At a glance...

Split/Second: Velocity review

I first saw Split/Second: Velocity late 2009 at a small games convention in London. Even then, the demo was impressive; so much so, that I declared that I would purchase it on launch. Nine months later, I finally managed to get my hands on a copy. Was I disappointed? Did the game live up the promise of the early build? Unfortunately, its a bit of a mixed impression.

Split/Second: Velocity is the latest racing title from Black Rock Studio; best known for their work on another racing title, Pure. Split/Second is an action packed arcade racer, which shares similarities with the Burnout series form Criterion. The premise of the game is that you take on the role of a stunt driver working for a TV studio to produce a show called "Split/Second". The game is structured into a selection of ‘episodes’, each one with its own trailer and intro. Complete the Elite Race at the end of the episode and a new one is unlocked for you. This simple premise provides some motivation and makes for a compelling reason to complete the game. Whilst it may seem like a flimsy excuse to get into some fast cars and drive around tracks filled with explosives, it works well and complements the arcade feel to the game. The episode trailers really do their job to make you feel excited about the next series of tracks you have to race and that helps draw you into the fiction. I won’t spoil the ending, but I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in Season Two.

The high-octane racing would be enough in itself to satisfy most arcade racer fans but Split/Second has another trick up its sleeve; Power Plays. As you race around tracks, drifting around corners or drafting behind opponents gradually fills up a meter around your car. This meter has three sections and filling up one will allow you to unleash a power play, which allows you to trigger actions along the track ahead of you. These range from moving a blockade out of the way so you can nab a sneaky shortcut to triggering a parked car that's rigged to blow. In the latter, debris flies onto the track potentially taking out opponents ahead of you or even yourself if you can’t get out of the way. Some of these sequences crop up over and over again across all the tracks, such as helicopters with explosive barrels and parked cars, but others are track-specific. For example, when racing along the canyon edge, falling boulders can rain down from the slopes, and two large cooling towers can collapse on unsuspecting vehicles in the factory setting. I mentioned earlier that there are three components to the meter. Once you have completely filled it, the second level power plays are available to you. These are over-the-top scripted sequences that have the potential to wreck a large amount of vehicles or change the course of the track. These range from a large plane crashing into a runway, to a dumpster truck held aloft by a helicopter ploughing through concrete highways. If you happen to be a skilled driver, you are left with a huge adrenaline rush as you manage to avoid completely wrecking you car and those around you are caught in the cross fire. As I touched on earlier, the effects from the simplest explosion to the largest building collapse are rendered in superb detail with large amounts of particles littering the screen. The biggest problem with this system is that the location of each trigger-able action is fixed meaning that you’ll soon learn the patterns and locations of the explosives and it soon becomes of the case that you’ll learn to stick to the left or right or slow down to avoid the next series of explosions. If they had spent time making some of these actions a little more random then it would have made each instance fresh, but as it stands, each of the tracks become stale after extended play. These route-changing power plays begin to feel artificial on your fourth or fifth drive past as you see chunks of debris almost slot into place in order to allow a new route to form. You may be too busy speeding past to always spot these but it has a jarring effect when you do notice them.

When you do take to tracks in your car of choice, you find a really crisp world with detail everywhere. There is a stunning amount of detail in the tracks and effects alike, with a large amount of particles apparent in each of the power play effects. The HUD itself follows the minimalist approach with all the items that the player would care about, nicely fitted around a circle interface at the bottom of your car. Black Rock Studios have smartly avoided cluttering this interface up by only providing you with the bare essentials: a lap counter, your position in the race and a semi-circle bar indicating how close you are to unleashing your powerplays. This minimalist approach is a perfect break from the HUD-heavy racing games, avoiding unnecessary distraction and allowing you focus on the racing at hand.

The handling of the cars themselves feels light and don't expect to be doing a perfect run though each of the courses. You will be hitting the barriers on many occassions and drifts are over emphasised, but lukily, this is all part of the arcade feel of the game. Whilst your vehicle controls well, one of the most frustrating issues with the single player portion of the game is the way the AI drives. Many races end in frustration as the car behind triggers one of the final explosions of track leaving you with nothing to do but curse the console in frustration as they go on to take the win. Additionally, the AI paths through the level feel entirely fixed and if you stand in their way then they will mow you down. This becomes increasingly annoying as the difficulty ramps up as it makes the AI cars seem like nitro powered bulldozers as they barge past you. Any attempt to get your own back and knock them out of the way is also futile as the cars feel like immovable pieces of concrete. I wouldn’t have felt as cheated if it appeared that the AI triggered the power plays against each other. Instead it feels like they save their energy for you and if they have to take out on the others at the same time then it's an added bonus. Going online solves all these issues as you’re put in front of bunch of players who have no qualms against using power plays against one another. Races feel like a challenge but you’re not left with that bitter taste in your mouth when another racer beats you to first place... well, not as often anyway. As you take to the streets online, your choice of vehicles is defined by your progress in the single player campaign. It's a risky choice; on one hand it encourages players to complete the single player portion of the game but if you're eager to start racing online straight away, you'll find yourself outmatched by those who have already unlocked the best cars or have paid for the unlock DLC. As part of the online system, each player is also given rank from 1 to 99. Starting off at 99, you have to place in the top positions in races to increase your rank. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few achievements, there isn't any real incentive to max out your rank. Adding insult to injury, if you end up on the lower end of the rankings, your rank goes down, essentially fueling those who are on their way to the top. The main problem with the multiplayer is that with the exception of playing against human players there isn't much difference with the single player campaign and as we already noted, the multiplayer is already highly coupled with your episode progress.

Luckily, if you either feel too frustrated to play another race with the AI, Split/Second has a few other tricks up its sleeve. In addition to the obliquity race and ‘time trial’ modes, the team at Black Rock Studios have packed in a few other gameplay types which serve as awesome distractions from the game's main attraction. The first mode I’ll discuss is the Survival Mode. This pits you up against a series of trucks that are driving around a circular track. Your aim is to pass as many trucks as you can, but as you approach the rear of each truck, barrels come flying out. Hitting a blue barrel sends your car into an uncontrollable spin for a few seconds. This is enough to set you back by a couple of seconds or forces you to wreck yourself. Hitting a red barrel causes it to explode and automatically wrecks your car, losing any combo that you were building up. It soon becomes a race against time to pass as many trucks as you can before the time runs out. Once the clock hits zero then sudden death is activated and the only barrel you see popping out of those trucks will be red ones. This is a great mode and feels very reminiscent of the film Death Race. Another mode is Air Attack which has you racing around some of the existing tracks in the game. A helicopter chases you overhead but the twist is that it's armed to the teeth with missiles. In quick succession, icons appear on the road in front of you marking where the next set of missiles will hit. After a few seconds, these icons turn red and air strikes reign down from the sky. Successfully avoiding these will award you with some points and an increase to your combo meter, but get taken out and you will drop a life and lose any combo multiplier you had been building. Annoyingly, if you slow down the missiles target will edge closer to you, forcing you to stay at top speeds in order to more effectively dodge the attack. It's an exhilarating gameplay mode and it tests your quick wits and control of the Split/Second vehicles. And finally, the last mode is Air Revenge. This puts a spin on the previous mode by allowing you to fight back against the 'copter. Successfully dodging the attacks and building up your power meter will grant you the ability to jam the helicopter targeting system so it fires the missiles back at itself. Do this a few times and the match is yours, but as always you’re up against the clock. These are all dispersed amongst the episodes and serve as great mini-games that break up the often repetitive action of the other races.

Overall this is a great game and if it wasn’t for the dodgy AI in the single player then it would be almost perfect. There are still a few things I’m not entirely satisfied with, though. Whilst the power plays look and feel great, they are linked to opponents ahead of you meaning there isn’t really much you can do in first and you will often find yourself with a full meter and nothing to trigger. If only you could trigger actions behind your or convert your unused meter into a quick burst of speed, this would also benefit you if you were in a weaker position by allowing you to speed past explosions. However, the main problem with the game is lack of replayability. Once you’ve mastered the tracks and car there isn’t much to do but race the same courses over and over again. Taking the game online alleviated some of this as playing against real opponents will usually provide you with a fresh challenge but once you’ve ascended to the highest rank then once again the game begins to lose its shine. Black Rock have already announced some DLC but the first pack has been revealed to be a vehicle set. What I really crave is more tracks not new cars, the existing set feels sat enough as it is.

Its obvious that the team had discussed replayability as some elements crop up in its design. For example, the player gets given a choice as to which episodes they want to play next meaning that your friends' playthrough may be different to yours. If only they had time to take this system further encouraging player choice and occasional randomness in its track design. Lets go back to my original point; would you regret purchasing Split/Second? Absolutely not; the game is a high adrenaline rush from start to finish with breathtaking visuals, and amazing and often unique power plays actions. At times the game may frustrate you, but if you can look past its flaws and find a few friends to play with, the brilliance of Split/Second will shine through.

Ratings

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