There was a short review of Modern Warfare 2 that went something like this: “So then you do the ratatatat, and it’s all BOOM, and fwooosh! And wow! And Holy crap!” If I remove the ratatat and return the swears, I could use the same text to review Split/Second. But I can’t be that laconic.
The entire gameplay idea holds on the concept of “power play”, which can be used to evoke a tiny apocalypse for your enemies. Who could do the same to you, which is not something you get used to from the start. Though, surprisingly, all of the power plays are balanced so well that in both singleplayer and multiplayer cannot hit with 100% rate. So it always depends on when they’re activated and how quick the victim reaction is. But I’m running way ahead of myself. What’s the power play? By using the three simple tricks while racing (drifting, drafting and jumping) every racer fills their power play bar that has three levels. First two levels are blue that can trigger “simple” tricks, like exploding barrels, exploding buildings, exploding cars, trucks or something like unlocking timed shortcuts. Third level of power play is coloured red and triggers really big things, like changing the entire route of the race or dropping a plane on the track. And it feels amazing.
Developers also had a brilliant idea of making the whole game setting a reality tv show, to explain the destructive nature of things. Everything is a specially built set, singleplayer campaign is divided into episodes (all with short “today on the show” and teasers for the next episode) and it works really well. Game is incredibly stylish and, as you can see from the screenshots, you basically have nothing on the screen most of the time except for the race. UI elements are cleverly overlayed on the car body and only occasionally you get bigger overlay text to tell about some important event. It’s all about gameplay with nothing superfluous. No licensed music as well, with the game instead going for a really nicely made mix of cinematic orchestral and electronic music that fits the game really well.
Game knows what to focus on and, unlike so many recent racing titles, does just that. Accelerate, brake, steer left or right, use power plays. That’s all. Take any car, instantly go into a race. No bs. Want a circuit? Sure. Want to go for a knockout race? Cool, there are those. There are also races where everything is exploding without you controlling that. Races where a combat helicopter is shooting you. Races where you need to tail a truck that’s throwing barrels at you. All of that is simple, yet incredibly fun.
There are some issues, of course. For example, in singleplayer last episodes showcase the usual issue of all arcade racing games – where rival AI racers don’t really use special tricks on other AI racers when out of your view. So a leader of the race, if they are far enough from you, might remain untouched by other AI. That said, since power play is activated from afar, it’s far less of an issue than usual. Even rubber banding, that is present, is less obnoxious due to this. Another issue worth mentioning, though, is the fact that crashing might be unreliable. I crashed a few times on extremely low speeds. Yet at the same time had barrels dropped square on my windscreen, which didn’t leave a scratch or even affected my driving.
This is very easy to forgive this. Split/Second is easily one of my absolute favorite arcade racing games of all time, along with already classic Flatout 2 or Burnout games. If you’re into more simulation-focused racing games, you might not like it as much. But as someone said on the internet about this game “If you hate racing, you will love this game”. So go on, dump a truck on your friend’s car. It’s extremely fun. In the game, I mean. -_-