Review for The Crew 2. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 29/06/2018
After a first chapter well done but in some ways disappointing, with the announcement of The Crew 2 Ivory Tower he wanted to create a title capable of taking what was good and improving it with certainly more interesting mechanics, which had convinced us already from our first test during the Gamescom in Cologne.
However, both during our test at Gamescom and during our Closed Beta test we encountered various problems that had made us turn up our noses and which in a sense we hoped would disappear in time for the final release of the game. By thoroughly playing the full version of The Crew 2 we have examined every single aspect of the production of Ivory Tower and below you can find an analysis regarding gameplay, graphics and help system.
Route change
The new chapter of the brand continues to offer a gameplay based on car races, but expanding the range of disciplines for also host races with airplanes and motorboats. In fact, many new disciplines will be available that will allow you to range between: Pro Racing, Street Racing, FreeStyle and OffRoad, pushing you to deepen all the means to be able to master each of the proposed challenges, all extremely different.
The game abandons that hint of plot that was present in the first chapter, all to make room for the simple and perhaps more immediate system based on Followers. To unlock new competitions it will in fact be necessary to get followers, and you can do so by completing increasingly prestigious races, challenges, or through reckless jumps that will excite the public. The game will then allow you to link the number of followers to the experience obtained, elaborating a tiered system that will be based on popularity (enthusiastic, popular, celebrity etc…); also unlocking new events will make new cars and components available to apply on them.
From the point of view of the contents The Crew 2 is decidedly varied, with each discipline containing within it many subclasses and vehicles that will require time and patience to be mastered to perfection. Whenever you complete at least 70% of an entire class you will unlock the ability to challenge the "boss" of that discipline, which will be particularly difficult to defeat without knowing all the secrets of that particular driving style.
Another feature that certainly can never be missing in a self-respecting driving game is the Customization, and fortunately not missing in The Crew 2. In fact, after each race you will receive various components that you can use on your vehicles, each of which will have a different rarity and level and will improve the statistics of your vehicle, be it car, motorcycle, motorboat or airplane.
Varied gameplay but ...
In addition to the amount of content, The Crew 2 also brings with it the mammoth map of the first chapter, one faithful representation (in miniature) of the United States of America. We found it extremely fascinating to explore deserts, canyons and prairies to move from one race to another using both land vehicles and new planes and speedboats, but in most cases also using the automatic teleportation function, which allows you to move more quickly, given the vastness of the map.
As soon as you start the game, including tutorials, first steps to get followers and various races to learn the basics, you will be pleased to notice the huge variety of content, which unfortunately will not remain constant throughout the adventure, and above all will not leave much room for a valid End Game. In about 10-15 hours you will be able to complete virtually all major competitions, to then dedicate yourself exclusively to the collection of components for your car and the purchase of new cars to increase your personal collection. As it is easy to guess, the End Game component is certainly not the strong point of The Crew 2, which perhaps focuses too much on the variety of disciplines, leaving out the longevity of the game, perhaps obtainable only through multiplayer sessions.
As for the driving system, however, we have tried practically every vehicle, noting with pleasure how the driving system is different for each of them, perhaps sinning on the technical realization of the driving that still remains too arcade. You will easily notice that the guidance system is far too basic, and that the general mechanics of each discipline are really reduced to the bone, probably all so as not to put the player in too much difficulty. Another negative note in some ways is the absence of a rewind option that allows you to rewind a possible error or an exit from the track, sometimes making it frustrating to have to repeat an entire race that can often last more than 15 minutes.
Pleasant to watch
From the graphic point of view, we can report great steps forward compared to the first chapter, which certainly presented more bare and less detailed scenarios. In The Crew 2 if you decide to embark on a "journey" through the very long American roads, you can pleasantly admire some artistically well made landscapes, albeit always slightly bare. We certainly appreciated the excellent work done by Ivory Tower, but at the same time we consider many areas of the map useless given the possibility of using the farcaster, which will push practically all players to avoid long journeys for the sole purpose of admiring a beautiful landscape.
From a purely technical point of view, however, we were only partially satisfied: the new lighting system and the complex polygons of the cars make the overall graphic aspect of the game certainly pleasant, even if the environmental textures and above all the vegetation are decidedly poorly made and contrast with the good graphic rendering of the vehicles. We also found superfluous the first-person system to use our character in the various HQs with the purpose of selecting the cars, in fact everything is woody and with an annoying background tearing effect that we hope will be solved with the next updates.
definitely the system of collisions and general physics was also poorly realized that more than once will make you turn up your nose in the face of unrealistic accidents. The physics problem also translates into trees or objects that will make you block in the middle of the race, in fact only some of them will be destructible, while others will be equipped with physical barriers and very often it will be impossible to distinguish one from the other. , ending up blocking you and making you lose very important positions. Obviously the goal of The Crew 2 is not to recreate a real simulator experience but we do not feel like leaving out certain defects, which in some ways could have been avoided.
The Crew 2 improves on what was good in the first chapter, expanding the amount of vehicles, disciplines and classes, so as to satisfy any type of player. The driving systems vary according to the vehicle used, even if basically everything turns out to be very simplified and excessively arcade, ending up compromising the general gaming experience which in the long run ends up becoming almost repetitive. On the content front we cannot complain given the amount of activities and competitions, which however are scarce in the end game, which is based exclusively on the multiplayer component, given the few activities to be carried out in single already after 15 hours of play. Some problems also on the physical front and collisions, which do not improve compared to the first chapter, leading in most cases to very unrealistic collisions, jumps and accidents. Net of everything, The Crew 2, however, remains an excellent product capable of offering a large dose of content for fans of sports competitions, thanks also to a large map that can be explored in complete freedom with land, sea and air vehicles.
► The Crew 2 is a Simulation-type game developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 29/06/2018
