highly recommended

this is a great game i thought this would be another one of those near fail games but i was so wrong this is a brilliant game keeps you on your toes at points :D