Still, there’s room for some careful consideration come race time. Success, especially in online bouts, isn’t always born of having the best car, but rather the right car for the job. Your rival’s Camaro might have more horsepower than your car, but if bitter experience has taught you that it doesn’t take sharp corners well, then you know that your lesser-powered steed will still have the edge in a bendy race.

Each car has a barrage of stats to pore over, but you really won’t understand what your car is and isn’t suited to until you’ve burned up a few miles of coastal highway in it. With an insanely large roster of cars (and a few motorbikes to boot) to buy from, not all of which are always in stock in the many showrooms, there’s always some fresh curveball to shake your complacent faith in your own abilities, and always some lovely new shiny-shiny to lust uncontrollably after.

Rarely do you get an open road to speed around, but rather you get the streets that are lined with slow-moving AI traffic - it’s the weaving, braking and stickshifting of town driving, but at five times the speed. The traffic’s not stupid either - NPCs will try to get off the road if you’re headed straight for them, they’ll stop at lights and hit their turn signal and even have accidents sometimes. They also do some ridiculous things on occasion - like turning right into you - but they certainly succeed in creating the seed of a living world for the online stuff to nurture further.

Still, there’s a price to be paid for trying to appeal equally to both GTR and Need For Speed followers. If this were only a racing game, it would be an average one - the overdone stiffness of some cars and the lack of scope for pulling off artful moves makes it a slightly hollow experience at times. Again though, TDU isn’t just about the racing - it’s about car ownership. How each vehicle feels, rather than performs, is the priority.