Some game gems are forgotten over time, while others never get a chance to be discovered in the first place. Of all the games that impressed me immediately when I first played them and then faded into frustrating obscurity, Split/Second definitely takes pole position. Welcome to Part 3 of The Found Gems!
black rock locked
If you’ve never played Split/Second and are interested in arcade racers, it’s never too late. Mostly forgotten or perhaps unknown, it’s still easy to find and play (see the bottom of this article). Split/Second is the brainchild of Black Rock Studio, formerly known as Pixel Planet, then Black Rock Studio, then Climax Brighton, then Climax Racing and … Black Rock Studio.
As you can imagine, there are no happy endings in the studio’s story. In 2006 he was acquired by Disney, Black Rock, which provided the MotoGP and ATV Offroad Fury series to THQ and Sony respectively, establishing himself as a specialist in racing his game. Adding to Disney Interactive’s growing portfolio of developers, Black Rock was to be the cornerstone of a new Disney games initiative that goes beyond kids and family entertainment. Disney’s ambitious plans also included incorporating Avalanche Studios, Wideload, Propaganda Games, and Warren Spector’s Junction Point Studios. Black Rock put their hearts and souls into developing great racing games with the best results.
And it did. Black Rock closed in his 2011, and its talented team was scattered among other development studios, but under Disney he was able to create two racing his games. Its first game, Pure, was an excellent ATV racer released in 2008, but its second game, Split/Second, still holds a special place in my heart today and is actually There is not yet one worthy of a , or spiritual successor. .
Michael Bay Adventure Racing
Released in 2010 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, Split/Second is a rare breed of ‘disaster racer’. A game where the environment and its progressive destruction are just as important as the enemies on four wheels. It looks like Roland Emmerich made a Need for Speed game, crossed with Michael Bay’s Beetle Adventure Racing efforts. Almost every race sees a spectacular, constant sunset, but the backdrop is that of over-the-top fireworks and Avengers his level of urban destruction. Towers topple, dams burst, planes crash, entire railroad bridges buckle in violent explosions, and trains fly everywhere. After his two generations of consoles, it’s still visually impressive even when the whole thing runs at 30 frames per second. Let’s see:
Gameplay centers around a TV competition show where racers face off in 12 seasons of racing in carefully orchestrated destruction. Cars can build a “power play” meter by drifting and drafting, using their precious energy to create environmental hazards and eliminate other drivers. These range from helicopters dropping bombs, construction equipment swaying on the road, and major chain reactions that can change the course of a railroad track completely. For example, a collapsed tower becomes a ramp to a shortcut to a rooftop, an ocean liner falls from a dry dock onto a raceway, or an entire city block blows up and the race leader is buried under the rubble.
Watching this destruction unfold on screen is a bit like watching an imaginative child playing with their favorite toy.
Plus, multiplayer, a kicking disaster movie soundtrack by Marc Canham, replays to unlock new cars, elimination races, and even missions to dodge missile attacks from helicopters and survive chases. It has a challenging campaign structure. A huge truck is dropping barrels of explosives.
So what went wrong? It seemed like it had everything for Split/Second’s inevitable success. When we played Split/Second for the first time at the 2009 Game Developers Conference, we were already hooked and covered the game’s progress over the following months. Disney Interactive also seems to have a high degree of confidence in the game and has provided our team with many opportunities to play the game. It even delayed its release to give the development team a few more months to polish the game. The game was well-received, and players quickly realized that the split/second ending teased the direct sequel, promising to “continue…”.
There were no sequels. A year later, MotorStorm: Apocalypse arrives from Evolution Studios, a racing-focused Black Rock rival that was acquired by Sony in 2007. Like Black Rock, Evolution no longer exists, shutting down and disbanding after shipping its last racing game, Driveclub. Some former Black Rock staffers worked on Electric Square’s mobile game Detonation Racing. This clearly indicates Split/Second DNA. If it weren’t for the new Burnout today, the closest thing to Split/Second would be the Forza Horizon series. Its brand of racing action is rooted in a bit of realism, and while many piñatas have been marred in FH5, even the Hot Wheels expansion and Eliminator races don’t end with smoking the shell of a car destroyed by Wrecking Ball. After all, no other major racer makes your palms sweat and blasts through stages as beautifully as the original.
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The eventual cancellation of Split/Second may have been Disney’s shift in strategy to focus on “smaller” games and a return to character-based games. Michael Bay was still blowing things up on the big screen, but this decade of mobile his gaming frenzy meant that with a $20 million budget and his two-year development cycle, he was AAA racing him. Swampy the Crocodile was guaranteed to be a better bet for Disney than investing in the game. Split/Second reportedly sold 100,000 cars in his first month. This isn’t bad for a new racing brand, but it definitely falls short of publisher expectations. Where’s My Water?, on the other hand, was downloaded over a million times in the same period of the same year. In hindsight, it has remained “Disney” all along.
Where can I play Split/Second Today?
Split/Second has been denied the enduring success of arcade racing series like Need for Speed and Forza Horizon, but not for a lack of good ideas or strong execution. If you missed it the first time, you absolutely have to play it today. I launched it last week and was amazed at how well it held up visually, and how challenging and tense the whole experience is compared to many modern racers.
Skip the PSP and iPhone versions (the latter can’t be found yet). These are different games developed by other studios and are very inferior. Use Black Rock’s original consoles and PCs. It costs $20 (currently selling for just $5). in the Xbox game storeIt is also on vapor, and is also included with PlayStation Plus Classic. The latter is definitely a decent option if you’re a subscriber with a fast network connection, but playing the game natively is still a very good experience. There are some minor issues that I don’t remember seeing on the Xbox 360/PS3, but it’s nice to be able to easily play the game as intended.
Pier Schneider (@PeerIGN on Twitter) is one of the founders of IGN Entertainment and has played thousands of hours of racing games over the last 40 years. And he tells himself every week that he should stop playing Forza Horizon 5… next week.
