Right after you load Split/Second up on the iPhone you ‘ll be presented with a video trailer, featuring high octane racing through stages that are equals part death trap and race track.
Then the real game will load up and it will be a pale shadow of the minute of CGI footage you just enjoyed. Granted, while it isn ‘t fair to compare the in-game graphics to a CGI trailer, very little about the iPhone version of Split/Second does the game’s premise any justice.
A Little Help Here?
Split/Second isn ‘t a straightforward racer, but it isn ‘t power-up crazy like Mario Kart, either. Races are fast and furious (minus Vin Diesel), and you ‘ll often rely upon Power Plays to win the day when speed fails. These Power Plays will destroy portions of the environment and ‘total ‘ any cars (including yours) that happen to be in the vicinity. These plays are great for temporarily clearing out the opposition, but you ‘ll need to earn the points to activate them by drifting or drafting your opponents, and you ‘ll also have to know the maps well enough to know when to use a Power Play.
It ‘s a pretty simple mechanic overall, but it ‘s not explained very well in-game. In fact, very little is explained, aside from the main objective of each level (elimination, race, or explosive time trial), so new players are left to learn a lot of the game mechanics by simple trial and error. The concept of drifting (braking and turning to slide into turns) and drafting (gaining speed by tailing an opponent) are pretty simple to regular racers, but I don ‘t think it would have been too much to ask for some hint text for new players.
Even the controls can take a little while to get used to: you steer by tilting the phone, brake by tapping on the bottom-left, and activate power plays when the button appears on the bottom-right. Acceleration happens automatically, but there isn ‘t any kind of speedometer to tell you how fast you ‘re going, so you simply have to get to know each car ‘s maximum speed. Having to play such guessing games in a game that requires split second reflexes seems rather silly, and more effort should have been placed on making the interface more user friendly.
Racing
The aforementioned lack of a dashboard makes racing a little difficult, but you do get used to it. You start off with three cars to choose (you earn more by completing episodes), and each of the cars has different attributes (speed, acceleration, drift, etc.). Things are tough on the first of the nine episodes, but it gets a lot easier once you earn your first new car and head into Episode Two. Driving around is fun, and although the car models are nothing to write home about, they do move convincingly quickly on the track.
Each episode has you race the same track three times on three different game modes (race, elimination, detonator), and you ‘ll have to finish each mode in the top three to unlock a fourth race, which will allow you to unlock the next episode. Unfortunately, there ‘s no explanation of how this stage system works, so new player won ‘t know what position they should be aiming for if they simply want to pass an episode.
Crashing
Just like the Burnout series on the consoles, one of the highlights of Split/Second are the spectacular wrecks that unfold when you set off a Power Play. The trailer before the game highlights this action beautifully, but it ‘s actually quite lackluster in-game. I realize the iPhone isn ‘t nearly powerful enough to handle fully destructible environments and convincing 3D explosions, but the crashes that are included in the game are erratic at best.
Some car crashes unfold like you ‘d expect on an iPhone-powered game: there ‘s an explosion and your car goes flipping and flying through the air. No realistic damage modelling, but at least it ‘s dramatic. Other times, the crashes are just sad, like a Matchbox or Hot Wheels car slamming full force into a wall and simply bouncing off of it like nothing happened.
Worse still are the times when you run into debris left over from a Power Play that makes a walled section explode. Hitting any debris at high speed will kill you and cause you to respawn just before the point of impact, but accidentally brushing against the same debris at the snail speed of 5 mph will also kill you, which simply makes no sense.
Multiplayer
One of the saving graces of Split/Second could be its online multiplayer component, but, unfortunately, I haven ‘t been able to get it to work. I ‘ve failed to connect to six different servers, and the seventh had a ping so high (666 – speak of the devil) that it simply wasn ‘t worth playing. The multiplayer definitely works for some people, since the leaderboards are now filled with scores, but it just hasn ‘t been convenient to set up.
The portion that does work is the multiplayer lobby, but it feels like something for a stylus-based device, instead of something made for the iPhone. The text is too small to tap on, so even something as simple as picking a game is difficult to accomplish.
The game also supports multiplayer over Bluetooth and wi-fi, but I didn ‘t test this for lack of an opponent.
Conclusion
Split/Second isn ‘t a horrible game, but it isn ‘t nearly as good as it should be for the $7 asking price. The racing action is fast and can even be enjoyable, but the execution of Power Plays often feel like half-hearted gimmicks, instead of anything genuinely exciting. The lack of any clear presentation or explanation of aspects outside the core mechanics (like drifting, drafting, or even the basic controls) don ‘t help the game out either.
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Split/Second is available for $6.99 on the App Store.
The app was provided by jonalyn morris pr for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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