A fun pastiche of the tried and true

Ruthlessly plagiaristic but marvellously fun open-world arcade racing game, The Crew rewards those who don't want to take things too seriously.

The Crew

From: Ubisoft
For: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC
Four stars (out of five)

Within minutes of exploring the game, it is clear the developers have taken ideas (legally, I stress) from all sorts of other titles in the genre.

It's a little bit of Forza Horizon mixed with a drop of Need For Speed wrapped inside a whole lot of Midnight Club.

And that's OK - those are all fine games, and The Crew does a really good job of collating the best bits into an experience that never gets boring.

The story has you taking the role of Alex, a keen street racer who is framed for the murder of his brother, spends time in jail and then takes a deal to help take down the leader of the underground racing club that actually committed the crime.

But don't panic too much about the story.

Just dive (well, drive) straight in to the various missions and thousands of side quests that are unlocked as you progress.

The missions are interesting enough without being overly variable.

There are street races, and open-road races, and ''take-this-person-to-point-A'' challenges, all of which can be done solo or as part of a ''crew'', alongside other gamers.

Far more satisfying is the task of completing all the many, many, MANY other bits within the game, which fall into two categories: skill games and exploration.

Skill games involve things such as slalom, jumping and following a race line, and there are just screeds of the little devils scattered around the map -which is of the United States, by the way.

Naturally, only parts of the map are initially unlocked, and the exploration side of The Crew, while not on the scale of Forza Horizon, is one of its biggest appeals.

The area in which you can drive is very large, and you can go absolutely anywhere.

The 12-year-old in my house finds it hilariously funny to veer off the road, charge through some paddocks, scatter a herd of cows and demolish all sorts of fences before hurtling into a pond.

As you go, you search for hidden radar stations, which open up another chunk of the map.

You can then fast travel within areas you have already explored, a blessing for those who just want to get to the next event.

On the road (or in the wheat field), the handling physics are reasonably smooth, obviously tending much more towards arcade than simulation.

The graphics are decent without being spectacular, and quick loading screens are a major plus.

A relatively straightforward levelling up process never feels like a grind, and the usual car improvement options are in place.

But, unlike the Forza series, this is not a game where you will end up collecting a lot of cars.