The Crew 2015 Review
The crew has been out for almost 8 months now. It is a game along side many games in this day and age now that has changed and has received many title updates. The game has changed since it launched, the car handling has been tweaked so that the higher the car level, the better the car performs and handles is more noticeable now, factions for PVP have been scrapped, and interface changes have been made. They are even adding a complete graphic overhaul in an update patch later in the autumn time, which I have never heard of in a game update before.
Ivory Tower are trying really hard to improve the game and almost make amends for the horrid state the game was in at launch, but is it enough? How does the game shape up 8 months down the line? This is a review that reviews the game now it is in its optimal state. Is it a breath of fresh air? Or is it still the torrid game of December 2014?
Ivory Tower are trying really hard to improve the game and almost make amends for the horrid state the game was in at launch, but is it enough? How does the game shape up 8 months down the line? This is a review that reviews the game now it is in its optimal state. Is it a breath of fresh air? Or is it still the torrid game of December 2014?
The Crew is advertised as a MMORPG racer. From launch it was far from it, and after 8 months, I still fail to see it. The game on paper sounds revolutionary, but they failed miserably to execute it in game. From the poor game design to the technical issues, there is so much to talk about where the developers went so wrong with this game.
Firstly lets talk about what they did right and where this game shines.
The game has certain characteristics about it that makes it very unique.
I am a sucker for big open world games. This game does deliver on that part as it is a huge open world game. It has the biggest open world I have ever seen in a video game, and the sheer amount of variety of environments, thanks to the emulation of the whole of USA, is staggering. It is not a 1 to 1 real life creation of America, it is a cut down version of it which is to be expected. However, every location feels big enough and it is undeniably impressive to be able to drive from one end of America to the other. It takes at least an hour to do so and that’s if you’re flooring it in a very fast car. That is extremely impressive in my opinion. Even if the journey on the way is a frustrating grind, thanks to the shoddy unlikeable controls (which I will get into later), there are some breath taking moments where you’ll set off in New York past all the famous landmarks you know about to then drive through fast highways and then end up driving past the grand canyon and stopping to admire this, as you drive on somehow you find that you are in Nevada desert driving past Vegas. The world does have this wow factor just because of the sheer size of it.
Firstly lets talk about what they did right and where this game shines.
The game has certain characteristics about it that makes it very unique.
I am a sucker for big open world games. This game does deliver on that part as it is a huge open world game. It has the biggest open world I have ever seen in a video game, and the sheer amount of variety of environments, thanks to the emulation of the whole of USA, is staggering. It is not a 1 to 1 real life creation of America, it is a cut down version of it which is to be expected. However, every location feels big enough and it is undeniably impressive to be able to drive from one end of America to the other. It takes at least an hour to do so and that’s if you’re flooring it in a very fast car. That is extremely impressive in my opinion. Even if the journey on the way is a frustrating grind, thanks to the shoddy unlikeable controls (which I will get into later), there are some breath taking moments where you’ll set off in New York past all the famous landmarks you know about to then drive through fast highways and then end up driving past the grand canyon and stopping to admire this, as you drive on somehow you find that you are in Nevada desert driving past Vegas. The world does have this wow factor just because of the sheer size of it.
The game’s “RPG” design is that you gain car parts from doing events to then add to your car which ups your car level and improves the performance. Thanks to the later patch, it does feel a lot more noticeable which is the way it should have been. This does however slightly unbalance the game in PVP events now. The car parts earned to upgrade your car are essentially their idea of the loot system you get from other MMORPG’s. This is a great idea, and I can see what they tried to do there but unfortunately, the way they executed the idea fell flat.
The thing about The Crew is that the idea on paper and the originality of the game is what makes it likeable, and the huge open world of America makes this an incredible technical feet and an amazing experience for us to play. On the other hand everything else about the game is so bad including the vital components of the game, for example the actual gameplay and content, that it completely makes the good things about this game irrelevant. It makes this arguably one of the most disappointing games of all time. It is painfully frustrating because I wanted this to be a great game, I was patient and it didn’t deliver. It is not so damn disappointing because the game is abysmal because it’s not. It’s just a bad game, but so bad that it can’t be ignored and despite how good the game world is and how original the idea of the game is on paper, everything else outweighs this game to be a bad one, which is what makes this so disappointing because it could of and should have been such a great game.
Lets explain where they went so wrong.
The thing about The Crew is that the idea on paper and the originality of the game is what makes it likeable, and the huge open world of America makes this an incredible technical feet and an amazing experience for us to play. On the other hand everything else about the game is so bad including the vital components of the game, for example the actual gameplay and content, that it completely makes the good things about this game irrelevant. It makes this arguably one of the most disappointing games of all time. It is painfully frustrating because I wanted this to be a great game, I was patient and it didn’t deliver. It is not so damn disappointing because the game is abysmal because it’s not. It’s just a bad game, but so bad that it can’t be ignored and despite how good the game world is and how original the idea of the game is on paper, everything else outweighs this game to be a bad one, which is what makes this so disappointing because it could of and should have been such a great game.
Lets explain where they went so wrong.
Gameplay. The gameplay is bad, from the awful physics to the unresponsiveness and inconsistent feel of the cars. Everything about the gameplay feel is bad, admittedly it is not shockingly bad, but it is far from being good.
Now I am not a developer so I wouldn’t know how hard it is to do this sort of thing, but the physics are unbelievably amateur. Crashing into cars and skimming past them is laughably inconsistent, its like at times traffic is just this weird bumper car but if going at a certain speed then becomes an official crash that goes into a cutscene. Not only that but it also feels like each car has magnets on them, and at times it feels like you have some sort of magnetic repellent on them where you will attempt to weave in and out (notice how I said attempt) and still clip cars or even collide with them and the game just ignores that and the traffic either bounces off your car or you just go straight through it, which is strange how the sound makes the collision sound as if to say the game knows you hit it but on screen you’re just driving through it. Other times you’ll try to avoid cars and your car will get sucked into cars hitting them. I am aware that this game is an online game so it could be to do with lag, but either way it is not a good thing.
The feel of the cars applies the same logic. Now it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but at times your car can feel super light and you can weave in and out of things, but then most of the time it feels heavy and unresponsive. It’s hard to go into detail about the feel of things where it’s something you really have to try for yourself if you haven’t done so already. Weaving in and out of obstacles is a common thing this game makes you do in such a dull way which I will get into later, and the gameplay makes this feel like even more of a chore because of how frustrating and weird the car feels when doing it. It feels like you don’t really have control of the car when doing it, but not in a sense of the car is spinning out but more of a really heavy weight is swinging from side to side and you’re too weak to have it under control. That is probably the best way I can put it.
The cars are also heavily reliant on NOS/boost which is not a good thing when it’s supposed to be a game about building up your car. The boost feels underwhelming anyway, but it feels almost like you need it to actually drive your car properly. It’s almost like if you are not boosting it’s like you’re only putting your foot halfway down the acceleration/gas pedal and then when you hit boost you are actually putting down your foot fully on the pedal. That’s not what boost should feel like. In a nutshell it feels like a heavier, worse version of the modern need for speed handling model, and I really didn’t like that either. You can argue that what I am talking about is down to personal preference, but my opinion is what most people think, but if you do enjoy the feel of the cars well then lucky you. Despite this, I could actually put up with it, if it weren’t for the other things about the game falling so short.
Now I am not a developer so I wouldn’t know how hard it is to do this sort of thing, but the physics are unbelievably amateur. Crashing into cars and skimming past them is laughably inconsistent, its like at times traffic is just this weird bumper car but if going at a certain speed then becomes an official crash that goes into a cutscene. Not only that but it also feels like each car has magnets on them, and at times it feels like you have some sort of magnetic repellent on them where you will attempt to weave in and out (notice how I said attempt) and still clip cars or even collide with them and the game just ignores that and the traffic either bounces off your car or you just go straight through it, which is strange how the sound makes the collision sound as if to say the game knows you hit it but on screen you’re just driving through it. Other times you’ll try to avoid cars and your car will get sucked into cars hitting them. I am aware that this game is an online game so it could be to do with lag, but either way it is not a good thing.
The feel of the cars applies the same logic. Now it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but at times your car can feel super light and you can weave in and out of things, but then most of the time it feels heavy and unresponsive. It’s hard to go into detail about the feel of things where it’s something you really have to try for yourself if you haven’t done so already. Weaving in and out of obstacles is a common thing this game makes you do in such a dull way which I will get into later, and the gameplay makes this feel like even more of a chore because of how frustrating and weird the car feels when doing it. It feels like you don’t really have control of the car when doing it, but not in a sense of the car is spinning out but more of a really heavy weight is swinging from side to side and you’re too weak to have it under control. That is probably the best way I can put it.
The cars are also heavily reliant on NOS/boost which is not a good thing when it’s supposed to be a game about building up your car. The boost feels underwhelming anyway, but it feels almost like you need it to actually drive your car properly. It’s almost like if you are not boosting it’s like you’re only putting your foot halfway down the acceleration/gas pedal and then when you hit boost you are actually putting down your foot fully on the pedal. That’s not what boost should feel like. In a nutshell it feels like a heavier, worse version of the modern need for speed handling model, and I really didn’t like that either. You can argue that what I am talking about is down to personal preference, but my opinion is what most people think, but if you do enjoy the feel of the cars well then lucky you. Despite this, I could actually put up with it, if it weren’t for the other things about the game falling so short.
The biggest gripe I have with the game is how poor and uninteresting the mission and skill challenges are. It really feels like they worked so hard on making this amazing game world that they forgot to actually make content for it.
The story is basically a generic cliché rip off of the fast and furious. Now I will be lenient on how bad and boring the story is because I understand that the developers didn’t take that part of the game too seriously and the game is not about the story. To be honest I would have rather it wasn’t in the game but I guess it adds something extra to it. It is poor though and there is no denying that. The problem I have is how bad the actual missions are. I had in mind a driver and need for speed style of story and missions. Instead what you get is, take out this guy if you want to be in my crew. So ramming someone repeatedly does the job. Fair enough. The game then sets this tone of trying to get into a crew of this dangerous gangster, and every time settles things by winning races rather than violence. It just seems a bit far fetched and bit cheesy. Then you will have to escape the police, pretty standard. Then you will have some mission about needing to destroy evidence where the objective is to smash 80 boxes in 5 minutes… then you will be asked to race for someone, wait why and who am I racing for again? I don’t even remember. Oh wait the old bill (police) turn up again, time to escape them. Guess what? The gangster guy asks you to get rid of someone again, time to ram him repeatedly again. Hmm noticing a pattern here…
So the story goes through a series of the same repetitive events that don’t really feel relevant to the “story”. As you progress you eventually move on to new cities, with new cars and types of cars. I like this. You start in Detroit in a street car, and then move across the countryside to do Dirt races. Eventually the game takes you across the whole of America and uses that quite well. This I do like about the game, and was mainly the only purpose I found from playing the story. It was a way to introduce me to new parts of the game world and new types of cars.
Later in the game you get introduced to faction missions. This is something I assumed would be the real meat of the game. Therefore the best content and missions would be there, or at least new ones would get added through updates. Nope, it’s the exact same missions apart from the addition to drive with friends to various parts of the map, which is quite fun to be fair when it actually works. You then have your standard races which is to be expected. Then you have the box smashing again…yep smash 100s of boxes in a time limit with a car driving mechanic that struggles so hard to be able to turn properly into a box. Great.
The story is basically a generic cliché rip off of the fast and furious. Now I will be lenient on how bad and boring the story is because I understand that the developers didn’t take that part of the game too seriously and the game is not about the story. To be honest I would have rather it wasn’t in the game but I guess it adds something extra to it. It is poor though and there is no denying that. The problem I have is how bad the actual missions are. I had in mind a driver and need for speed style of story and missions. Instead what you get is, take out this guy if you want to be in my crew. So ramming someone repeatedly does the job. Fair enough. The game then sets this tone of trying to get into a crew of this dangerous gangster, and every time settles things by winning races rather than violence. It just seems a bit far fetched and bit cheesy. Then you will have to escape the police, pretty standard. Then you will have some mission about needing to destroy evidence where the objective is to smash 80 boxes in 5 minutes… then you will be asked to race for someone, wait why and who am I racing for again? I don’t even remember. Oh wait the old bill (police) turn up again, time to escape them. Guess what? The gangster guy asks you to get rid of someone again, time to ram him repeatedly again. Hmm noticing a pattern here…
So the story goes through a series of the same repetitive events that don’t really feel relevant to the “story”. As you progress you eventually move on to new cities, with new cars and types of cars. I like this. You start in Detroit in a street car, and then move across the countryside to do Dirt races. Eventually the game takes you across the whole of America and uses that quite well. This I do like about the game, and was mainly the only purpose I found from playing the story. It was a way to introduce me to new parts of the game world and new types of cars.
Later in the game you get introduced to faction missions. This is something I assumed would be the real meat of the game. Therefore the best content and missions would be there, or at least new ones would get added through updates. Nope, it’s the exact same missions apart from the addition to drive with friends to various parts of the map, which is quite fun to be fair when it actually works. You then have your standard races which is to be expected. Then you have the box smashing again…yep smash 100s of boxes in a time limit with a car driving mechanic that struggles so hard to be able to turn properly into a box. Great.
In between all of this is the skill challenges. This is by far the biggest thing that Ivory Tower did so wrong. Not just the skill challenge but the whole game design that bases off of this. Skill challenges is an activity that appears all over the map of the same thing over and over again. Activities such as smashing through virtual gates, picking up as much speed as possible, weaving in and out of gates and sticking to a race line. Firstly, the activities are so painful to do because of how poor the controls are, sticking to a race line or weaving in and out of gates sounds fine right? Well because of the heavy controls, it makes doing such a simple and generic task so challenging when it shouldn’t be. It feels like a cheap use of word “skill challenge”. The speed challenge is pretty fun and on occasions you do come across the hill climb challenge, which is also fun and has a rally esc feel to it. However, considering the game is so huge, painting down the same 5 skill challenges is unbelievably cheap and tedious. Ivory Tower make an amazing huge open world and the best they can do is have us smash through slaloms and boxes? Really? That is the best you can come up with? The game world is massively wasted.
Now here is where the huge flaw of the attempted “RPG” element comes into this. The car is levelled up through car performance parts which are earned from races, events and mostly from skill challenges. Throughout most of the game car performance parts will be earned through randomly or accidently driving through a skill challenge which is laid out in front of you whilst you are driving on the road where if you need to get past there you have no option to do it anyway as once drove past it will then activate the skill challenge. Naturally that means as you drive through the game, you will end up doing 100s of skill challenges in which you will naturally gain car performance parts, which you then have no idea what it does (in the game) and whether you even need it or how good it is because a level and bronze-platinum rating on each car part does not accurately represent what the hell that part will do or how valuable it is. Pretty much every time you will just uncaringly press X/A and apply it to your car, and if you already have a better part, the game will know that and discard it for a very small sum of money aka 2-10 bucks usually. Which makes you question how little of value these parts are even more. So as you play through the game your car will improve its level and performance through randomness. This takes away any want to actually go out and do various events they set out for you to do. There is no real reward or real looting system.
Now here is where the huge flaw of the attempted “RPG” element comes into this. The car is levelled up through car performance parts which are earned from races, events and mostly from skill challenges. Throughout most of the game car performance parts will be earned through randomly or accidently driving through a skill challenge which is laid out in front of you whilst you are driving on the road where if you need to get past there you have no option to do it anyway as once drove past it will then activate the skill challenge. Naturally that means as you drive through the game, you will end up doing 100s of skill challenges in which you will naturally gain car performance parts, which you then have no idea what it does (in the game) and whether you even need it or how good it is because a level and bronze-platinum rating on each car part does not accurately represent what the hell that part will do or how valuable it is. Pretty much every time you will just uncaringly press X/A and apply it to your car, and if you already have a better part, the game will know that and discard it for a very small sum of money aka 2-10 bucks usually. Which makes you question how little of value these parts are even more. So as you play through the game your car will improve its level and performance through randomness. This takes away any want to actually go out and do various events they set out for you to do. There is no real reward or real looting system.
Lets compare this to every other RPG or MMORPG. So in games like World of Warcraft, Runescape, Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, and Fallout, they all share similar traits. For instance, there will be a huge range of variety of quests to do. Also known as missions in The Crew’s case. Here you will be guided through a series of tasks which you then must complete. You then can be typically rewarded with loot, either random loot or scripted loot. Meaning you are either rewarded with a complete random chance of amazing items in reward or terrible items. If it is scripted loot, all players will receive the same reward and item for completing the quest. Another reward would also be XP. A game mechanic that is so valued and useful in these games. That could be your overall level xp in some games such as The Witcher, for example where you would need to have a main level of a certain level to equip certain gear which most RPG’s have this. Or XP towards a certain skill for example in Runescape you could receive mining and attack xp for completing a quest. Levelling up skills could be valuable because it means more ways to make money in the game so that you can buy items that you wish to have. In an MMO manner, you could receive or create items that are of no use to you other than a source of money, therefore you would trade this item with a player that it does have use to in exchange for their money. Just like the real world. One of the biggest appeals to me in an MMO is that aspect.
Now lets compare The Crew to this game design that it does not adopt.
I understand that this is a racing game, so a lot of the systems in play of most MMORPG’s would not work in The Crew and that’s fine. Lets not discuss that, lets discuss what can be done to see how lazy and poor the game design of The Crew is. Now in order to bring light to this, other games again must be compared with. Blur. This was a racing game that tried to mimic the Call of Duty multiplayer game design. I thought it was a fantastic idea. In Call of Duty, you can unlock weapon attachments and camos from completing a series of challenges. Blur did the same thing but in a racing manner and it worked really well in my opinion. In Call of Duty a typical challenge would be to get 25 kills and unlock a red dot sight. Blur for example had destroy 10 opponents and unlock a spoiler. Win 3 races and unlock a exhaust upgrade. In Call of Duty weapon camos can be unlocked through getting headshots and other various things. Complete all challenges for that gun, receive a golden camo. Complete all challenges for all guns in that category and unlock diamond camo. It was simply a cosmetic show off unlock, but it was fun trying to get it, and although it was just meaningless bragging rights, its just having that sense of accomplishment and having something to show for it that made it so fun.
Now back to the topic of The Crew. In an open world that is as huge as The Crew in an attempted competitive online environment with an MMO philosophy behind it, and just imagine with what I have just said in mind, what the possibilities are now. Imagine doing a series of really long and tough faction missions whilst completing challenges to receive a golden paint job or a golden spoiler, or just a really cool looking paint job to showcase your accomplishment. Imagine having stats side by side of each car performance part with unique names to the parts? Why not have car performance parts treated like weapons and armour from MMORPG’s? Car performance parts that have stats and different names and rarity’s and are gained through specific tasks and missions that can be traded for money with other players? Why not have different type of level XP’s for Dirt, Circuit, Street and the higher level you are the higher level races you can take part in to potentially earn better car performance parts? Rather than, oh gain some random car part in some random skill challenge that you had no desire to do but did it anyway.
Now lets compare The Crew to this game design that it does not adopt.
I understand that this is a racing game, so a lot of the systems in play of most MMORPG’s would not work in The Crew and that’s fine. Lets not discuss that, lets discuss what can be done to see how lazy and poor the game design of The Crew is. Now in order to bring light to this, other games again must be compared with. Blur. This was a racing game that tried to mimic the Call of Duty multiplayer game design. I thought it was a fantastic idea. In Call of Duty, you can unlock weapon attachments and camos from completing a series of challenges. Blur did the same thing but in a racing manner and it worked really well in my opinion. In Call of Duty a typical challenge would be to get 25 kills and unlock a red dot sight. Blur for example had destroy 10 opponents and unlock a spoiler. Win 3 races and unlock a exhaust upgrade. In Call of Duty weapon camos can be unlocked through getting headshots and other various things. Complete all challenges for that gun, receive a golden camo. Complete all challenges for all guns in that category and unlock diamond camo. It was simply a cosmetic show off unlock, but it was fun trying to get it, and although it was just meaningless bragging rights, its just having that sense of accomplishment and having something to show for it that made it so fun.
Now back to the topic of The Crew. In an open world that is as huge as The Crew in an attempted competitive online environment with an MMO philosophy behind it, and just imagine with what I have just said in mind, what the possibilities are now. Imagine doing a series of really long and tough faction missions whilst completing challenges to receive a golden paint job or a golden spoiler, or just a really cool looking paint job to showcase your accomplishment. Imagine having stats side by side of each car performance part with unique names to the parts? Why not have car performance parts treated like weapons and armour from MMORPG’s? Car performance parts that have stats and different names and rarity’s and are gained through specific tasks and missions that can be traded for money with other players? Why not have different type of level XP’s for Dirt, Circuit, Street and the higher level you are the higher level races you can take part in to potentially earn better car performance parts? Rather than, oh gain some random car part in some random skill challenge that you had no desire to do but did it anyway.
Imagine if the missions and story style was of Driver’s and Need For Speed Underground’s? Driver was always begging to have an open world of America but never could have dreamed of it due to the technical limitations then. The Crew has the open world that most games would dream to have, they could have had such variety in this endless playground of their game world. Instead they created a generic boring game with lifeless cities and poor game design.
The graphics and presentation in this game is pretty poor and shoddy. The graphics do not look next gen, although I do not see this as a major flaw due to the sheer size of the game. However the draw distance can be appalling at times with textures and buildings constantly popping up suddenly. I have even crashed into something that was not there and then suddenly appeared a barrier 5 seconds later. 8 months down the line and this has not changed, but after watching gameplay on the graphic overhaul in the the wild run expansion it is quite staggering how much it has improved, but that is for another article. At the moment 8 months into it, the graphics are still the same as they are at launch, which are not good. However come November when this is released, this could be an issue erased.
Technical issues still arise. It seems like the netcoding in this game is poor. From NAT type problems where you will need to port forward on a console, really? Which doesn’t always fix problems connecting, to lifeless worlds with no players in this “MMO” because of server issues, to not being able to find PVP matches at times, the online experience is honestly a joke. The game felt like a single player game based in a multiplayer world game design but without the actual “multi – player”. It has improved but it is still bad, with laggy games that is a norm, to not being able to find a game completely. Now I do not know if the lack of players is still due to to server connectivity or it is to do with a severe lack of players on the game now.
The graphics and presentation in this game is pretty poor and shoddy. The graphics do not look next gen, although I do not see this as a major flaw due to the sheer size of the game. However the draw distance can be appalling at times with textures and buildings constantly popping up suddenly. I have even crashed into something that was not there and then suddenly appeared a barrier 5 seconds later. 8 months down the line and this has not changed, but after watching gameplay on the graphic overhaul in the the wild run expansion it is quite staggering how much it has improved, but that is for another article. At the moment 8 months into it, the graphics are still the same as they are at launch, which are not good. However come November when this is released, this could be an issue erased.
Technical issues still arise. It seems like the netcoding in this game is poor. From NAT type problems where you will need to port forward on a console, really? Which doesn’t always fix problems connecting, to lifeless worlds with no players in this “MMO” because of server issues, to not being able to find PVP matches at times, the online experience is honestly a joke. The game felt like a single player game based in a multiplayer world game design but without the actual “multi – player”. It has improved but it is still bad, with laggy games that is a norm, to not being able to find a game completely. Now I do not know if the lack of players is still due to to server connectivity or it is to do with a severe lack of players on the game now.
Concluding how the game has shaped up since the dire launch of the game, it hasn’t changed its rigged messy shape that it was in. Although I am impressed with how Ivory Tower are trying hard to improve and reshape the game, with the first major improvement is the graphics and draw distance that has been showcased at Gamescom, which does look impressive. However until all network issues are fully fixed which I doubt ever will because I just think its been developed badly, the gameplay is significantly improved, and the mission variety is drastically improved, the game will never live up to its heights. On top of that It is hard to ignore the poor game design of the “RPG” mechanic in the game. It is going to take a huge renovation for this game to live up to its expectation and I will be gobsmacked if that happens,. At this stage, with the amount of patience and time waited, I just cannot see this game getting revived or revamped to glory.
Overall Score
5.8/10
Published and written by Madz - 10th August 2015