Split/Second: Velocity Xbox 360

Released on 21/05/2010

• Split/Second: Velocity

  You only have a Split/Second

  Two years ago Black Rock studios came out of nowhere with PURE, a brilliant and intuitive ATV racer. After that things went rather quiet, until the end of last year when screenshots started trickling out for a new racer; Split/Second: Velocity. The screenshots looked really good and as more information surfaced, it became clear that Black Rock had big ambitions.

  When Black Rock invited us for a sneak peak at Split/Second: Velocity back in September, they showed us code that had the petrol heads drooling and the pyromaniacs grinning. And after spending some time with this unique racer it’s clear to see that it’s got a lot of promise.

  Huge track-altering explosions can bring down motorways, buildings and sink ships.

  A different kind of race

  At a glance you’d mistake Split/Second: Velocity for Burnout, it does look that good; even in this early stage. But this is not Burnout, not by a long shot. Burnouts’ uniqueness came from using your car as a battering ram to takedown your opponent during the race. Split/Second: Velocity goes the other way and you’ll use the environment to take out your opponents instead.

  The environmental attacks are called Power Plays and they vary dramatically in strength and effect on the course and, more importantly, your opponents.

  Powered-Up

  To enable these Power Plays you’ll need to drift around corners in order to build up an energy bar. There are three segments to fill each giving you a different type of Power Play, using one segment is a small Power Play that could open up a short cut or drop pipes on the track, nothing major, but can still alter the flow of the race. Using the second segment gives you a bigger Power Play, something with a bit more substance that can send cars flying if caught in an explosion of a gas station.

  It’s the third Power Play that really gets a drivers attention though, these Plays wouldn’t look out of place in a Michael Bay film. Huge track-altering explosions can bring down motorways, buildings and sink ships that permanently change the track for the rest of that race. If you find yourself on the receiving end of one of these it will take some serious skill to ensure that you out run and out manoeuvre the fire and debris.

  Split/Second: Velocity will let you show off your awards by giving you decals when you win trophies and achievements.

  Going the extra mile

  It’s all well and good having these amazing explosions and effects, but if the game itself doesn’t handle like a racer then it’s not going to get far. Thankfully Split/Second: Velocity handles very well. The cars are responsive and you can feel the speed as you hammer around a corner. It really is a solid arcade racer - and that’s without the explosions.

  For the Trophy and Achievement collectors out there, Split/Second: Velocity will let you show off your awards by giving you decals when you win trophies and achievements. So when you go online your opponents can gauge the credibility of who they’re going up against.

  When it comes to online Black Rock aren’t doing anything by halves either. Once the game is out they intend to keep players on their toes with weekly challenges, Star of the Week and Downloadable Content that is yet to be announced. So if you like your online racing Black Rock has your back!

  Between the single player and the multiplayer Split/Second: Velocity is shaping up to be a real racing treat. With a new and unique way to play Black Rock could be set to pull off another spectacular like they did with PURE.

  Preview by: Tom 'PyroRacer' Daly
  Version Tested: 360
  Preview Published: 10.03.2010

  Published: 10/03/2010

• Split/Second: Velocity Interview

  Interview with Split/Second Game Director Nick Baynes

  With the launch hit 2008 ATV racer Pure, Disney-owned Black Rock Studios found themselves thrust into the spotlight as one of the UK's most exciting developers. So when we were invited to head down to their Brighton offices to take a look at their latest speed-infused effort, Split/Second, we were only too happy to oblige!

  Split/Second (now with new subtitle Velocity, just in case you weren't sure what type of game we were talking about here!), is a racer with its roots firmly in the arcade – so intense speeds, saturated colours, race-altering power-ups, and LOADS of destruction.

  This is no ordinary arcade racer, however, as we found out when we sat down with Split/Second Game Director Nick Baynes...

  What was the original idea when you were at the drawing board stage with Split/Second?

  NICK: The core of Split Second lies in using the environment to change the race while you speed around it. Initially we were thinking natural disasters – earthquakes, volcanoes, that kind of stuff. The problem was then you'd have to have like 'the earthquake track' and 'the volcano track; it would be a bit predictable.

  

  Then we came up with the idea of the races being part of a TV show, which gives us complete flexibility to do whatever we want. We've been able to put some awesome pieces of destruction in there, what we're calling 'Power Plays', which players are going to be able to activate at the touch of a button in the middle of a race.

  
  

  We've been able to put some awesome pieces of destruction in there, what we're calling 'Power Plays', which players are going to be able to activate in the middle of a race.

  Can you give us some examples?

  NICK: We've got a tower that crumbles; a ship that launches and turns into a ramp when you drive through it; a train that derails and brings a bridge down with it… everything we do, the team want to take the one on the next track and make it even bigger.

  Our goal for when you buy the game and you first start playing it is to start big, and then just go bigger and bigger!

  
  

  What's the first thing that players are going to see when they hit the menu screen?

  NICK: The first thing you'll come to is Season Mode, where you're taking the role of a contestant in the TV show over the course of one full season. A season consists of 24 episodes, and each episode has a number of events in it, split between both races, and other game modes.

  You can approach the events in any way you want, and earn enough points to enter the episode finale. When you beat that, you go on to the next episode.

  
  

  Say you were stood behind the counter in a GAME store, who would you be recommending Split/Second to?

  NICK: I think people who bought Burnout will definitely like Split/Second. I'd also like to think people who get into the Need For Speed games will enjoy it too. Admittedly Need For Speed: SHIFT was a very different tone, but players who loved Underground and Most Wanted will find a very similar pick-up-and-play feel.

  What I'd really like to think will happen is that these type of gamers will start playing Split/Second, get the sense that 'yeah, this feels like an NFS or Burnout' – ad then they start blowing things up, and it turns the whole experience on its head; so familiar, but also very different.

  One of the things we're seeing online is that a lot of people who haven't bought a racing game in five years are looking at Split/Second and saying 'I like action games, this has elements of that genre.' So we're hoping they might give it a shot too.

  
  

  Action game elements?

  NICK: Yep. As much as racing games, we also looked at games Half Life 2, for the way it takes big structures apart, and Modern Warfare, for the way it does special effects. I mean, if you break down their effects individually, none of them are particularly amazing, but when you put it all together, the sum is definitely greater than the parts.

  One of the biggest challenges has been that with games like HL2 and MW2 you're going through at walking pace, whereas with Split/Second we're trying to do things on that same type of cinematic scale, but at 150miles per hour!

  
  

  Hopefully it will have people turning round to their mates in the pub and saying 'you know that big tower you'd normally drive past? It fell down on me the other night!'

  So you're aiming to make it an anecdotal kind of game – something that makes people want to share their experiences with their mates...

  NICK: Yeah, those kind of watercooler moments, like in TV. The way we bookend our episodes with an intro and outro, it really is presented like a TV show. When you complete an episode, you'll have the VO man saying 'next time on split Second', then you'll see an edit of one of the big Power Plays that you haven't yet unlocked.

  We're going for that feeling you get when you're watching a DVD box set, and you're just about to go to bed, then at the end there's a big cliffhanger, and it says 'on the next exciting episode...' and you think 'oh, it's only 40 minutes, I'll just watch one more…'. Hopefully it will have people turning round to their mates in the pub and saying 'you know that big tower you'd normally drive past? It fell down on me the other night!' You get those moments in Modern Warfare, but not usually get those in racing games, so it's something new that we're going for with Split/Second.

  
  

  What was the thinking behind putting the HUD under the car?

  NICK: It struck us that every racing game followed the same kind of layout and we couldn't really work out why. We've done lots of racers here, and it's just become habit; best time in the top right corner; position top left, map in the bottom corner.

  

  So first we thought 'what if we were a TV show, and we were designing the heads-up display for the show, ignoring being a videogame. We looked at things like NASCAR, where they'll show a replay, and render onto the track information like arrows and top speeds. It felt like it made sense.

  The other thing is we've put so much information into the background, and we felt 'why hide it?'. And to be honest, the feedback we've had has been 99% positive.

  
  

  Is the lack of a lap timer not a big oversight?

  NICK: It's a good point, but there's so many variables with different routes because of all of the hazards. If you've had a tower come down on you, but your mate hasn't had it come down on them, your lap times just aren't gonna be comparable. We really just got it down to the bare essentials. There's no speeder either; we don't feel people need to know how fast they're going – it's more about racing than driving.

  It's the same idea behind not having a map on the track. We decided not to, partly because we didn't want to show people shortcuts, and because when we've finished polishing the game and the signposting on corners, there won't ever be a time when you get lost and need a map to tell you where to go. Some racing games to us feel like your map is like a sat nav, and they just don't need it; we've tried to de-clutter the screen as much as possible so we can have other things happening on the track instead.

  
  

  How will having so much happening on the track translate to online play?

  NICK: Online was actually one of the first things we tried; because we had the network code from PURE it was actually easier to race against other players than get the A.I. working! We have eight players on the track at one time in Split/Second, and as you can imagine the destruction makes it a very different experience to most online racers. We've got two-player split-screen too, and it's always great when you drop a building on your mate's head! So all in all there's a lot going on, but multiplayer works really well.

  
  

  Do you pick one car and upgrade it across the game, or unlock more and more cars as you go?

  NICK: You unlock more and more cars and put them all into a garage; there's muscle cars, sleeker sports cars, trucks and a few others we can't really talk about right now. There's quite a wide variety and they do all handle different – the bigger trucks for instance will have less grip than a sports car when you're going through an explosion, for instance.

  We've not tried to make the handling the main focus of the game, because ultimately there's enough going on without worrying about the intricacies and subtleties of loads of different handling mechanics, but at the same time one of the briefs the team had when they've designed tracks is that it should still be a fun racing game even when no Power Plays are triggered, since ultimately Split/Second is a racing game!

  
  

  We feel there are racing games that do car damage and customisation really well, and having tracks that blow up and change as you race is the one last area to innovate.

  Do you think that racing games are one of the hardest genres to innovate in?

  NICK: Definitely. There's no reliance on plot, and if you've got something with four wheels it's hard to do anything with the handling that's too unique. It's actually the main reason we came to the conclusion of using Power Plays; we feel there are racing games that do car damage really well, there are games that do customisation really well, and having destructible tracks that blow up and change as you race around them is the one last area to really innovate.

  
  

  Do you think it will surprise people that Split/Second is coming from a publisher like Disney, which isn't a company they might usually associate with big explosions and visceral action?

  NICK: Possibly, but it's interesting you ask that. At the start of development I went out to the States and met the guys who design Disney's theme park rides, and felt like with Split/Second's races I wanted to capture the same big screen feeling of speed for three or four minutes at a time.

  I actually presented Split/Second to the head of Disney Bob Iger, and one of his staff asked if it was suitable for the Disney brand. Mr Iger's reaction was “this is a prime time TV show, it's absolutely suitable". And when you look at it from that context it fit; no-one's dying, everything's staged – it's like being on abig rollercoaster ride, with the pyrotechnics staged so things blow up as you whiz by. At some time in the future, where the world is out of recession, this could totally be a Disney TV show.

  
  

  Could you outline the multiplayer offering?

  NICK:We've not really talked specifics, but it's eight players online, two-player splitscreen. On the whole, everything you can do offline, you can do online – with the exception of some game modes that don't work so well online, which we're still tweaking.

  We made the call NOT to let the split-screen play go online; there's a small group of games that do it well, but it's more common in shooters than racers.

  In terms of multiplayer game modes, race and Nemesis modes are the key ones. Basically though we've been working out the core mechanics first, then building modes off the Power Play idea.

  
  

  What I like about Nemesis Mode is the way it slowly way ramps up; by the end you're looking into the middle distance and just reacting in a kind of old-school arcade way.

  Can you tell us a bit about Nemesis Mode?

  NICK: Nemesis mode is our most dynamic and unique mode in Split/Second: Velocity. You drive around a trench, think like the truck/bike chase scene in Terminator 2; you're chasing and trying to overtake the truck, the truck's trying to block you, a drone car's trying to block you, and the truck's dropping barrels which make you lose traction, and explosive barrels which blow you up immediately. For every truck you pass you get ten seconds time bonus, and you have to try to stay alive as long as possible.

  What I like about Nemesis Mode is the way it slowly way ramps up; by the end you're looking into the middle distance and just reacting in a kind of old-school arcade way.

  We'll have online leaderboards in Nemesis mode, but it's worth pointing out that the scoring isn't just based on how long you survive or how many trucks you overtake. For every near miss against a barrel and every consecutive overtaking you do without crashing, you'll get a score multiplier, so all of these things contribute.

  
  

  And last of all, why did you call it Split/Second?

  NICK: It's funny actually; normally it takes forever to think of a name. PURE took months, but Split/Second was actually the first name we came up with. The thinking behind it was 'split second reactions' – it sounded cool and memorable, and it just stuck from day one. So it's one of those rare beasts; a name that works from the off. With any luck players will think the game does too!

  
  

  From what I've seen, I'm sure they will! Thanks Nick.

  Interview by: Mark 'Power Play' Scott
  Interview Published: 10.03.10

  Published: 10/03/2010

• Split/Second Review

  Summer blockbuster

  While action racer Split/Second's storyline sees you taking part in a hyper-competitive reality TV show split into 13 episodes - each featuring its own theme, four standard events and a bonus round - the game has clearly been more heavily influenced by cinema than the small screen.

  Developed by Black Rock Studio, the team behind the excellent quad bike racer Pure, and published by Disney, Split/Second: Velocity is littered with explosives and game-changing constructions, and the circuits have been expertly crafted for delivering set pieces that take spectacle in the genre to new heights.

  Power Plays

  The star of the show is the game's unconventional weaponry, a series of offensive set-pieces dubbed Power Plays. Earned by drifting, dodging and jumping, they allow you to trigger your own pyrotechnic moments that cause dramatic disasters further up the track. You'll set off oil tanker explosions and landslides, for example, or bring giant towers tumbling to the ground before speeding up their remains. In this fashion, Split Second's Power Plays can be used to manipulate the layout of tracks, opening up shortcuts or even completely altering entire circuits.

  Dishing out maximum pain while avoiding the fallout requires quick reactions, driving skill and advance planning.

  What you don't want to do is trigger one of these epic moments only to end up right in the middle of the chaos you've unleashed. Dishing out maximum pain to your rivals while avoiding the fallout requires a mixture of quick reactions, driving skill and advance planning.

  The same can be said about staying in the lead once you get there. Practice will help you identify where and when disasters are likely to occur, but if an opponent times a Power Play to perfection there's no escaping the carnage. This combination makes Split/Second a thrilling journey getting to the front of the pack and a nerve-wracking – and occasionally frustrating - one attempting to hold onto a lead.

  Thrill ride

  Split/Second: Velocity further spices things up with a variety of different game types such as Survival mode, where you'll need to overtake giant rigs littering your path with explosive barrels, and Detonator, a time trial race where a series of Power Plays automatically activate.

  One of the most dramatic, explosive titles released so far this year.

  The game isn't perfect though. The handling's not quite as strong as it is in rival combat racer Burnout, and it only supports eight competitors. And like being hit over the head by a blue shell in Mario Kart just as you're about to cross the finish line, some will feel that Split/Second puts too much emphasis on luck at the expense of strategic gameplay. We also occasionally found that the sheer level of devastation present saw environments become a little over-busy, in turn making signposting less clear and leading to repeated crashes.

  Dramatic and explosive

  These niggles aside, Split/Second is one of the most dramatic, explosive titles released so far this year. Like a Michael Bay movie and a Disney World rollercoaster fused into an arcade racing title, it's as good-looking as any summer blockbuster you'll see at the cinema and doubtless contains more edge-of-the-seat thrills.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • A thrilling racer full of game-changing rollercoaster moments.
  • Gorgeous visuals and cinematic presentation.
  • Some excellent game modes like Survival and Detonator.

  

  • Handling could be stronger.
  • Lack of control over proceedings might frustrate some skill-based gamers.
  • More than eight players would be nice, if a little chaotic.

  Review by: Tom 'Devastator' Ivan
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Review Published: 19.05.10

  Published: 18/05/2010

• Create your own city in Ridge Racer Unbounded

  Namco's legendary driving game gets an aggressive makeover next year with Ridge Racer Unbounded, which swaps the crisp racing lines of the past for a more rough and ready shunt-and-smash approach similar to rivals such as Burnout Paradise and Split/Second.

  But that's not all. Ridge Racer has a trick up its exhaust pipe, in the shape of City Creator. This tool will not only let players design their own tracks but decorate them with buildings. Pah! Who needs buildings in a racing game, right? Well, when these buildings become part of the gameplay and can be driven over, under and through, it's a lot more interesting than it first sounds. Smashing through walls, crashing through windows and sending other racers into a hellish corkscrew of metal and fire. Yep, that sounds OK by us.

  Ridge Racer Unbounded will make its hands-on debut at the Gamescom trade show next week. It'll screech into shops in 2012 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

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