Have you ever been stuck behind somebody whilst driving travelling 10 miles below the speed limit on a straight road? How about being tail-gated by an ominous looking blacked out Clio, like a mini knight rider full on imbeciles, on a wet hazardous night? In the real world these are situations we have to encounter every day, so wouldn’t it be great if you could make a parked car explode completely ruining their ride? Not extreme enough you say. OK, how about getting a nearby crane to swing it’s mechanical arm violently across the road swiping everything into oblivion? What! Still not enough. Fine, so say you could summon an air-strike to rain down missiles or make a sky-scraper come crashing down on top of them. Well, if you ever felt the need to do any of these things you are, of course, a homicidal maniac, but you will also get a buzz from Black Rock Studio’s awesome new arcade racing game Split/Second.

Now racing  games have been following the same tired path since Burnout landed with such a bang all those years ago, and then subsequently got less-exciting with every installment. I can’t remember the last time I actually got excited by the thought of photo-releastic digital cars racing round a track, even the likes of Project Gotham Racing 4 and Burnout Paradise, good as they were, just left me hideously bored after a couple of imprecise laps.

So how can they make racing games exciting again you cry? Well if you were to ask BlackRock Studio this they would answer you with a gimmick, albeit a gimmick so ludicrous that it makes Split/Second the most exciting, visceral and just damn fun racing game in years. The gimmick is this – as you race around the track you power up your bar by drafting, drifting and jumping, so far so Burnout. Only instead of using this bar to boost past you opponents (YAWN boosting is so 2001) you can blow up passing cars, buildings, ships, cranes, summon helicopters to fire missile strikes onto the track and open up short-cuts. And this is all in the first half a dozen races. It makes for a game that is incredibly unpredictable, where there is never a dull moment, and you always have to be alert for the nearest obstacle or explosion. Sweaty palms are just the start…..

All this would count for nothing if the actual race mechanics weren’t up to the job. Thankfully, this is another area where Split/Second excels, the handling of the cars feels satisfyingly weighty and the sense of speed amongst the mayhem of the game itself is exhilarating.

The graphics are up for the job too, it all runs at a crisp pace with no slow-down regardless of the amount of racers, or “power plays” (read: explosions) on the screen at one time. What is particularly impressive is the effects used on the cars as you narrowly avoid an upcoming obstacle. The sense of G’s as the track blurs around you and debris stick to your screen as you car bolts violently to the side can only be admired.

It’s no cheap-skate in terms of game modes either, even in single player mode the game never fails to keep things interesting in pure variety stakes. Sure there are the classic racing modes, the elimination ones, but there are also modes where, for one example, you have to dodge missiles from a stalking helicopter in order to build up a score multiplier. Then when any good game includes a score multiplier it has that classic ability of becoming insanely addictive, as you try one more play to beat your high score.

So, any pitfalls? Well the TV show style presentation with, what is now standard in even the most serious racing game, zanny commentary is a little half-hearted. They could have made this into a Running Man style satirical game show, very much like arcade classic Smash TV and given the game a great deal more personality. It would also be nice to build play-lists of your own music, although I’m not sure if this would detract from the racing itself. Anyhow, these are both cosmetic areas that are quickly forgotten about when the engines start roaring.

All in all, this is easily the best racing game in years, breathing life into a genre so usually one-dimensial it has become stale as of late. An awesome spectacle, a whole heap of fun and edge-of-your seat exciting too. Just, don’t go hoping for such events in real life, as the opening disclaimer so alarmingly warns.