You just don’t get many racing games trying to out-’splode a blockbuster Michael Bay epic, but Split/Second is the exception. Viewing a version nearing its final stages of graphical polish, we had first-row seats to fireworks better than anything Hollywood could manage.

This racer certainly packs the most vibrant ’splodes we’ve ever seen in a game. Every raging inferno looks unique, and the sheer scale of some of the game’s set-pieces is staggering. What’s more, your anarchic vandalism has a permanent effect on the environment: fires burn for the whole race, and thick columns of smoke mark areas in which the single-use Power Plays have already been triggered. The smoke itself plays a part in the racing as well, hanging in the air and ruining your perspective. Follow another car through, though, and they’ll punch a hole in the smoke, giving you a better view of the road ahead and an extra fraction of a second to react. In the latest version of the game we tried, triggering a Super Power Play move (build up enough drift to enable a single button-press kapow of destruction to the surrounding track) causes not only an atomic-grade fireworks display, but also a blast wave of dust and dirt that rushes past your car, visibly buffeting it.

During our visit to Black Rock’s seaside studio, they gave us a look at a new environment. Split/Second’s plot is based around the idea that an entire city has been transformed into a live set and rigged with explosives for a TV series. The season begins in the center of the city, in the newly unveiled Downtown area, and spreads outward from there.

An exclusive glimpse at another of the downtown circuits has you racing around an enormous tower based on the Seattle Space Needle. The huge structure has been rigged to blow, but what’s interesting is that when you trigger it, the tower doesn’t fall across the track. Instead, it topples toward you, with the giant disc-shaped upper deck getting progressively larger as it crashes to the ground. Naturally, anyone ahead of you is going to be flattened, but for you, the newly horizontal length of the building becomes a new surface for you to race along.

Sit down and crack open the popcorn — Split/Second is looking like a blockbuster.