I can understand why a game like Split/Second exists; take the desperate explosive filled vehicle escape sequences seen in other games and turn it into a fully fledged spectacle. A racing game where you must evade all manner of destruction while also having the ability to knock an air traffic control tower on top of the racer ahead of you is something you just cannot get anywhere else. Add in an interesting framework and some solid, if derivative arcade racing and you get a game well worth picking up, at least to experience the novelty.
Split/Second came out in the Summer of 2010, alongside other strong racers such as Blur, and while its tragic that both studios closed, both games released show the efforts the developers put into the game. I have already talked about Blur, so let's give Split/Second its time to shine, specifically its single player component. Multiplayer is strong when you find players, but its not as populated as you would hope for an in depth analysis.
The games single player is set as a TV series, where you start off by applying for the eponymous show of the title. After a quick tutorial, you become a contestant vying to be the greatest racer of the series. As a contestant, you must race through the season, with 12 episodes, and 6 events per episode. At the end of each episode is an elite race, where the championship points are won, and whichever racer has the most points at the end of the season is the winner.
The TV show style is what sets this racer apart from the rest in terms of presentation. There is a lot to like about how it gets the feel of american gladiators style TV right. TV recaps, the end credits after the final event in an episode, the slow-mo replays as half the city crumbles apart, and instant replays as rivals get smashed by obstacles all contribute to what Blackrock studio is going for. If there is one element that could have been added, its an option for studio commentary, though if its anything like Burnout 3 it may have been for the best to omit it.
Speaking of which, Burnout's gameplay DNA is certainly present in Split/Second, specifically Burnout Revenge for the darker tinged aesthetic of both cutscenes and design of the city streets. A big part of the game is about dodging obstacles to win, while filling a power bar by drifting, drafting and jumping. Of course, the emphasis on destruction to win cannot be ignored, though it is definitely done in its own unique way. So if you liked Burnout games when they stuck to closed circuits and not open world, this may be the game you are looking for.
What Burnout did lack was the ability to drop bombs on opponents, and this is where Split/Second shifts gears into a league of its own. You could argue the whole point of the game is to give players the chance to collapse tunnels on racers that are getting away. With enough of your power meter turned blue, you can unleash small scale traps that require some timing in most cases to crash a rival racer. When your meter turns full, and red, you can unleash the large scale destruction. Entire sections of the track get rerouted as a plane crashes into the airport, or a train derails into the city centre. This tends to wipe out most of the pack ahead, and is very fun to watch in the instant replays the first few times you trigger them. How well you do in the game depends on how and when you use your power plays against rivals, and equally if you can survive your own devastation.
The racing itself is of the arcade style, which is sadly becoming all too rare in gaming these days. The three types of racers are cars that stick to tarmac like glue, cars that can drift with ease and the off road vehicles that can withstand explosive shockwaves, but with painfully slow acceleration to get to top speed. The lack of a boost meter feels like a problem, especially when you are far behind and not even triggering traps ahead can catch you up to opponents, so your only option of a speed boost is from drafting opponents a short distance ahead. The sense of speed suffers a little bit in comparison to Revenge, likely due to the lower framerate, but it still gives the oomph as motors roar to peak performance down a long straight.
My big issue with the game is the lack of diversity in the tracks. Many routes reuse sections of track on future routes, and after your initial burst of energy playing it is a shame it grinds a bit as you start seeing the same rain derailment or airport exploding. Even if you can take the low track count, you may tire of the fairly repetitive feel of the city in general. Back to Burnout, while that game also reused track sections, it also had world tour, where the changed continents and locations gave a new feast for the eyes when you got tired of the american city tracks or waterfront trams. This is definitely a game that needed a season 2: International mayhem, with more interesting flavours of destruction.
Imagine blowing up the Pantheon!
On top of that, the game modes are fairly limited, although they do work in the sense of the TV show. besides standard races, there are time trials to outrun the destruction, eliminator modes where every 20 seconds last place gets destroyed, outrunning helicopters firing missiles at you, dodging exploding barrels falling out of the back of a truck, or even deflecting missiles at a helicopter, where the fastest racer to shoot it down wins.
Then there are smaller issues, such as how early on the cars speed seems a bit too slow to start with, the difficulty in drifting at times in a game with an emphasis on arcade driving, the aforementioned lack of boosting, or how it can get frustrating at times when you are winning for the whole race only to get hit by a bomb and finish 5th, but in the grand scheme it doesn't matter too much.
A final gripe is how you need to unlock the final event, but it turns out to be just another race, similar to ones you had done before. A final race joining up the best elements of all the prior tracks would have been a much more satisfying climax, with preset detonations of all the large scale power plays as you race to the finish.
All in all, while Split/Second is a flawed game with some annoyances, it is still a fun arcade racer that has had a great amount of effort put in place. Any time you see a cruise ship crash into the port, or have a bridge collapse, you can just imagine the effort needed for this sort of idea to come to life. And to Black Rock Studio's credit, their idea of a TV show with infinite resources spent on a touring car season with explosions everywhere works within context of the game, and is a joy to behold when it all comes in place. The game may not be an arcade classic, but it definitely deserved a Season 2.
