Review: The Crew

First off, I’m quite impressed with how this quasi, in progress, review has gone. Let us know if you’d like to see this type of thing continue on.

If you’re unaware, Stevivor has tackled The Crew is a series of quasi-reviews. I talked about my experiences with the racing MMO early on and then once again after the ten hour mark. Check those out first, if you’d like. Regardless, with close to double that time under my belt now, I’m ready to deliver a final verdict.

The Crew’s great if you’re really into car games.

I’m don’t fit in that group. As I’ve said before, The Crew feels hollow. It doesn’t look or really even feel current-gen, with cars that are floaty at times and rock-heavy in others, sometimes impacting the world around them and other times driving through but hardly affecting fields overflowing with crops. All up, the pure racing side of The Crew is fairly average.

Things that I despised in earlier drafts of this review became less of an issue as I continued playing. Some things — like the weird, hovering blue GPS bar — I just got used to. With that, I invested some points into various perks that placed an often-requested guide bar on the actual road during events. Other things, like the weird bouncing camera, were solved by simply using a different angle. Travelling between cities can be mitigated by train and plane rides.

All of those things, though? They’re problems. Having to get used to those things isn’t really going to lead to a glowing recommendation of the game.

The MMO elements of The Crew really does differentiate it from similar games like Driveclub and Forza Horizon 2. Or any number of Need for Speed games, for that matter. The problem is, the MMO genre isn’t suited for a car game. While The Crew is technically better than Destiny -– the former has an actual storyline, for starters -– I’d rather play Bungie’s shooter. The appeal of an MMO, at least to me, is that I keep getting loot and elevated stats. With Destiny, that loot translates to different looking armours and weaponry; in The Crew, it’s largely a random part that elevates your car’s level. I’m aware that you do get actual aesthetic parts for your cars, at times, but it’s really not the same. Again, this makes The Crew hollow and unappealing.

In terms of microtransactions, I did find ’em in the end — you can buy Crew Points that can be used to buy and upgrade cars. Like other Ubisoft games of late, I never needed them, getting more than enough XP and the like simply from playing the game. So stop bellyachin’, internet.

The various people who commented on the quasi-reviews largely came at me cause I wasn’t great at car games, or didn’t necessarily understand them. Fair points, but they only helped to drive the point home that The Crew is for car types. Hardcore ones, at that — and that’s fine. Rev-heads will find a game that they’ll be able to sink hours into, delving into loot loops, buying and improving new cars, and enjoying the (oh my god so tedious) drives between America’s cities.

The Crew isn’t bad, but it’s not that great, either. Approach it as such.

The Crew was reviewed using a promotional copy of the game on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher.

Review: The Crew

The good Technically better than Destiny. Car fans will really enjoy this game and its MMO elements.

The bad In reality, worse than Destiny, ’cause all that loot really means nothing. Not much there for anyone else.

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