Fast and Furious: Crossroads: PS4 Review

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios

Platform:PS4

Released by Bandai Namco

The Fast and Furious genre should be an easy one to adapt for a console generation.

After all, its cartoony approaches to violence and action, coupled with outrageous stunts, makes it prime fodder for some disposable racing-led fun.

Yet, even with its vocal touches from franchise stalwarts Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, Fast and Furious Crossroads feels like a rushed PS3 game pushed on to a next gen platform.

Thanks to uncanny valley graphics and dialogue that's as flat as pancake, the opening sequence of the action film turned game isn't off to the strongest start. Dom Toretto and Letty are on the case of an informer, who has a tank and a desire to speed away. It all leads to a conspiracy involving an international terrorist group known as the Tadakhul.

Using trademark harpoons, wheel spikes and defying gravity, the franchise's penchant for the ludicrous is there from the get go - but after letting you cycle between Dom and Letty, the game switches to two relatively dour other characters , Vienna and Cam, who have little edge.

Weirdly for a racing sim where you're able to achieve Need for Speed levels of utter carnage on other cars (sometimes at the lowest speed), you yourself can garner barely a scrape, careering as you do off walls, fences, other parts of the road and other drivers. There's little consistent realism here, and in among the less-than-impressive graphics, the cons pile up much more than the pros.

Racing between points A and B and using some quick time events, and button-mashing, Fast and Furious Crossroads is less a Fast and Furious experience, and more a drive-by massacre, with issues accentuated by the brevity of its total gameplay.

The game lacks the necessary campaign to pull it through, and while there are hints of what it could be thanks to the range of talent involved, what's committed to the console screens is more a car crash than a pole position playing experience.