Split/Second (S/S) is a fantastic game to play. When you are in first place, you have to avoid explosions all around you, whilst trying to keep enough speed up to stay in the lead. Any other position involves varying degrees of avoiding explosions and making them.
Each explosion causes a shock wave, which lighter cars get buffeted by, causing the to enter a drift, which can be hard to control. Heavy cars have to be in the middle of the explosion to get blown up, but get slowed down by the blast, and usually have poor acceleration.
Your opponents will often get boosts of speed allowing them to catch up to you in the last few seconds of the race, by which point you have no way to blow them up. This is a bit of a flaw, but does not overly detract from the experience, as it adds a bit of a challenge.
There are few areas, but each one has a variety of tracks, most of which can be altered in race by route changes, which are amazingly large explosions :)
The entirety of the HUD is at the bottom of your car. It shows simply the amount of charges you have (for explosions), your position and the laps done/total.
There are plenty of cars, but there are usually only a few which are capable of winning in your current tier. A car from ‘season 1’ will not win in ‘season 4’. However, there are cars which are similar, so if you have a favourite driving style (I like to drift & go fast), there is usually a car at the right level which uses that style, you just have to unlock it.
Car customisation is limited to a small selection of colours, though all trophies gained are displayed as decals on your car. I have not played any quick play (at the time of writing), or any multi-player modes, just most of the ‘Season Mode’ – the single player campaign.
The single player campaign could do with more immersion, as I didn't exactly feel like I was participating in a TV show.
One of my main grips is that you can't retry a race in a different car without returning to the menu.
Overall, 4/5, because of the lack of immersion. Sound, graphics and gameplay are all top notch.
Final note: Air Revenge = Awesome! Dodge missiles and deflect them back at a helicopter :)