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I like to think of myself as a journeyman as far as racing games are concerned. I’m certainly not skilled enough to call myself adept, but I’m also no stranger to them. I grew up in a generation which idolised the Need for Speed series, which created enough issues for itself to eventually implode, in a way.
The Crew manages to capitalise on the best parts of Need for Speed, particularly of the 2005 release Most Wanted – but it’s easy to see why racing games no longer follow this vein, especially considering all the current generation concerns that are brought into the mix.
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The good of mixing the old and new
The Crew is unmistakably similar to two previous generation games: Need for Speed: Most Wanted from 2005, and Test Drive Unlimited from 2006. While I’ll come back to Most Wanted‘s influence, the influence of Test Drive Unlimited is largely down to the composition of the development team — most of whom quit TDU developer Eden Games to start up Ivory Tower in 2007, paving the way for The Crew‘s creation.
What you get from Test Drive Unlimited‘s legacy is largely down to how the world is laid out — how the developer has blended locations and distilled them into large, interesting areas, where you can drive both on and off-road.
This is only half the free roaming’s appeal, as the rest comes down to the event layout, which intersperses full driving events and radiant events (hit a certain distance on this ramp, go so fast for so long, go a certain distance before the timer runs out, etc.) liberally around the expansive map, and the frequency in which you run into other players.
Conceptually, The Crew is excellent, and it has a great starting point in the size and layout of its map, and it’s safe to say that Ivory Tower knew exactly what they were doing there. Unfortunately, the title does not excel in all its aspects.
The Crew should have left some of Most Wanted in 2005
Need for Speed: Most Wanted was a great game. It changed what free-roaming racers aspired to be, and its blend of arcade gameplay and well-structured events made it a fan favourite and a critical success. This was nine years ago — nine years in which we’ve moved forward two console generations and improved what we can do in all our games, including racing games, substantially, even if this is not always effectively used. The Crew needed to move past that, and it doesn’t in many parts of the game.
Worst of all is how this nearly decade-old influence can be seen in some of the core parts of the gameplay — the driving is clunky and imprecise, and cars have a greater propensity to go swinging around a corner faster and more furiously than Vin Diesel. Your steering seems to only determine whether you car careers around a bend like a caffeine-infused bat out of hell or a 12-year old having his first go at Grand Theft Auto V (which has arguably better driving mechanics).
Of course, there are some good aspects to the NFS influence. The customisation of cars is incredibly thorough and makes a notable difference to how they drive, and the visual modifications are also quite comprehensive. The menu system is quite detailed while still being easy to use, and while there may be a slight delay depending on what you’re trying to do, there are no loading times so to speak in open gameplay. At the very least, they’ve attempted to streamline The Crew, and it’s worked very well.
The story is actually a classic Ubisoft tale of revenge and betrayal, which finds itself perfectly fitting the mould for an old NFS title. You play as Alex Taylor, an irresponsible Detroit hipster (seriously, the beard and thick-rimmed glasses give it away), and you’re out for revenge after being framed for your brother’s murder early in the game in possibly the least convincing setup in history. The next twenty hours is filled with hacked together events, uninspired characters and a couple of pretty locations.
To say The Crew isn’t fun would be a lie — I did quite enjoy most of the events, despite how badly put together some of them are, and the driving does have an arcade appeal to it. However, its influences are distinctive and should have been laid to rest years ago to pave the way for something better.
A new generation of problems
Despite its aforementioned influences, The Crew is unmistakably in the newest generation of gaming with its online integration, and our original plan was to write this review as a list of all the error codes we got while trying to connect to The Crew‘s servers. Unfortunately, we ran out of space and decided to write an actual review instead.
Needless to say, the connectivity isn’t exactly top-notch, and the game will eject you during races and events if you don’t have a silky smooth connection to the servers. Admittedly, the game is quite resilient once you’re online, but it’s still frustrating to be kicked when you’re 9 seconds in front and going for gold in a race you’ve repeated several times to try and better your time — however often or seldom it happens.
The game also has the obligatory premium currency, in case you feel like not playing the game to get your items and customisations. It’s not necessary, but you’ll be doing a lot of grinding to buy customisations or new cars, though I’m not sure if this is artificial extension of the gameplay or a way to unceremoniously plug microtransactions.
The Crew‘s actual crew system is quite a treat to work with, and can be managed through the game or the mobile app, although the latter comes with its own set of connectivity issues. It may be a struggle to find a solid group of players to play with, but I’d definitely advise trying; the game is a lot more fun when you’ve got a group driving around doing events together.
As I said before, conceptually, The Crew is excellent, but it struggles with implementation, and comes off looking almost second-rate at times, which is a shame given how much space and variety Ivory Tower had to work with.
Not spectacular, but acceptable
So this is where we end up with the story of 2014 — a game that’s technically competent, works quite well with friends and has a fair amount of periphery to occupy the player. It’s not something particularly innovative or revolutionary, just something capable.
The Crew had great potential, but it’s got caught up on systems that have long since become obsolete. It looks and sounds quite impressive, but the actual experience of the game is severely limited by clunky gameplay, some poorly put-together events and an absolutely terrible storyline. It’s not a bad game — it works, and it’s fun at the best of times, but it’s infuriating at its worst and it could have been so much more.
The post Review: The Crew Is Old Need For Speed With Friends appeared first on #egmr.