The Crew 2 review

Reviewed on: PC

Drive cars, planes, motorbikes and boats across the entire United States, on a smaller scale, and very radical!

The Crew 2 barely has a “story”: you pick your avatar right away and start your career as an anonymous, multi-talented driver who needs to reach as many followers as possible on their video channel by pulling off stunts and winning races.

You start by competing only in initially preset events, where the first goal is to gain enough followers to go from anonymous to rookie. That’s practically all the game boils down to: gaining followers to unlock events and make money.

The reproduction of US landmarks represented in the game, where you can drive past them in a vehicle, and take beautiful pictures with the easily accessible photo mode available in the game.

If you want to unlock more events and buy new vehicles, it’s worth spending your time fast traveling to the events.

The game’s events are actually well distributed among plane races or just doing stunts, or boat time attacks, motocross freestyle. In this part the game is generally pleasing and doesn’t fall into the routine of just racing and racing, as it can also have a mix of stunts with races.

The vehicle licenses are a case apart: from planes to motorbikes, all are officially licensed; the boats with Jaguar engines, the two-wheelers from Ducati. The game features hundreds of vehicles, from 58 manufacturers, in a total of 16 categories. Vehicles can be bought with the money you earn by completing activities or with credits you can buy as microtransactions. Some vehicles can only be unlocked by reaching a certain prestige level, by buying the season pass and by pre-ordering the game too.

GAMEPLAY

Well, let’s talk about a delicate part of the game: some vehicles have rather strange handling; for someone like me, who is more used to “Forza Horizon”, it can feel a bit odd, mostly because of the cars that, even with all-wheel or front-wheel drive, seem to have only rear-wheel drive, like other sports cars, which makes you lose the rear easily in the corners.

Some Rallies held amid forests can be somewhat frustrating, because 90% of the trees are not destructible, which can get in your way a lot. I had cases where my 4×4 got caught on a tree branch the size of a rose, and then comes something very annoying: the “course reset” when you take the wrong path, checkpoint or any other obstacle. You have to hold down the LB+RB buttons, and the penalty applied is extremely exaggerated, because the buttons’ hold loading bar takes a long time, which can make you lose the whole race, regardless of the mode. Of course this can be fixed and should be, because it spoils the game’s flow a lot.

The boat races are quite boring in my view; they don’t give you the sense of speed they should, they are horrible in corners, and when you think you’ll get that big jump off the ramps, it feels like a jump from Mario Kart on the SNES. The plane races are a bit better: the mobility and ease of flying them make the mode more fun, and being able to cross any part of the map too, and the stunts are quite easy to perform.

The motorbikes and cars are the fun point of the game, very well reproduced in the game and well detailed, except for the factor mentioned above. The motorbikes, for their part, are easy to ride regardless of the terrain, but don’t think your character will fall off at any bump. You can crash at 300 km/h and sometimes nothing happens. The cars are quite satisfying, but don’t expect anything at the level of Forza or GT. The number of events available is gigantic, including photo challenges, stunts, fast time, and also daily challenges.

A strong point is the large customization available for all the game’s vehicles, from wheels to bumpers and performance parts. On some vehicles you can only modify vinyls and paint, but for the vast majority it’s pretty cool.

The lack of signposting in some races is so frustrating when you take the wrong turn because it wasn’t properly marked and you had to turn right instead of going straight. Yes, this bothers a lot and they aren’t silly mistakes; at the speed of the game it can get in your way a lot.

Something I really liked was the possibility of using motorbikes in races against cars and vice versa; this is a lot of fun. Something rare in this genre.

AUDIOVISUAL

Graphically the game is quite pretty, with a great soundtrack. Different from what was shown at E3, the game went through some downgrades, but nothing we aren’t used to. The motorbikes, cars, boats and planes are very well reproduced. Sometimes some tracks are quite simple and generic. The strong point is the US landmarks, which are very well reproduced.

The roar of the machines is spectacular to hear on a headset, and you can easily tell them apart; the best is the symphony of the motorbikes’ 4 cylinders.

CONCLUSION

While you can have fun with The Crew 2, you may get stressed by some bugs and race errors, not because of your own fault, but because of poor signposting. The gameplay, despite its small hurdles, won’t let you down. The game may seem confusing at first, but you soon get the hang of it.
The Crew 2 will please fans of the first and may win new ones, and for lovers of the genre it’s worth checking out.

Fun: 7
Audiovisual: 7
Gameplay: 6