HellforLeather
Member
In an effort to try and not spend a bunch of money on new games I've gone back and revisited a bunch of games in my library that I kinda gave short shrift to. So yeah, The Crew 2.
This game is pretty baffling in many aspects. First the good:
-The game looks pretty good: car models are nice overall, whether changes arent too shabby (wtf is with snow everywhere though? including in Las Vegas?) the lighting can be nice at times.
-The sheer expanse of the map is pretty impressive, although it comes off as a bit weird in how they mash together locations in an effort to make a "greatest hits" version of the US.
-The vehicle list is pretty good overall and the visual modifications are pretty expansive. You can make some very cool (and totally disgusting) looking cars.
-Sheer variety in vehicles: cars, motorcycles, off road vehicles, monster trucks, hovercraft, airplanes, boats.
Cons:
-Vehicle handling is not very deep. Its improved from The Crew 1 but its just lacks nuance and feel in the cars and is just shallow as hell in planes, boats and motorcycles.
-horrific boiler plate Ubisoft trash dialogue. Who writes for these people? All of their games have this same pretentious high school junior level writing.
-fucking part "levels" and car stats. Ooo great I just got tires that are +4 points better. WTF? What car person would enjoy this?
-Sterile environments
-Complete ass soundtrack (imagine hearing this gem every 20 minutes or so)
-there is an entire discipline dedicated to track racing and every track is literally the worst renditions of them I've ever seen in any video game ever (this is not hyperbole).
There is a potential good game in here somewhere, but the devs or Ubisoft seem hell bent on adding RPG leveling systems to games that DO NOT need them for any reason (GR Breakpoint comes to mind immediately as well) which brings down the fun and is frankly kinda baffling. What car person wants this shit in their racing game?
This seems to be a theme with these games: the central hook is car racing, but the devs or Ubisoft seem like they dont really understand or care about any of the different kinds of car culture or even cars themselves. On the surface the game seems to be about cars but there is more focus on becoming a social media "icon" and all its associated bullshit than the cars or disciplines themselves. As stated before, it doesnt seem like they spent a whole lot of time on the driving model to make sure its actually fun to actually drive around, almost like an afterthought. The gameplay focus itself seems to be relegated to the background while the fucking obnoxious Ubisoft "hello fellow children!" attempt at being cool (but also completely toothless) takes the forefront. Its a strange feeling playing a (primarily) car racing game that only has a 5 min google search level understanding of cars or car racing/drifting/off road racing at all.
With all that said, there is some fun to be had here but most of the time I spend my time with this game wishing it was just better than it actually is. "Wide as an ocean but shallow as a kiddie pool" is a great description for this game. If they tossed the boat, plane nonsense in the garbage and focused on the cars/motorcycles handling they could potentially have something special in The Crew 3. The potential is right there, which is what makes this game so frustrating overall.
This game is pretty baffling in many aspects. First the good:
-The game looks pretty good: car models are nice overall, whether changes arent too shabby (wtf is with snow everywhere though? including in Las Vegas?) the lighting can be nice at times.
-The sheer expanse of the map is pretty impressive, although it comes off as a bit weird in how they mash together locations in an effort to make a "greatest hits" version of the US.
-The vehicle list is pretty good overall and the visual modifications are pretty expansive. You can make some very cool (and totally disgusting) looking cars.
-Sheer variety in vehicles: cars, motorcycles, off road vehicles, monster trucks, hovercraft, airplanes, boats.
Cons:
-Vehicle handling is not very deep. Its improved from The Crew 1 but its just lacks nuance and feel in the cars and is just shallow as hell in planes, boats and motorcycles.
-horrific boiler plate Ubisoft trash dialogue. Who writes for these people? All of their games have this same pretentious high school junior level writing.
-fucking part "levels" and car stats. Ooo great I just got tires that are +4 points better. WTF? What car person would enjoy this?
-Sterile environments
-Complete ass soundtrack (imagine hearing this gem every 20 minutes or so)
-there is an entire discipline dedicated to track racing and every track is literally the worst renditions of them I've ever seen in any video game ever (this is not hyperbole).
There is a potential good game in here somewhere, but the devs or Ubisoft seem hell bent on adding RPG leveling systems to games that DO NOT need them for any reason (GR Breakpoint comes to mind immediately as well) which brings down the fun and is frankly kinda baffling. What car person wants this shit in their racing game?
This seems to be a theme with these games: the central hook is car racing, but the devs or Ubisoft seem like they dont really understand or care about any of the different kinds of car culture or even cars themselves. On the surface the game seems to be about cars but there is more focus on becoming a social media "icon" and all its associated bullshit than the cars or disciplines themselves. As stated before, it doesnt seem like they spent a whole lot of time on the driving model to make sure its actually fun to actually drive around, almost like an afterthought. The gameplay focus itself seems to be relegated to the background while the fucking obnoxious Ubisoft "hello fellow children!" attempt at being cool (but also completely toothless) takes the forefront. Its a strange feeling playing a (primarily) car racing game that only has a 5 min google search level understanding of cars or car racing/drifting/off road racing at all.
With all that said, there is some fun to be had here but most of the time I spend my time with this game wishing it was just better than it actually is. "Wide as an ocean but shallow as a kiddie pool" is a great description for this game. If they tossed the boat, plane nonsense in the garbage and focused on the cars/motorcycles handling they could potentially have something special in The Crew 3. The potential is right there, which is what makes this game so frustrating overall.