The Crew Reviews
The Crew can be fun under the right circumstances, but unfortunately those are too far and few between. It's not a bad game, as there's a lot to like in this package, but there's also a fair amount holding it back
When the great void of the map greeted me for that final time, I just shrugged my shoulders and mouthed "why," before turning the console off. I've never been so happy to be able to move onto something else in my life.
More ups and downs than a Pike's Peak speed run
The Crew is a fantastic tribute to American car culture, but not a fantastic racing game.
This game was made for 12 year olds that watch the Fast & Furious movies and believe everything in them is real.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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."
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.