The Crew Reviews
I know many people have been skeptical of The Crew, and after playing it, I have no issues. Just exploring the world was a blast for me. My time spent with the game was very enjoyable, and with some friends it is even more fun. It has a few issues, but The Crew is a fun game with an action movie story that I think many will enjoy especially in co-op.
The Crew does a lot of things right. Not only does it give you a huge game world to explore, but the ability to change up the whole experience by tuning your car differently is an excellent addition to Ivory Tower's ambitious racer, allowing you to take one car and do so much more than just a mere race. Apart from the microtransactions you cannot go wrong here by jumping behind the dashboard of your favourite car and taking off into the sunset across the desert. Giving you the ability to drive from coast to coast across the USA with tons of goodies in between is what makes The Crew a dream world to explore.
For years developers have been hunting the white whale of being the biggest and the best. Like Captain Ahab's fabled story, this hunt can often lead to ruination. Sure you've done a lot of things along the way and certainly have some stories to tell, but The Crew sits as an empty shell, capable of housing so much more.
It feels like no one at Ubisoft played the game. No one stopped and asked if the game was fun. Or if they did, they knew what they had on their hands and released it anyway in hopes of recouping some of the money spent developing it. It's hard to imagine how a game could go through so many beta tests and still be lacking in so many ways. If a second iteration comes along, as it most surely will, it might be a fun game if they have time to build off the working core. But who's going to play it?
Ubisoft may want us to form crews and connect with fellow racing fans, but as it stands, we'd rather just get behind the wheel, turn up the radio and explore this staggering country by ourselves.
There's a good game buried here, and when they finally plant the headstone, the cause of death will be chiseled as "trying too hard."
The Crew is an overenthusiastic attempt at marrying racing gameplay and multiplayer to a massive open-world driving map. Unfortunately, repetitive missions, cheap AI, and poor balancing hold the game back from greatness despite its impressive and detailed world.
While ambitious in attempting to craft a living breathing world with tons to do, it falls short with poor driving and being loaded with superfluous content intended to run up the play clock. The co-op is fun but recommending a driving game where the main activity of driving is no fun is a tough sell.
The Crew has a fantastic open world to explore and some excellent racing, but too much is second-rate about the visuals, the handling, the narrative and the mission design for it to make the most of all that good stuff. It's worth playing for the scenery, the challenges and the variety of the gameplay, but it's neither polished enough nor consistently strong to stand up to Forza Motorsport 2 as a thoroughbred next-gen racer.
A title like The Crew has to be more than a glorified "Google Earth" simulator or a VOIP chat client - especially if it's advertised as a "revolutionary action car and driving game".
The world of The Crew is remarkable, but rarely has a great asset been squandered so tragically on a framework of dull grinding and insipid storytelling.
Despite delivering an impressive playground that captures the spirit of America, The Crew struggles to build out a worthwhile game experience around it, resorting to frustrating missions, insipid storytelling, and off-putting microtransactions.
If you've been clamoring for a new open-world racer the likes of which we haven't seen since Burnout Paradise, I am happy to report that The Crew fits the bill. A mixture of MMO and arcade-sim racing, you better ensure you have a steady Internet connection, or else face frustration. Hopefully a patch in the future will enable offline play, because to see all of the game's terrain will take a long time, perhaps even longer than Ubisoft will keep the game's servers online. All of the United States' major landmarks are here and wonderfully detailed. Vehicles' handling lay somewhere between arcade and simulation, though you can tweak this. Online play is very rewarding, but is over-emphasized at times. With such a massive world to explore, and an addictive leveling system, fans of this genre will be busy for months to come.
Ditch the lame story, work in more customization and more exciting races, and The Crew is solid roadwork for what could be a fantastic MMO ride.
There are some genuinely great things about the racing action, the beautiful environments, and the vehicles are incredible looking, but overall the physics bugs and frustrations outweigh the adrenaline and elation of winning.
Ivory Tower did have some great ideas in putting together The Crew, but they don't all pan out the way they should. Getting new cars can take forever, and some of the missions are a tremendous pain on your own. However, if you've got a few racing buddies that don't mind cruising with you, you'll find the game's true potential – and even have some fun while you're speeding along. So grab some friends if you can. Otherwise, if it's a single player endeavor you're after, you might consider Forza Horizon 2.
If you'd have asked me after hour five what The Crew was, I would have said a solid 50% score. Hour ten? 60%. Thankfully though, the home straight is what saves The Crew from being just another average racer and with its incredibly game world, it's worth dipping your toe in. Just don't expect it to get decent for a long time, but when it does, it's almost worth the wait.
I realize now that I wish that this game could make me feel like an outsider in a strange town: That feeling is America. And The Crew has none of the licentious anticipation for the fictional pile-up, nor any of the guilty pleasure of rubbernecking—American pastimes, both. The missions never just say "Get to Wyoming," and then let me plot my own foolhardy, American route there. They don't even let you look at the map. Just trust the waypoints and go.
This game was made for 12 year olds that watch the Fast & Furious movies and believe everything in them is real.