I do like my driving games, and it's always nice to see a new one that comes up with either a new idea or a fresh take on an existing format.
Splt/Second:Velocity (S/S:V) caught my eye a few months back, and I'm very glad to say that it hasn't disappointed me in the slightest.
S/S:V is very much in the mould of Burnout, which if you've not played any of that series believe me it's a very good thing and a high bar to aspire to. Arcade racing games don't get much better than Burnout 3 - yes, Burnout Paradise came close but the open-world nature of that took the edge off slightly I felt. I enjoy having tracks to memorise and get better and better at but having arbitrary races in the middle of a city didn't quite do it as well for me. This is where S/S:V works well.
The basic premise is that you are a contestant on a futuristic TV show, you battle 7 other drivers and you can all trigger "PowerPlays" around the track when you get enough points on your power meter. This is controlled by power-sliding, "drafting" (following opponents closely and by narrowly avoiding getting crushed or blown up. This is no mean feat, as the "PowerPlays" consist of everything from oil tanks on the side of the road exploding, parked cars and trucks blowing up and flying across the track, an aircraft crashing in front of you, buildings collapsing, and a moored ship sliding across the road in front of you. And this is only as far as I've got so far, about a third of the way through the game.
The game is structured into "episodes" of the TV show, each containing a number of challenges across a variety of game modes. You have the normal "Race", "Detonator" where the trackside PowerPlays are triggered automatically as you try to complete a lap in a fixed time, "Air Strike" has a helicopter firing missiles at you as you try to reach a certain number of points, and "Elimination" sees the car in last place get eliminated when the timer runs down. This helps to keep the game fresh and you always have different challenges. This is important as there isn't a huge amount to differentiate between the tracks and locations, which I feel is possibly the games one weakspot.
Don't get me wrong, Black Rock have done a fine job with the tracks, it's just that they are all set in combinations of airfields / docks / scrapyards, which looks samey. What does negate this somewhat is that if you get enough power built up you can trigger enormous route-changing PowerPlays, which means that you are suddenly driving on a completely different track, so for me the actually setting is a fairly minor gripe.
After seeing the demo I was initially worried as that seemed a little sluggish, but I need not have been concerned, even the low-end cars whip along at a a fine pace, and all the graphics looks just gorgeous and don't suffer for speed in the slightest. This game has a very high "OOOOOOH SHIIIIIIIT!" factor - that is what you will find yourself screaming at the TV more times than you'd think... it just has so many moments where something comes flying at you, or falling down on top of you, or you just scrape past in the nick of time that it is a very... "vocal" experience shall we say. Especially in the "Eliminator" mode, the fact that you can go from first to last and back again in the space of a single straight really gets the adrenaline going.
The AI is very arcadey however, and the rubber-banding of the cars means you will not be in the lead for long stretches of time. I think this is a good thing though, as it works as well for you as for them, and if it didn't work this way you'd regularly get left behind; as it is, I've lost count of the number of times I've been in third or fourth place coming to the finish line only to be able to trigger a last-second PowerPlay to put me in the lead - so satisfying!!
Anyway, in summary, terrific game - not perfect by any means but I expect it to get even better when the DLC starts arriving, and it definitely fills my racing-game void until September when F1 2010 is out...
8.5 / 10
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