Split/Second - 9/10 - I hate racing games. I try to give the genre a try every once in a while because once upon a time I really enjoyed Mario Kart, but that series has become so ridiculously cheap over the years with its AI and by-the-books in its formula that I just don't enjoy it anymore. "Realistic" racing games bore me to tears, as if I really wanted a life-like driving experience I'd just get in my car and go somewhere.
You may notice in my posts that I like to use the phrase "embrace the fantastic" a lot in reference to games and animation, pushing an idea to an extreme that could only be conveyed in these mediums and wallowing in it. Split/Second is a game that embraces the fantastic, playing on the idea of "what if Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay got together and made a badass car racing game?" It's loud, it's fast, it's gorgeous, and it's filled to the brim with explosions; destruction; mayhem; and pure arcade-y fun. I tried the demo for this game out one day on a whim, having heard the game was good but not knowing what kind of game it was (I actually mixed it up with a similarly-named FPS game) but falling in love with it when I did. The very next day, I bought the game and after introducing my best friend to it, now he's going to buy a copy of it. See what happens when you make a good demo and put it out there for free, companies? That's TWO New Game sales you got from two people who don't like racing games.
But I digress. Split/Second is made by the Disney-owned Black Rock studios, who made another racing game called Pure a few years back. The basic idea is that you are racing in the latest "season" of a hit reality TV show of the same name that apparently has an unlimited budget and total legal immunity. It's a simple story framework that basically just shows up at the beginning and end of each episode as teaser trailers to hype the coming carnage. Each episode, You and 7 other racers compete in a variety of events on a man-made "set" composed of all sorts of delightful traps, from minor things like exploding cars and helicopters that drop explosive barrels to course-changing mass destruction like exploding buildings; crashing jet liners; collapsing bridges; and derailing trains. The environment is your weapon. Every course has a variety of these scripted "Power Plays", and you trigger them by filling a meter fueled by drifting, drafting, and jumping as you roar down the course. You may trigger them on any racer in front of you who can potentially be harmed by the scripted event, though unlike Mario Kart your targets aren't instantly screwed just because you used the play. Depending on the level of the Power Play; the target car's location on the course; and the target driver's driving skill, these death traps are perfectly avoidable so timing is everything. You also have to be careful you don't kill yourself with your own Power Play, a costly mistake that is all too easy to make. The "season" is composed of 12 "episodes" and is general well-composed and well-paced with plenty of exciting moments as you race through what often feels like barely-controlled chaos. You can also use a Power Play to open up shortcuts, leading to a high level of risk-vs.-reward that reminds me a lot of the N64 Beetle Adventure Racing.
I should reiterate just how great this game looks. The developers went with a very realistic look, but they didn't fall into the common trap (as I saw today when my best friend brought over his copy of Modern Warfare 2) where the visuals are "so realistic" that everything blends together and it's difficult to distinguish important information. Despite much of the game taking place either mid-day or sunset with explosions constantly happening around you, the colors are vibrant and it's very easy even at high speeds to distinguish opposing cars and the environment from one another. The game also features a decent musical score that serves the action well, though to be honest only the "Split/Second Theme" and this cool choral theme that plays at the end of Elite Races really stood out to me. There is really good sound design, though, including lots of little touches like the music just briefly fading out for a moment during major power plays to emphasize the sheer power of the moment.
Where this game runs into trouble is in two key areas: first, there are way too few tracks in this game at only 12, and honestly those 12 tracks are really just 5 central locations (the airport, the harbor, the city, the power plant, and the airport graveyard/canyon) using different routes with different Power Play opportunities. I really enjoyed the tracks here, but repetition in Season mode kicks in really quickly as you repeatedly compete in various events on each track. This is a game that could really benefit from more courses introduced via DLC. The other problem is a major one, and that's that this game has the most blatantly cheating AI this side of Mario Kart. It is impossible to get and keep a lead in this game for very long, as I've seen everything from wrecked cars respawning less than a second after I wreck them to cars coming out of nowhere to steal the lead at the last minute of a race where no one was near me. There's an extreme amount of rubber-banding, and it's incredibly frustrating though I can see how it may be necessary. After all, this game thrives on keeping the pack together so the Power Plays can inflict maximum carnage, but unfortunately the rubber-banding only works one way: when you're in front. When you're behind, the AI is more than happy to simply out-race you and the AI almost always has better cars than you. Unlike Mario Kart, I don't think this rubber-banding breaks the game because the outcome of the race still depends greatly on your skill level and your intelligence with using power plays, but it can make the game very frustrating. Playing Online is a different story: Black Rock had the "brilliant" idea of having Day 1 DLC out there you can buy that instantly unlocks all the best cars and tracks, which you can take into Online multiplayer. This completely breaks the game (and ruins Online, IMO) and brings us back to the flaw I just mentioned: if you don't have a race where the racers are relatively close to each other, there's very little you can do if you're lagging behind to catch up because drafting behind another racer is the best way to fill the Power Play meter and slow the other racers down with crashes.
All that said, I loved this game and would highly recommend it to anyone who loves the spirit of pure arcade racing, even if they don't usually enjoy racing games. And explosions. LOTS of explosions. It's a very simple arcade racer, but it knows exactly what it does well and executes it with perfection. Both HD platforms have an excellent demo for the Airport track up on their respective download services, so check it out if you're curious.