There are lots of racing games coming out this fall (Blur, Need For Speed Shift, DiRT 2) but quite frankly those games don't have a lot of stuff blowing up around them. That's not the case with Split/Second, the upcoming new racing action game from developer Black Rock Studios and publisher Disney Interactive. The game, due out in the first quarter of 2010, was at PAX 2009 this weekend and we got some hands-on time with the Xbox 360 version (it's also coming to the PC).

The game does have some similarities to the Burnout series as your goal is to get to the finish line and knock out your opposing drivers. While you can hit them and cause them to wreck on the track the goal is to get them to be blown up via various environmental events that you can cause by hitting buttons at certain times. You or your fellow drivers can cause things like gas stations to explode, roads to blow up and change routes and, at least in our demo, cause a jumbo jet to come crashing down to the ground.

Visually the game is a treat with some sharp looking cars and especially some impressive visual effects for the various explosions. We expect the PC version to look even sharper with support for higher resolutions. Naturally there will be multiplayer support for up to 8 players. Split/Second still has several months in development so we suspect there is stuff in the game that we haven't heard of yet. It's looking like this title could make fans of the first Burnout games very happy indeed.