I played the PC version of “The Crew” beta because the console versions aren’t out yet. “The Crew” is an open-world racing game set in the entirety of the U.S. ­­­Brought to you by the developers behind other open-world games such as “Assassin’s Creed,” “Far Cry,” and “Watch Dogs.” Ubisoft is back at the open-world, free-roaming, gameplay style with a racing game. The first ever open-world racing game from Ubisoft, “The Crew,” looks promising.

I really enjoyed the game. The whole concept of progression and racing put together is perfect. Having the entirety of the U.S. as your playground is a huge plus. The car models look beautiful, and they implemented the real-life vehicle details down to the engine.

There were four starter cars, and one purchasable. There’s a good variety of vehicles that you can use in the game, ranging from muscle cars such as the Dodge Challenger, to tuner Asian imports like the Nissan Skyline GT-R, to a tricked out Porsche Cayman that was tuned up to be a 4×4. I was also quite surprised at how good the damage physics were. Normally, racing games that have actual brand name cars in them don’t really go for great damage physics, as it gives the cars a “bad image.” But “The Crew” was able to get away with their physics engine, and your cars can get wrecked pretty badly, they even have a damage system.

They have a couple of landmarks in the game which were pretty fun to see including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, even Lombard Street, but unfortunately, no Twin Peaks.

The weather system is also worthy of praise. The rain really feels like it’s hitting your car, and you can see the amount of detail that was put into the weather dynamics. If you were to drive on a dirt road, your car would actually pick up dust, and if you were to drive in snow, your car would get covered in snow, and the rain would wash all that away.

Unfortunately, the game isn’t drawn to scale. I was literally able to drive from Chicago to Las Vegas in just an hour. It would have been great if the trip was actually that short. I can’t complain too much because an accurately scaled map would just be too big to produce in this game, especially with the amount of detail they put into the car models and environments.

Though, one of the things that really bugged me was that you can just teleport to your buddies in-game. When you want to start a race, only one of your friends have to be present at the race’s start, and they can just invite you to the race and have you teleport over. Sure, it’s convenient and makes things quicker, but it really does defeat the purpose of riding out as a “crew.” The customization is also a little difficult to understand, not in terms of what parts do what, but why are some cars able to upgrade way further than others?

All-in-all, “The Crew” is a really fun game but there are some mechanics that I just don’t agree with, and I don’t think Ubisoft will be “fixing” these issues. They seem like features that are always present in Ubisoft games, so they are most likely keeping them. “The Crew” is an enjoyable game, and its issues shouldn’t really be seen as a hindrance since they don’t really “break” the game. “The Crew” will also have a second beta late in September that will also be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. “The Crew” is set to launch on Nov. 11, 2014.