Games

When it came to football games I was always a Pro Evolution Soccer man. However, since the dawn of the current generation of games consoles, like other fans, I'd suffered through several iterations of PES that failed to live up to expectations, struggling to come to terms with the graphical capabilities offered by the hardware and seemingly taking a step backwards in gameplay terms at the same time. And the ever-popular FIFA franchise was no solution, seemingly still stuck in creating a more arcade-based take on the sport that traded depth for special moves.

The history of videogaming is littered with officially licensed titles that promised to give players the chance to feel like a comic book superhero, but ultimately failed to deliver the goods. Only Spider-Man 2's web-swinging action and Batman: Arkham Asylum have got anywhere close to making gamers feel like they are in control of a real superhero.

Boxing? Pah! Real fight fans are into the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) which, as the name implies, is a sport where punching, kicking, grappling and wrestling all blend into one blood-and-sweat soaked scrap-fest, organised and televised in the US by UFC (the Ultimate Fighting Championship).

Split/Second: Velocity is all about driving ridiculously fast and using every trick at your disposal to nobble the seven opponents sharing the track with you. But you can forget all about the usual tricks of using your car as a battering ram or firing missiles at your rivals, as this game takes as many of its cues from Michael Bay's movies as it has from previous racers like Burnout and Mario Kart. Epic destruction is the order of the day, where instead of simply firing a weapon at another car, you trigger a huge series of explosions dropping an entire building on it instead!