Mash up of transports seamless

Isuppose this is what they call a mashup.

Take the basic concept of an openworld car racing game and add in some boat racing and aeroplane flying to make it a smashbang, whizzpopping arcade spectacular.

Or something like that.

The Crew intrigued me when it came out a few years ago. It was all about openworld exploration, and the racing was almost a sideline. I liked it — it was a bit different, the pace was my kind of slow, and there was a nice structure to unlocking everything.

Its sequel charges off in a bit of a different direction.

The most notable change is that the game is not all about fourwheeled machines. Motorcycles — a belated extra in the original game — are around from the start. And, yes, you can now compete in races in singleseater planes and jetboats.

In fact, as you cruise around the simplified map of the United States, you can seamlessly switch from car to boat to plane and back again.

In whatever vehicle you choose, there are events within disciplines (street racing, offroad racing, freestyle and so on) and a sort of overarching, suitably vague storyline around becoming the boss in all of them.

The vehicles are a blast. All are aimed at pickupandplay gamers, so you will never tear your hair out trying to learn frustrating new controls or physics engines.

The boats swish around the water in style, and the planes swoop and dive above the earth with grace, and the cars buzz around corners and fly over semirealistic jumps with thrilling speed.

If I’m honest, the boat and plane events quickly became sideshows to the meat of the game, which is the car racing. And it’s a whole swag of fun, especially when you find a part of the map that lends itself to whiteknuckle, fastpaced driving.

The Crew 2 looks spectacular in places — like every driving game now, it includes a photo mode, and you can take some genuinely beautiful shots.

But at the same time, there is a certain shallowness to it that disappoints.

The map has been massively reduced, and you can now skip across it without having to open up new highways. I loved that exploration side of the first game, and I’m disappointed it has been dumbed down in the sequel.

While the scenery is great, the graphics are often garish and hard on the eyes, and there are cringe moments aplenty as you quest to ‘‘gain new followers’’ (it always has to be about the social media, sigh) and take part in the Xtrem (yes, no E, sigh) series.

My suspicion is Ubisoft will flesh the game out massively in the next 12 months, and it might well be worth a second look.