The game looks fantastic, even if it has massively ripped off the style and stunning sunset visuals of Need for Speed: Undercover. The skybox is tinted with hints of black at the top, coming down through the range of blues before turning a rich golden hue that covers much of the screen. It’s got all the graphical techniques you could want, nicely implemented high dynamic range lighting that adjusts as you go in and out of buildings, slick road textures, slight camera pans as you drift round corners and rich bloom effects coming off all the reflective surfaces lining the track. If there’s one thing Split/Second does well it’s utilise these effects, complemented nicely by some excellent sound cues when passing close to objects on the track, to give the player a fantastic sense of speed.

It’s a shame then, that bar its accomplished visuals, the game fails to impress on any level. Split/Second’s one real selling point, the one area where it stands out in a crowded genre, it’s usage of track side destruction as a form of weaponry, has such a botched, limited implementation it’s astonishing. Players build up a power bar as they race, with segments rewarded for standard manoeuvres such as drifts, jumps, drafts and near misses. For each third of the power bar the player has built up they can either trigger an attack on the competitors ahead of them, or activate one of the infrequent shortcuts that are available on some tracks. Should you fill the entire bar it becomes possible to either trigger one of the games vast, over the top special attacks, such as blowing up a dam or sending a plane crashing down onto the course, or activate a route changer which has the potential to also wreck several of your rivals whilst also significantly altering the layout of the track.

Problem number one with this setup is simple, you can’t attack anyone behind you. Despite the loading screens helpfully informing the player that you can pan the camera round to look behind the car, it’s simply impossible to detonate any of the explosive charges located to your rear. Combine this with the fact that racers are able to target players way out ahead of them and you’ve got a situation where taking the lead can become a significantly dangerous pastime. Doing so typically places the player on the receiving end of a barrage of attacks from behind whilst being completely unable to take any kind of defensive actions in retaliation.

The second big failing further compounds this problem – some explosions are simply impossible to dodge, no matter how good a driver you are. For example when a power plant’s huge cooling tower blows up, should you find yourself underneath it, there is no way to avoid being wrecked. This can be extremely frustrating since activating these attacks doesn’t take any skill on the part of the aggressor. The situation becomes even worse when the exploding dam set piece is involved. Granted, when it comes down it’s an impressive sight to behold, but it covers so much ground that it has the power to wipe-out the entire pack. This leads to the farcical situation where the best position to be at the end of the first lap is dead last, so that you can safely trigger it and romp all the way to first place.

The various power plays available vary greatly in effectiveness, some barely even touch the opposition (although in single player the AI often seems to develop suicidal tendencies anyway, slamming their cars into the wall regardless) whilst others are sure-fire automatic wrecks. Only about half of those on offer require the player to actually dodge a dangerous moving object such as a flying car or falling tower. It’s disappointing that more of the attacks aren’t like this as they provide rare moments of excitement, necessitating some last-minute manoeuvring on the part of the player. For the most part, however, you just need to stay on one side of the track or the other to avoid any danger, until you get taken down by one of the guaranteed wreckers of course. This issue becomes particularly noticeable in the Detonator events, essentially time trials in which the track elements are configured to explode at set points. Most of the time these barely affect your driving line, and it all ends up feeling like a very poor imitation of Stuntman Ignition.

Then, to complete Split/Second’s triumvirate of issues, is the drafting implementation. Drafting is when a vehicle lines up behind another and takes advantage of the reduced air resistance this offers. It’s common enough in many racing games in one form or another and in Split/Second provides a way of both filling up your power bar whilst also providing a significant speed increase. The problem here is that it activates from a very large distance with such a generous cone of alignment that it unbalances the physics model.

This leaves you with the situation where the player out front is being assailed constantly by attacks from behind, yet is unable to fight back, can, at times, be wrecked without any ability to react and is regularly being swamped by racers that catch up ridiculously fast on the back of the drafting setup. Further to this, any attempts to actually block their overtaking is rendered mute by the speed difference between you thanks to their drafting. Split/Second is that rarest of beasts, a racing game that actively encourages you not to take first place. You’ll need to get used to leading for large chunks of the race only to be ganged up on by a pack of racers all drafting in your wake on the last corner, with absolutely no way of preventing it. The game is an exercise in luck and repetition, players only win when the game decides it’s their turn to win.

Given that the weapons mechanic is so woefully broken it doesn’t help that there’s not much in the way of challenging driving on offer here either. The combination of track design and handling setup makes course navigation very simple and you can count the number of taxing turns in the game on one hand. Despite this situation, there are still a couple of interesting modes, one sees the player trying to avoid air to ground missile attacks from a helicopter that chases you around the track while the other involves overtaking a series of trucks who throw explosive barrels at you. But even these few sections aren’t perfect with a some of the survival tracks featuring low ceilinged sections that can be so hampered by the over use of explosions and flying debris caused by the cars around you that most of your deaths are actually caused by the simple inability to see what’s in front.

While a minor point the whole TV show conceit is also completely unnecessary. This wasn’t required in order for players to accept the game’s setup and it doesn’t even make sense, we’re talking about a show where drivers have jumbo jets and air traffic control towers dropped on their vehicles. It does, however, result in the player being subjected to the most horrifically over the top and crass fake episode-style previews that you can imagine. All complete with pretend Copyright notices at the end that presumably someone thought would bring about wry amusement. While a tiny minority may appreciate these, many players will be reaching for the mute button to end the appalling assault on their ears.

For all its fireworks and spectacle Split/Second is a sham. Beneath its glossy exterior is a hollow, empty experience based on a collection of broken mechanics so clearly limited that it’s amazing the initial design got green lit in the first place. Besides the visuals Split/Second doesn’t really do anything right, the racing isn’t challenging, the power plays require no skill, being severely broken in numerous ways, and the AI doesn’t even need to cheat to feel cheap with the way the game’s been setup. It’s hard to recommend the game to anyone, especially with the far superior Blur shipping almost simultaneously and targeting the same racing sub-genre. Definitely one to avoid.