Ubisoft’s The Crew series is a strange beast. While the first instalment joyously aped the ‘cops and robbers’ theme of the Need For Speed franchise, its criminal element was dropped entirely from The Crew 2 which changed lanes to more closely follow Xbox’s Forza Horizon, a phenomenally successful series about unbearable dude-bros competing in car festivals across the world. The Crew Motorfest skews closer still (the clue’s in the title) and it generally succeeds. Most importantly, the car handling is superb. It takes real skill to strike a balance between the various controls while navigating the highways, byways, winding roads and back alleys of its beautiful map, a scaled-down representation of the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. Races are tense and often quite long, and it’s easy to misread the road ahead when under pressure. Thankfully, the now-ubiquitous rewind button can help undo the most egregious slips (and it’s a lifesaver should you sneeze while approaching a bend).

Motorfest is a real looker, at least when cruising between races when it’s possible to safely look at the surroundings. While it lacks some of Forza Horizon’s presentational flair, it at least reins in some of that game’s irritating excesses, such as showering you with cars and prizes at the end of every encounter as if you’ve won the lottery. The game’s ‘playlists’ neatly change up the environment, such as a series of Japanese events featuring night-time races bathed in a delicious blue neon glow. Its negatives are also the sins of Forza Horizon: excruciating banter from AI opponents, a vexatious AI sat-nav, and a pervading sense of automotive fetishisation that will test all but the most ardent petrolhead. But right now, these issues are baked into this relatively nascent genre, and The Crew Motorfest is a strong contender for the lead. 

Out now.