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anyway.combined random weapons and homing missiles with racing lines so strict that the "incoming fire" warning was just the computer's way of mocking you. If you didn't have the counter-item your choices were "take it and lose time" or "try to avoid it and lose even more time." No matter how perfectly you set your course, some bastard could just destroy it for fun -- which was a pretty heavy life lesson for a racing game to deliver.

Got It: Split/Second

Instead of glowing energy balls, Split/Second had "power plays," parts of the course you could blow up including "crashing cargo planes" and "the entire background." Some dismissed this as just another movie game (you play it once and you've seen everything) but it was a perfect fusion of racing with weapons. To even hit other people

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, the whole point of racing. Even better, the game balanced the Michael Bay with the Michael Schumacher: You could take 1st by blowing up an entire airport but one bad corner later you're in 8th. And if you know the power plays it's possible to out-drive them with sheer skill, because screw you blue shell! Indetonating a building orgy of pyrotechnic destruction has the same value as taking a perfect corner, because that's how good taking a perfect corner feels.



