Split/Second: Velocity

In this, as in every aspect of its controls, difficulty and design, Split/Second is an absolute masterpiece of tuning. It's very easy for an action racer such as this to end up capricious and frustrating, but somehow the AI maintains a close race without obvious rubber-banding, and there's always a last-lap turnaround that makes the result seem both hard-fought and fair. Difficulty spikes are surprisingly rare.

In fact, Black Rock has balanced its game with such perfectionism that, at first, it's almost a problem. Despite its incredible polish and noisy bombast, Split/Second can make a slightly underwhelming first impression: because your path through the early stages of single-player is so effortlessly smooth, because the races feel a little too stage-managed, because there are no obviously deep gameplay systems or structural time-sinks to get stuck into.

It's undeniable that it's a slender game. The single-player season, broken into 12 TV-style episodes, is well-paced and really starts to bite in its second half, extending itself through the need to go back and improve your results in earlier events. Needing to come at least third in the tough Elite Race that ends each episode is an effective check on your progress, but it still won't take you long to chew through the whole thing.

Besides straight racing and a standard elimination mode, there are a few extra modes of play. Detonator is a one-lap time trial amid the thundering chaos of all the most destructive hazards the game can throw at you. In Survival, you need to dodge explosive barrels falling off articulated trucks while passing them to keep a score combo going.

Air Strike involves threading your way through targeted missile strikes from a chopper, again with a score bonus for survival; Air Revenge is a variant of the latter which sees you earning power to send the missiles back where they came from. They all work perfectly well and are thoroughly enjoyable to play, but don't quite have enough depth and are a little too hectic and random to work as long-term score attack or time attack challenges.

Similarly, mutliplayer is a riot, but it's hard to imagine being sustained by it in the long term. Race, Elimination and Survival are available here, but only straight racing seems to be sticking with players, and beyond earning some meaningless credits and improving your online ranking there's nothing to reward your efforts. Tight and mean, with sudden reversals of fortune, Split/Second works by far the best in a party with friends - so the full split-screen support for local play is especially welcome.

If structural longevity is your primary concern, then Split/Second is not the game for you. But it's actually to Black Rock's great credit that it hasn't stretched this unashamedly and gloriously dumb game beyond its means. Instead, it has focused on making a simple game shine with the attention to detail and sumptuous presentation usually only spent on sprawling epics.