Good Not Great
My first reaction to Split Second was how nicely everything exploded and fell apart, until I realized that the power plays were actually quite annoying. Now that could be the very point of the game's main mechanic, in which that case it succeeds, but when it comes down to it the whole "screw your opponents over" sort of ruins the actual racing aspect. The game is fun; don't get me wrong, but I found myself more aggravated than anything else while playing. I'm not usually a hot-tempered kind of gamer, but let's just say that there were a few times where i yelled some pretty vulgar phrases directly at my monitor!
Split Second's main game mechanic utilizes a meter of "power" in order to affect the race environments. While you race around the (undeniably gorgeous) tracks you build this meter which gives you access to power plays. This simply blows things up, thus resulting in some chaotic carnage, or alters the route of some of the tracks. Of course you need to time your attacks or you could end up wasting power or eating a bus at 150 miles per hour. Luckily this is relatively easy to do since the game places a nice little icon above your opposition when they cross into, what I like to call, "carnage zones."
A few things I don't like about the game is there is often too much destruction going on to actually pay attention to your driving and some of the races feel a bit fixed. A few of the cars handle a bit awkwardly and there is no speedometer or boost. That was a bit strange to me. There are a variety of race types but all follow the same general rule: don't crash and see how many other racers you can sabotage before you cross the finish line. There is also a time attack mode where power plays trigger destruction automatically so you're essentially driving through the apocalypse.
All in all, Split Second is a very different racing experience but may be too aggravating to handle for traditional racers like myself. The game itself looks great and the offers a decent variety of cars, tracks, and game modes. Speeding around on tracks that are rigged with things that explode is fun but it ultimately takes away from the game. It's very different though, and I appreciate that, so I guess I'd recommend it to adrenaline junkies or saboteurs. I don't see this title being very popular with the mainstream racing crowd, but it's a good alternative to your run-of-the-mill arcade racer and offers some good thrills.
