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This thread has been linked to the game 'Split/Second'.
Destroying cities really isn’t in vogue at the moment. Island paradises are fair game (thanks, Just Cause 2!), as are far away space lands (cheers, Red Faction Guerrilla!). But with the sensitivities of the world as they are, it seems the number of opportunities to blow up planes or bring down skyscrapers was only ever going to get smaller.
Thankfully Black Rock (owned by Disney, of all people) has decided to buck the trend. Split/Second: Velocity - or Split Second as I’ll refer to it from here, in your face UK trademark law, is pretty much wet dream material for people who like stuff going at great speeds on fire, which obviously is EVERYONE. The thin premise with which it gets away with all of this is thus: you are a contestant on a reality racing show. Through a series of episodes and events, collect credits by destroying your opponents and coming first. Collect enough credits to advance and ultimately win the championship. So far, so arcade racer.
However, rather than using only the grunt of your car or cleverly-timed jumps to wreck your rivals, you can at the press of a button cause large parts of the course, be it parked vehicles, petrol stations or boats, to explode. You see, this reality racing show is conveniently set in a built-for-destruction city. And this city has been packed to the brim with explosives.
Now, some people might still not be convinced. “Great”, they say. “The track has explosives you can set off. So what?”. “Come here my children”, I say, “let me tell you about a USP”. The perilous traps set around the track are called Power Plays, and come in two delicious varieties. ‘Level 1 Power Plays’ are the kiddy ones, in the same way that Lego would be ‘kiddy’ if it spontaneously combusted every 30 seconds. These include trucks, beams, rafters, walkways, museums, tanks of gas and all other sorts of highly-combustible matter, blasting cars off the track at merest button push. Requiring only 1 bar of your Power Meter (more on that later), these cause relatively minor damage, swerving those close to the blast off course, perhaps enough to send them careening into a wall.
The fun (pain) really begins with the ‘Level 2 Power Plays’. Fill your Power Meter up full and you can set off these bad boys. Level 2 Power Plays include avalanches, the utter annihilation of skylines and the bringing down of epic passenger jets, all accompanied with a satisfying roar, then silence, then an almighty, earth shattering bang. I don’t want to spoil too many of these because most are simply incredible, and the opportunity to hit ‘LB’ and watch them mid-race in their full glory is pure joy from start to finish. Rest assured, you will not be disappointed by what Split Second has up its sleeve for those who save their power…
A critical aspect of Level 2 Power Plays is their ability to change the track completely. Most courses are a set of interweaving roads, with shortcuts, ramps and off-road sections built in to add variety and reward players willing to drive through a petrol station rigged with explosives simply to avoid a tricky corner. Setting off certain Level 2 Power Plays results in massive alterations to each track, calling for quick thinking and lightning-fast reflexes. Not only does this add variety to each race (I’m still seeing new things after over 100 runs), but the sheer spectacle of hearing the horn of a cruise liner as it screams past you on fire into 7 other racers, opening up a brand new route, is immense.
But how to activate these Power Plays? That’d be the Power Meter. In order to set them off, you need to draft, drift and jump your way round the course. Drift is as you’d expect for an arcade racer – tap the brakes and slide. Drafting is a la Mario Kart slipstreams, tailing an opponent to take advantage of back draft. You can also gain power by avoiding Power Plays as they go off (‘Close Calls’), as well as performing the above whilst overtaking.
The racing itself is satisfying, with 3 classes of car offering a variety of driving styles (aggressive, drift-heavy, pure speed), each suited to different tracks and events. Whilst not licensed, you can play ‘guess the make’ with most vehicles, being as they are almost carbon copies of some of the world’s best cars. The 12 tracks are all based on the same 4 or so large areas, but each takes enough of a different route to be interesting, and a Power Play in a given location in one track can have a very different effect in another. Route Changers further disorientate, providing new angles on familiar courses.
Black Rock also mixes things up a little in each episode by offering modes other than ‘plain’ races. By far the best of these is ‘Survival’. Simply put, 18-wheeler big rigs race round a course dropping explosive barrels. Blue barrels slow you down and send you skidding. Red barrels instantly wreck you. Overtake as many trucks as you can without being wrecked, scoring points and building up a multiplier. As time ticks down, the rigs get faster and launch ever more barrels. Clocking a 5x multiplier (i.e. 15 truck overtakes) whilst swerving out the way of all-red barrels is a pure adrenaline rush, and this mode online is almost worth paying for the game alone.
Other modes include ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Air Revenge’ (you versus an angry helicopter, evading missiles), as well as ‘Detonator’ (a messed-up time attack mode where the Power Plays are set off automatically in your path), as well as the what I’d consider the weakest mode, ‘Elimination’ (a race with the last-placed contender wrecked at the end of set time intervals, last man standing wins). Each episode in the season combines a variety of these events to prevent things from going stale.
Split Second, then. Beautiful saturated skies, epic synthesised orchestral swells, jaw-dropping acts of annihilation… If anything, I just wanted it to last longer – 12 episodes of 6 events just went far too quickly. Hopefully the ending (which I won’t spoil as it’s immense) is a sign of things to come, because if it is then Split Second as a franchise has legs. Online play and local split screen multiplayer will keep you at it for the foreseeable future, but the constant excitement of each episode as it’s presented can’t be matched. Still - a stunning, mad, exhilarating experience.
9/10
Played Season mode to 100% completion (3600 credits), played Race and Survival online to rank 46 so far (join me! GT: pAndrewh)
Edit: title changed.
Thankfully Black Rock (owned by Disney, of all people) has decided to buck the trend. Split/Second: Velocity - or Split Second as I’ll refer to it from here, in your face UK trademark law, is pretty much wet dream material for people who like stuff going at great speeds on fire, which obviously is EVERYONE. The thin premise with which it gets away with all of this is thus: you are a contestant on a reality racing show. Through a series of episodes and events, collect credits by destroying your opponents and coming first. Collect enough credits to advance and ultimately win the championship. So far, so arcade racer.
However, rather than using only the grunt of your car or cleverly-timed jumps to wreck your rivals, you can at the press of a button cause large parts of the course, be it parked vehicles, petrol stations or boats, to explode. You see, this reality racing show is conveniently set in a built-for-destruction city. And this city has been packed to the brim with explosives.
Now, some people might still not be convinced. “Great”, they say. “The track has explosives you can set off. So what?”. “Come here my children”, I say, “let me tell you about a USP”. The perilous traps set around the track are called Power Plays, and come in two delicious varieties. ‘Level 1 Power Plays’ are the kiddy ones, in the same way that Lego would be ‘kiddy’ if it spontaneously combusted every 30 seconds. These include trucks, beams, rafters, walkways, museums, tanks of gas and all other sorts of highly-combustible matter, blasting cars off the track at merest button push. Requiring only 1 bar of your Power Meter (more on that later), these cause relatively minor damage, swerving those close to the blast off course, perhaps enough to send them careening into a wall.
The fun (pain) really begins with the ‘Level 2 Power Plays’. Fill your Power Meter up full and you can set off these bad boys. Level 2 Power Plays include avalanches, the utter annihilation of skylines and the bringing down of epic passenger jets, all accompanied with a satisfying roar, then silence, then an almighty, earth shattering bang. I don’t want to spoil too many of these because most are simply incredible, and the opportunity to hit ‘LB’ and watch them mid-race in their full glory is pure joy from start to finish. Rest assured, you will not be disappointed by what Split Second has up its sleeve for those who save their power…
A critical aspect of Level 2 Power Plays is their ability to change the track completely. Most courses are a set of interweaving roads, with shortcuts, ramps and off-road sections built in to add variety and reward players willing to drive through a petrol station rigged with explosives simply to avoid a tricky corner. Setting off certain Level 2 Power Plays results in massive alterations to each track, calling for quick thinking and lightning-fast reflexes. Not only does this add variety to each race (I’m still seeing new things after over 100 runs), but the sheer spectacle of hearing the horn of a cruise liner as it screams past you on fire into 7 other racers, opening up a brand new route, is immense.
But how to activate these Power Plays? That’d be the Power Meter. In order to set them off, you need to draft, drift and jump your way round the course. Drift is as you’d expect for an arcade racer – tap the brakes and slide. Drafting is a la Mario Kart slipstreams, tailing an opponent to take advantage of back draft. You can also gain power by avoiding Power Plays as they go off (‘Close Calls’), as well as performing the above whilst overtaking.
The racing itself is satisfying, with 3 classes of car offering a variety of driving styles (aggressive, drift-heavy, pure speed), each suited to different tracks and events. Whilst not licensed, you can play ‘guess the make’ with most vehicles, being as they are almost carbon copies of some of the world’s best cars. The 12 tracks are all based on the same 4 or so large areas, but each takes enough of a different route to be interesting, and a Power Play in a given location in one track can have a very different effect in another. Route Changers further disorientate, providing new angles on familiar courses.
Black Rock also mixes things up a little in each episode by offering modes other than ‘plain’ races. By far the best of these is ‘Survival’. Simply put, 18-wheeler big rigs race round a course dropping explosive barrels. Blue barrels slow you down and send you skidding. Red barrels instantly wreck you. Overtake as many trucks as you can without being wrecked, scoring points and building up a multiplier. As time ticks down, the rigs get faster and launch ever more barrels. Clocking a 5x multiplier (i.e. 15 truck overtakes) whilst swerving out the way of all-red barrels is a pure adrenaline rush, and this mode online is almost worth paying for the game alone.
Other modes include ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Air Revenge’ (you versus an angry helicopter, evading missiles), as well as ‘Detonator’ (a messed-up time attack mode where the Power Plays are set off automatically in your path), as well as the what I’d consider the weakest mode, ‘Elimination’ (a race with the last-placed contender wrecked at the end of set time intervals, last man standing wins). Each episode in the season combines a variety of these events to prevent things from going stale.
Split Second, then. Beautiful saturated skies, epic synthesised orchestral swells, jaw-dropping acts of annihilation… If anything, I just wanted it to last longer – 12 episodes of 6 events just went far too quickly. Hopefully the ending (which I won’t spoil as it’s immense) is a sign of things to come, because if it is then Split Second as a franchise has legs. Online play and local split screen multiplayer will keep you at it for the foreseeable future, but the constant excitement of each episode as it’s presented can’t be matched. Still - a stunning, mad, exhilarating experience.
9/10
Played Season mode to 100% completion (3600 credits), played Race and Survival online to rank 46 so far (join me! GT: pAndrewh)
Edit: title changed.
I'll have a go at the demo and reconsider a verdict ;D
Sonic Chris wrote:
> I can't possibly pass fair comment
Tough to not say "then don't!" here! :P
but watching a gameplay
> video, the car physics look dreadful. The actual look of the
> tracks gets me excited. But in terms of collisions and damage, it
> looks catastrophic.
Give the demo a spin. It's strictly arcadey, no GT5 prologue accuracy shenanigans here, and the drift isn't quite as satisfying as, say, Burnout, but as its predecessor Pure it's solid, responsive and fun. Progressive vehicle damage is not a major feature, but then what does that matter when the main focus is altering the tracks? Catastrophic I would say is massive overstatement. Perhaps not to your tastes, but from other reviews I've read they agree that car physics are good/great, if not exceptional.
Also, cheers for reading, appreciated! :)
------
apologies for any errors, typed from phone.
> I can't possibly pass fair comment
Tough to not say "then don't!" here! :P
but watching a gameplay
> video, the car physics look dreadful. The actual look of the
> tracks gets me excited. But in terms of collisions and damage, it
> looks catastrophic.
Give the demo a spin. It's strictly arcadey, no GT5 prologue accuracy shenanigans here, and the drift isn't quite as satisfying as, say, Burnout, but as its predecessor Pure it's solid, responsive and fun. Progressive vehicle damage is not a major feature, but then what does that matter when the main focus is altering the tracks? Catastrophic I would say is massive overstatement. Perhaps not to your tastes, but from other reviews I've read they agree that car physics are good/great, if not exceptional.
Also, cheers for reading, appreciated! :)
------
apologies for any errors, typed from phone.
I can't possibly pass fair comment, but watching a gameplay video, the car physics look dreadful. The actual look of the tracks gets me excited. But in terms of collisions and damage, it looks catastrophic.
@Gemma - good stuff! it's a cracking game... not been tempted to 1000G a game in ages, but only got 25G to go :)
@pete - know what you mean, it was a tossup between Blur and this. It wasn't until the 2 demos were available for playing (Blur MP, Split/Second SP) that I made the decision... whilst I love the frenetic nature of Blur's races, the sheer spectacle of Split/Second gave it the edge for me. Still, as you say, buy one full price, get the other when it inevitably drops at zavvi or the like. £13 Bayonetta? £12 Forza 3? Yes please!
Cheers for the comments too :)
@pete - know what you mean, it was a tossup between Blur and this. It wasn't until the 2 demos were available for playing (Blur MP, Split/Second SP) that I made the decision... whilst I love the frenetic nature of Blur's races, the sheer spectacle of Split/Second gave it the edge for me. Still, as you say, buy one full price, get the other when it inevitably drops at zavvi or the like. £13 Bayonetta? £12 Forza 3? Yes please!
Cheers for the comments too :)
I had a few goes on this and it didn't really grab me TBH,thought it OK though.Graphics were excellent but personally I found Blur more fun to play so I bought that instead.I would recommend renting both (or trying the demo's) as can't really see many people buying both games at full price as they are pretty similar.I have a spare Day 1 Advantage Booster kit code for the PS3 version of Blur if anyone wants it (not much use to me as I don't own a PS3).Post a disposable email address on here and I'll send it on.Might pick Split/Second up at some point if I see it cheap and can understand why some people may prefer it over Blur,as neither are bad games.Nice review BTW.
I was debating over whether to get this but now I think I will!
Destroying cities really isn’t in vogue at the moment. Island paradises are fair game (thanks, Just Cause 2!), as are far away space lands (cheers, Red Faction Guerrilla!). But with the sensitivities of the world as they are, it seems the number of opportunities to blow up planes or bring down skyscrapers was only ever going to get smaller.
Thankfully Black Rock (owned by Disney, of all people) has decided to buck the trend. Split/Second: Velocity - or Split Second as I’ll refer to it from here, in your face UK trademark law, is pretty much wet dream material for people who like stuff going at great speeds on fire, which obviously is EVERYONE. The thin premise with which it gets away with all of this is thus: you are a contestant on a reality racing show. Through a series of episodes and events, collect credits by destroying your opponents and coming first. Collect enough credits to advance and ultimately win the championship. So far, so arcade racer.
However, rather than using only the grunt of your car or cleverly-timed jumps to wreck your rivals, you can at the press of a button cause large parts of the course, be it parked vehicles, petrol stations or boats, to explode. You see, this reality racing show is conveniently set in a built-for-destruction city. And this city has been packed to the brim with explosives.
Now, some people might still not be convinced. “Great”, they say. “The track has explosives you can set off. So what?”. “Come here my children”, I say, “let me tell you about a USP”. The perilous traps set around the track are called Power Plays, and come in two delicious varieties. ‘Level 1 Power Plays’ are the kiddy ones, in the same way that Lego would be ‘kiddy’ if it spontaneously combusted every 30 seconds. These include trucks, beams, rafters, walkways, museums, tanks of gas and all other sorts of highly-combustible matter, blasting cars off the track at merest button push. Requiring only 1 bar of your Power Meter (more on that later), these cause relatively minor damage, swerving those close to the blast off course, perhaps enough to send them careening into a wall.
The fun (pain) really begins with the ‘Level 2 Power Plays’. Fill your Power Meter up full and you can set off these bad boys. Level 2 Power Plays include avalanches, the utter annihilation of skylines and the bringing down of epic passenger jets, all accompanied with a satisfying roar, then silence, then an almighty, earth shattering bang. I don’t want to spoil too many of these because most are simply incredible, and the opportunity to hit ‘LB’ and watch them mid-race in their full glory is pure joy from start to finish. Rest assured, you will not be disappointed by what Split Second has up its sleeve for those who save their power…
A critical aspect of Level 2 Power Plays is their ability to change the track completely. Most courses are a set of interweaving roads, with shortcuts, ramps and off-road sections built in to add variety and reward players willing to drive through a petrol station rigged with explosives simply to avoid a tricky corner. Setting off certain Level 2 Power Plays results in massive alterations to each track, calling for quick thinking and lightning-fast reflexes. Not only does this add variety to each race (I’m still seeing new things after over 100 runs), but the sheer spectacle of hearing the horn of a cruise liner as it screams past you on fire into 7 other racers, opening up a brand new route, is immense.
But how to activate these Power Plays? That’d be the Power Meter. In order to set them off, you need to draft, drift and jump your way round the course. Drift is as you’d expect for an arcade racer – tap the brakes and slide. Drafting is a la Mario Kart slipstreams, tailing an opponent to take advantage of back draft. You can also gain power by avoiding Power Plays as they go off (‘Close Calls’), as well as performing the above whilst overtaking.
The racing itself is satisfying, with 3 classes of car offering a variety of driving styles (aggressive, drift-heavy, pure speed), each suited to different tracks and events. Whilst not licensed, you can play ‘guess the make’ with most vehicles, being as they are almost carbon copies of some of the world’s best cars. The 12 tracks are all based on the same 4 or so large areas, but each takes enough of a different route to be interesting, and a Power Play in a given location in one track can have a very different effect in another. Route Changers further disorientate, providing new angles on familiar courses.
Black Rock also mixes things up a little in each episode by offering modes other than ‘plain’ races. By far the best of these is ‘Survival’. Simply put, 18-wheeler big rigs race round a course dropping explosive barrels. Blue barrels slow you down and send you skidding. Red barrels instantly wreck you. Overtake as many trucks as you can without being wrecked, scoring points and building up a multiplier. As time ticks down, the rigs get faster and launch ever more barrels. Clocking a 5x multiplier (i.e. 15 truck overtakes) whilst swerving out the way of all-red barrels is a pure adrenaline rush, and this mode online is almost worth paying for the game alone.
Other modes include ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Air Revenge’ (you versus an angry helicopter, evading missiles), as well as ‘Detonator’ (a messed-up time attack mode where the Power Plays are set off automatically in your path), as well as the what I’d consider the weakest mode, ‘Elimination’ (a race with the last-placed contender wrecked at the end of set time intervals, last man standing wins). Each episode in the season combines a variety of these events to prevent things from going stale.
Split Second, then. Beautiful saturated skies, epic synthesised orchestral swells, jaw-dropping acts of annihilation… If anything, I just wanted it to last longer – 12 episodes of 6 events just went far too quickly. Hopefully the ending (which I won’t spoil as it’s immense) is a sign of things to come, because if it is then Split Second as a franchise has legs. Online play and local split screen multiplayer will keep you at it for the foreseeable future, but the constant excitement of each episode as it’s presented can’t be matched. Still - a stunning, mad, exhilarating experience.
9/10
Played Season mode to 100% completion (3600 credits), played Race and Survival online to rank 46 so far (join me! GT: pAndrewh)
Edit: title changed.
Thankfully Black Rock (owned by Disney, of all people) has decided to buck the trend. Split/Second: Velocity - or Split Second as I’ll refer to it from here, in your face UK trademark law, is pretty much wet dream material for people who like stuff going at great speeds on fire, which obviously is EVERYONE. The thin premise with which it gets away with all of this is thus: you are a contestant on a reality racing show. Through a series of episodes and events, collect credits by destroying your opponents and coming first. Collect enough credits to advance and ultimately win the championship. So far, so arcade racer.
However, rather than using only the grunt of your car or cleverly-timed jumps to wreck your rivals, you can at the press of a button cause large parts of the course, be it parked vehicles, petrol stations or boats, to explode. You see, this reality racing show is conveniently set in a built-for-destruction city. And this city has been packed to the brim with explosives.
Now, some people might still not be convinced. “Great”, they say. “The track has explosives you can set off. So what?”. “Come here my children”, I say, “let me tell you about a USP”. The perilous traps set around the track are called Power Plays, and come in two delicious varieties. ‘Level 1 Power Plays’ are the kiddy ones, in the same way that Lego would be ‘kiddy’ if it spontaneously combusted every 30 seconds. These include trucks, beams, rafters, walkways, museums, tanks of gas and all other sorts of highly-combustible matter, blasting cars off the track at merest button push. Requiring only 1 bar of your Power Meter (more on that later), these cause relatively minor damage, swerving those close to the blast off course, perhaps enough to send them careening into a wall.
The fun (pain) really begins with the ‘Level 2 Power Plays’. Fill your Power Meter up full and you can set off these bad boys. Level 2 Power Plays include avalanches, the utter annihilation of skylines and the bringing down of epic passenger jets, all accompanied with a satisfying roar, then silence, then an almighty, earth shattering bang. I don’t want to spoil too many of these because most are simply incredible, and the opportunity to hit ‘LB’ and watch them mid-race in their full glory is pure joy from start to finish. Rest assured, you will not be disappointed by what Split Second has up its sleeve for those who save their power…
A critical aspect of Level 2 Power Plays is their ability to change the track completely. Most courses are a set of interweaving roads, with shortcuts, ramps and off-road sections built in to add variety and reward players willing to drive through a petrol station rigged with explosives simply to avoid a tricky corner. Setting off certain Level 2 Power Plays results in massive alterations to each track, calling for quick thinking and lightning-fast reflexes. Not only does this add variety to each race (I’m still seeing new things after over 100 runs), but the sheer spectacle of hearing the horn of a cruise liner as it screams past you on fire into 7 other racers, opening up a brand new route, is immense.
But how to activate these Power Plays? That’d be the Power Meter. In order to set them off, you need to draft, drift and jump your way round the course. Drift is as you’d expect for an arcade racer – tap the brakes and slide. Drafting is a la Mario Kart slipstreams, tailing an opponent to take advantage of back draft. You can also gain power by avoiding Power Plays as they go off (‘Close Calls’), as well as performing the above whilst overtaking.
The racing itself is satisfying, with 3 classes of car offering a variety of driving styles (aggressive, drift-heavy, pure speed), each suited to different tracks and events. Whilst not licensed, you can play ‘guess the make’ with most vehicles, being as they are almost carbon copies of some of the world’s best cars. The 12 tracks are all based on the same 4 or so large areas, but each takes enough of a different route to be interesting, and a Power Play in a given location in one track can have a very different effect in another. Route Changers further disorientate, providing new angles on familiar courses.
Black Rock also mixes things up a little in each episode by offering modes other than ‘plain’ races. By far the best of these is ‘Survival’. Simply put, 18-wheeler big rigs race round a course dropping explosive barrels. Blue barrels slow you down and send you skidding. Red barrels instantly wreck you. Overtake as many trucks as you can without being wrecked, scoring points and building up a multiplier. As time ticks down, the rigs get faster and launch ever more barrels. Clocking a 5x multiplier (i.e. 15 truck overtakes) whilst swerving out the way of all-red barrels is a pure adrenaline rush, and this mode online is almost worth paying for the game alone.
Other modes include ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Air Revenge’ (you versus an angry helicopter, evading missiles), as well as ‘Detonator’ (a messed-up time attack mode where the Power Plays are set off automatically in your path), as well as the what I’d consider the weakest mode, ‘Elimination’ (a race with the last-placed contender wrecked at the end of set time intervals, last man standing wins). Each episode in the season combines a variety of these events to prevent things from going stale.
Split Second, then. Beautiful saturated skies, epic synthesised orchestral swells, jaw-dropping acts of annihilation… If anything, I just wanted it to last longer – 12 episodes of 6 events just went far too quickly. Hopefully the ending (which I won’t spoil as it’s immense) is a sign of things to come, because if it is then Split Second as a franchise has legs. Online play and local split screen multiplayer will keep you at it for the foreseeable future, but the constant excitement of each episode as it’s presented can’t be matched. Still - a stunning, mad, exhilarating experience.
9/10
Played Season mode to 100% completion (3600 credits), played Race and Survival online to rank 46 so far (join me! GT: pAndrewh)
Edit: title changed.