"Pretty, shitty, bang bang"
The Crew promises all the open world racing you could ever want in an mmo/rpg style. With an in game world the size of America to explore and the promise that it will take 45 minutes to drive from coast to coast. But can The Crew stand it's ground against the Xbox 360's current racing heavyweight Forza Horizons 2?
You are Alex Taylor and 5 years ago you were wrongly convicted of murdering your own brother (isn't that always the case). When you are released from prison FBI agent named Zoe finds you and tells you that the new leader of the 5-10 motor club called Shiv and an FBI agent named Coburn are responsible for killing your brother and framing you for the murder. Zoe offers Alex a chance to get Shiv behind bars if he helps her get evidence against Special Agent Coburn, Alex accepts the offer.The story just seems to take a back seat and more often than not it has no bearing on what's happening in the game. The main missions try but more than often fail to drive the story forward. So setting the story to one side how well does The Crew play.
The single player missions I'm afraid to say are a very hit and miss affair. Some of the missions are very unbalanced. I have never experienced AI controlled traffic that constantly gets in your way. I have been stuck behind traffic more times than I can remember. Stubborn cars in this game will not move out of your way even if you are tearing up behind them at a ridiculous speed. They can turn into you at the last minute and can bring a mission to a complete stop so you have to start over. This brings me onto the police. They must have supernatural abilities because no matter how much distance you manage to put between them and yourself they suddenly appear out of nowhere right behind you. So why bother taking risks to loose them in the first place.
Some missions require you to ram a car off the road or damage it enough so it has to stop. Many, many times I have been right behind a car and closing in when out of nowhere it gains an incredible burst of speed and disappears into the distance and you have to catch them up all over again. Or the hit detection is so specific that no damage is caused even when I have made a vehicle roll over because the hit detection is only active in one place.
Random AI controlled cars not involved in the race will randomly turn into your vehicle, causing frustrating and unnecessary head-on collisions. When you’ve run a perfect race and are metres from the finish line, only to have a random car turn into your vehicle and ruin your race, things get very, very frustrating.
You need to be connected to the Internet to play The Crew and the way the game is set up for certain missions makes perfect sense but not enough is done with the premise of always being online. What does make one hell of a difference are the missions where you can bring your friends in to help or join in with other gamers and help them out. This is more evident in pursuit missions than anywhere else. Forming a kind of battering ram mentality between yourselves always means the road ahead will be clear of stupid AI drivers so you will be free to storm on ahead. Letting others take cars out before they have a chance to just collide into you for no reason really helps and makes the game a lot more fun. But finding other people to co-op with is a bit like playing hide and seek. and with disconnects plaguing the game it quickly becomes a chore.
The Crew keeps the player busy even while traveling between missions by giving you additional tasks to complete as and when you like. These range from weaving in, out and around posts, to driving as fast as you can for a short period of time. They’re also completely optional. If you’re the kind of player who just wants to chill out and drive until you reach your next mission. As you drive around you will find hidden car parts which you can collect and use to rebuild and reinvigorate classic cars, in a similar style to the hidden barn finds on Forza Horizon.
There is also the whole topic of micro-transactions in the game. Remember when Gran Turismo tried to do it? You pay all that money to buy a game, you shouldn’t have to pay more money. I mean DLC and expansions are the norm these days and as much as I loathe it at least it brings extra content that will increase the longevity of the game. But by allowing anyone to pay real world money to buy the fastest cars available is just wrong. If you’re good at the game you’ll do well and earn the rewards, if you aren’t, just like any other game you’ll struggle to progress but you will get there in the end.
I found myself constantly frustrated by The Crew. A story that doesn't need to be included. After all what's the point of having a story driven game if it's not engaging and doesn't push you to keep playing so you can find out what happens next? The unbelievably unfair AI opponents you have to race against are either indestructible, appear from nowhere, constantly get in your way or have hidden boost abilities. and the micro transactions which can make the game so unbalanced. But on the plus side if you manage to find an online game then the game truly starts to show it's potential and what could have been a really good alternative to Forza Horizons 2 just turns into an also ran.
Review copy supplied by XCN.
Game: The Crew.
Genre: Racing.
Developer: Ivory Tower, Ubisoft Reflections, Additional work by: Asobo Studio (X360), Ubisoft Shanghai (X360)
Publisher: Ubisoft.
Platform(s): Xbox One, Xbox 360.