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| We are not worthy. (actually we deserve it) |
While waiting for that to finish up I fired up my 60 minute timed trial of Split/Second which I've been itching to play along with Driver: San Francisco and the licensed car kart racer Blur. I'm finding more and more that of all games I really enjoy arcade style racers the most. As I feel myself aging and spiraling down that ADD tunnel of "tl;dr" I'm finding more and more that a racing game can actually hold my attention if the events or career mode is laid out with a minimum of bullshit. Split/Second treats each set of races as if it were a prime time TV show and I feel as if it does this pretty well. (remember MegaRace?) It's certainly more exciting than looking for new races as icons on a map (we'll get to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit later). The announcer sounds like the guy you always hear on TV announcing what's happening in the next episode of your favorite TV show, the opening video and next episode previews are exciting, the overall visual design of the menu system works really well to get you amped up to race.
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| I'M GONNA WRECK IT (5x) |
Split/Second looks great. You'll feel a bit of Burnout deja-vu with the fake super-cars flying past roadside chaos, but there's definitely something different when a giant radar antenna crashes into the middle of the race track causing a new path to open up. Actually, it reminds me of the way the tracks change between laps in Sonic Racing Transformed aside from it being triggered by the player or the CPU racers. Since my time with the game was limited I only got to play through about two and half "episodes" consisting of something like five events each. The tracks in Split/Second make the game what it is. They're the gimmick. Much like Ridge Racer, as you power-slide through turns you gradually fill a bar. This energy allows you to trigger explosions and various other disasters around the the course as you try to move up through the ranks. Sometimes it's having a helicopter drop an explosive barrel on a rival and other times you can trigger the destruction of something the size of the Space Needle to send it smashing into the course and altering the route for the rest of the race as well as damaging other racers that are nearby. Some events are canned and seem to happen no matter what like a passenger airplane making a fiery crash landing on the very airstrip you're racing down. I'd imagine as you play the game more and more you'd be less surprised by some of the cool triggers in each course, but it would allow you devise a bit more of a strategy in later races.
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| The first time I saw this I kinda peed myself |
Split/Second doesn't have a traditional HUD. Your rank, boost meter and laps are all kept track of in the shadow of the butt of your car. It's a cool little effect that allows you to keep focused on your vehicle and keeps the rest of the view clear so you can notice impeding explosions or missiles raining down from helicopters farther down the track. Aside from the event modes you'd typically find in this type of game there's also a time trial mode where you're avoiding all triggers being automatically set off while making a quick lap. There's also a missile avoidance run called Air Attack where you avoid from hell-fire from the aforementioned helicopters scattered around the track until you run out of lives. All in all I had a lot of fun in the hour I spent with Split/Second. I'll have to spend some more time with it to know if it's truly good, but at this point I feel like I can say it's worth whatever low price it's going for now.
Split/Second Trailer
Maybe that Sleeping Dogs download is finished? How rattled will I be when I cram a man's head into an air duct fan making a fountain of blood? What clothing will I pick? How many times will I mention Shenmue, Yakuza and GTA? Check back later for impressions!
This and Double Dash are my favorite racers by far. I don't want to fight against things like reasonable physics in video game cars, I get enough of that shit in real life. If you get the full version playing head to head in the barrel avoiding canal stages is a hoot.
ReplyDeleteThe presentation is pretty much perfect too, it's got a real mirror shine on it (I'm just partial to pointless colorful "light leak" effects).
It'd have a long life just as a game to pull out and show people who had never seen it. Like you said though, after enough playthroughs you'll realize when to save your Powerplay energy and when to use it to trigger the big disasters, and after that it comes down to memorizing the best way to avoid them/flattening the balls of new players with them.
I just got this on PC and I played it for a few hours last night. Damn good game! Only thing that bugs me is the PC version is locked at 30fps. I wish someone with the programming skills loved it enough to make something similar to the DSfix patch for Dark Souls. Also reading up about it online makes it seem like it only supports one controller on PC so the second player will have to use the keyboard. There's probably ways around that if you don't mind losing analog control for one player.
ReplyDeleteI love the light leak effects, but after a few hours of playing before bedtime they start to make me feel like I'm going blind! I guess it's got the intense visual presentation covered.