July 4, 2023 - Day 185 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 204

Game: Split/Second

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 18, 2010
Library Date: Jun 28, 2022
Unplayed: 371d (1y6d)
Playtime: 19m

Split/Second is an arcade racing game that answers the question "What if Michael Bay made a racing game?"

The game is set in a reality TV show, apparently, and there are explosions. A lot of explosions.

You can trigger the explosions to take out your competitors, or vice versa.

This is another game that's only *technically* unplayed. I spent 9 minutes in-game last year, trying -and failing- to get it to recognise my Xbox One S Controller.

I first tried playing a racing game with a keyboard on an MS-DOS PC clone with a CGA monitor in the late 1980's. I didn't like it then, and nothing has changed.

It wasn't until I played Forza Horizon 4, in 2019, over thirty years later, that I understood the fun of arcade racing games, and how the controller made that possible.

I bought Split/Second on special last year, and was deeply frustrated by the apparent impossibility of getting it to recognise the controller. So I gave up.

Last week, I was trying to get a different racing game working, and had the same problem. Once again, I went to the discussions on Steam, to see if I was missing something, and as it turns out, due to the age of that game, disabling Steam input meant it would recognise the controller.

When I saw Split/Second in the list tonight, I wondered whether that would fix it... and it did!

Which means that I can tell you that Split/Second is a thirteen year old racing game, in an post-Forza Horizon & post-The Crew era.

It's a good game for its age, but it doesn't hold up so well against more recent games.

There are small irritations throughout. You can map the controller (yay!) but there are only a handful of things to map. Brake, accelerator, steering, and the "Power Play(s)" that trigger the Bayesque explosions that target the other cars.

But to navigate the menus, put down the controller & use the keyboard.

The driving itself feels a little bit like everything is a fraction of a second behind the controller, particularly braking.

Even so, the game is still more fun than the table-top racing game I reviewed recently.

All things considered, given the age of the game Split/Second is:

3: OK