Split/Second
Split/Second | |
---|---|
Platforms | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows |
Genre | High adrenaline racer |
Score | 8.5 |
Buy from Amazon |
In
all my years, I’ve never been much of a racing game fan. Quite
honestly, the idea of doing the same thing over and over feels tedious
to me. While some games, like Need for Speed Underground and Gran
Turismo have offered vehicle customization to try and keep things
fresh, they still seem to fall into a slump of painful repetition.
But
Black Rock Studios, the creators of Pure, have strived to come up to a
solution to this plague, and that is massive destruction and a game
premise unique from any other racing game I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
This solution is called Split/Second.
The
premise of the game is that you’re a stunt driver in a reality
television series called Split/Second, that has these stunt drivers
racing against each other in cities manufactured by the television
show. While stunts, in themselves, are not entirely new, the massive
chaos is extremely refreshing.
We’ve all played Mario Kart, and
we’ve shot koopa shells at our enemies and laughed as they were
rendered motionless while we passed them into first place, and it’s
relatively satisfying to a point, but this is different.
But
where Mario Kart is set to stun, Split/Second is set to kill. From gas
station explosions and helicopters dropping explosive barrels to air
planes crashing on the raceway, this game delivers a completely
original adrenaline rush that delivers over and over again.
You’re
in control of these beautiful disasters with power plays, which are
your weapons in this dog-eat-dog racing world. The way to activate them
is to accumulate energy. You can accomplish this by drifting around
corners, drafting behind your opponents, and jumping with your vehicle.
You also receive a bonus amount of energy by passing opponents while
drifting, jumping past opponents and dodging power plays set off in
your path.
Gameplay: The gameplay is fantastic, with only
a few drawbacks. The racing element is solid and you feel like you’re
in control most of the time. That’s one of the issues is that it’s only
most of the time. The hardest part of the game is retaining control
when going around a corner while still trying to be fast enough to hold
your place in line, and as you start earning faster vehicles, this
element of the game becomes decidedly more difficult.
While that
is not such a big deal in itself, the computer seems less afflicted. My
mouth would drop, and then curse words would fly every time I was four seconds ahead of everyone on a straight away just to be passed by three racers when going around a corner.
Though
that’s certainly a draw back, because of the power plays, this really
balances out. The computers are able to unleash their own havoc but
they seem to be far more hindered by their effects than I was while
racing. A power play almost always yielded at least one wreck, where as
I would typically drive past and come out virtually unscathed, with
only my speed being hindered.
The controls are simple enough,
the right trigger is the accelerator and the left trigger is the break.
The A button does a level one power play, which is usually just a good
way to wreck the competition with things like exploding parked cars and
bussed to giant cranes whipping around, destroying anything in its
path. The B buttons activates your level two power play, which is
generally route altering and an extreme feast to the eyes, and also
usually ends up with a few casualties on the side.
The season
mode is great, allowing you to earn new vehicles, but also discover new
tracks and new game modes. My personal favorite game mode is Survival,
which is where you’re racing against endless 18-wheelers that leave
explosive barrels in their wake. There’s also another one I quite enjoy
called Air Strike, where you race around the city while a helicopter is
in front of you shooting missiles at you.
But there are game
modes I care for least, the main one being Detonator, where you race
against the clock to make a lap as quickly as possible. I just really
don’t care for it, and it’s far more demanding than any of the other
modes of gameplay.
I also played the multi-player where my wife
and I played against each other for hours and hours on end. It’s very
similar to single player, but it’s still great fun and entirely
addictive on its own.
But there is one complaint, just one, that
I find makes Split/Second a little bit more like its competitors: the
difficulty. The game is relatively good at balancing the difficulty
with where you are in the game, however, I found my skills topping out
and having races become impossible to finish in first, and sometimes
the top three.
Now, I understand that there is an amount of
gratification when beating a race or a boss, but it hardly outweighs
the amount of frustration I had when it felt like the computer was
barely phased by the elements of the game that gave me such a hard
time. Again, the cornering is incredibly difficult, and it seems quite
easy for the computer to surpass you easily when going around curves.
This is something that has significantly hurt my racing game experience
in the past. Most games I would give up, but fortunately Split/Second
delivers something that is so much fun, that even this deterrent can’t
keep me from picking up my controller and trying again.
The game
also has a few glitches, the most notable that I saw was when I
respawned in mid-air, flipping. While absolutely hilarious at the time,
I can see where that happening during a difficult race could be a huge
problem.
This game is also not typical to other racing games.
You do not see a speedometer or lap times or a map or anything like
that. It’s you, your power play bar, and that’s basically it. Only in
other game modes are you displayed anything else, and even then it’s
generally a score and a time clock and while I like this part about the
game, I can see where Gran Turismo and Need for Speed fans might
dislike this kind of gameplay.
A lot of my friends that play
racing games play it because of their vehicle customization. They like
to upgrade their vehicles with parts and then race them. I personally
always found that sort of mind numbing because you just won races to
get the parts, and you always just choose to upgrade the part because
the upgrade is, of course, better, but this is not the goal of Split/Second. Split/Second is not about seeing who has the better car.
It’s not even necessarily who can go the fastest. It’s main goal is to
give you extreme excitement, and generally everything else falls in
line.
Graphics and Sound: The graphics in this game are
astounding. The vehicles and environments by themselves look great, but
the explosions set it over the top. They’re all executed incredibly
well. I loved seeing the screen come to life with mayhem, it makes you
feel all warm and fuzzy.
You can hit the Y button while racing
to enable what the game calls “bumper cam” where you can drive first
person. It did seem to make things harder, but it also made everything
look incredible and a lot more exhilarating. There’s not much else to
be said; the game looks fantastic and even believable, and every power
play is a work of art.
The sound is immersive and solid. There’s
not a lot to comment here as far as the sound effects. Explosions sound
like explosions, crashes sound like crashing, but it’s still perfect.
However,
there’s a lot to say about the music. The music is fast, breakbeat
style music that really keeps pace with the racing environment. I found
myself really enjoying the whole experience while playing for the first
few hours, but after that, it started being a little repetitive and I
noticed, as well as my wife, that it sticks in your head easily. I
myself occasionally found myself experiencing the Tetris effect on
occasion.
The music is fitting, but I wish there were more
tracks to be had in the game. For something so elaborate, I would have
expected more music.
Story: I’m going to feel a bit like
Greg on this one, but there really isn’t one. You’re a stunt driving
trying to make your claim to fame. That’s really all there is. However,
I will say that the premise is superior to any other racing game I’ve
played. That doesn't mean there's a story, but it's better than nothing
compared to the amount of racing games that just tell you to race.
While I would give this a ten, games like Need for Speed have included
talking to people, allowing them to set the bar for stories in racing
games.
Fun Factor: The unique power plays, original game
modes and fun race tracks, all the way down to the plain old fun sense
of going way too fast is all here, and while the difficulty can be
hurtful, it rarely stopped me from playing, and I would usually pick up
the controller after five to ten minutes of cooling off.
My
favorite part, though, was playing the game with my wife and just
laughing as we crashed the computer and ourselves as well as simply
crashing on accident. The single-player feels a lot more personal,
because you desperately want to beat the computer so bad, but when
racing against each other, it was just fun. Occasionally I’d get
irritated if I just continued getting smashed, but it took at lot
longer than the single player and it is a whole lot more fun.
Scores
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Graphics and Sound: 9/10
Fun Factor: 9/10
Overall: 8.5
The Bottom Line:
This game is fun. No, it’s not perfect, but from a guy that’s not the
biggest fan of racing games, but has played a lot of them, it’s a big
deal that this game delivers this much fun. I can see most racing game
fans enjoying this game to its full extent, but some of the
customization lovers and plain racetrack lovers might find something
missing from Split/Second’s ensemble.