Ephemeris of the Mind (Game Review) The Crew
Time to read: 4 min read
Game Cover
I could kill you! I could kill everyone you know! I could kill everyone you don't know, in the off chance that you might know them someday!
Platform played on: Xbox One
Review
The Crew is an ambitious open-world racing game taking place over the contiguous United States. The player assumes the role of Alex (Troy Baker), a street racer framed as the murderer of his brother Dayton (Travis Willingham). Alex must infiltrate the 5-10s, a motor club founded by Dayton, in order to get revenge on those responsible for Dayton’s death.
Alex
The story is corny, and other than a few cutscenes, is non-existent. It doesn’t matter though, as the story is not the focus of the game. The wide world is pretty cool; players can drive in iconic cities like NYC and Detroit and visit different landmarks. The different races also had different great variety, ranging from off road chases in Colorado to running circuits in downtown Chicago. The expansive territory can also be annoying, as one has to often drive great distances to get to the actual events.
Off-Road
The game feels like a less fun version of the Forza Horizon video game series. For one, the game feels more constrained; there also aren’t as many cars and customization options such as upgrades are limited. The core driving gameplay itself also feels a tad too realistic for an arcade racer and isn’t as satisfying as Forza. The environment of The Crew, with pedestrians and memorable cities does edge over that of Forza, though.
Las Vegas
As with many more recent Ubisoft releases, the game just feels a tad soulless after playing a bit, as the game does tend to prioritize quantity over quality (very similar missions and objectives). What doesn’t help is the myriad of pay-to-win microtransactions and forced multiplayer. While the multiplayer can be fun, forcing the game to only work online both introduces bugs (such as progression not tracking), creates longer loading times, and makes the game likely unplayable after the upcoming server shutdowns. These decisions are mostly likely driven by corporate because they actively detract from the gameplay experience.
Mission
Edit: The servers are now offline and as expected, Ubisoft did not release an offline patch, meaning the game is now completely unplayable.
Conclusion
An amazing premise ruined by poor corporate direction, such as introducing too many microtransactions and forcing the game to be online-only.
Overall rating: 7.3
DLC Reviews
Season Pass
There are several DLCs released with the game, most of them are car packs that adds additional vehicles to the game. The Season Pass itself contains several vehicles not available in the DLC packs themselves, such as the Ferrari 458 Speciale and the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé. These vehicles are some of the better ones in-game.
Overall rating: 7.0
Extreme Car Pack
The first car pack includes three vehicles, which includes for some reason the very un-extreme Abarth 500. The Aston-Martin V12 Zagato is very cool, though.
Overall rating: 7.0
Street Edition Pack
The second car pack includes four more vehicles this time, such as the BMW Z4 sDrive35is (say that 10 times fast). Again, the packs aren't particularly game-changing.
Overall rating: 7.0
Speed Car Pack
This pack includes another three cars; these cars are pretty good, such as the Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo and the Alfa Romeo 4C.
Overall rating: 7.0
Vintage Car Pack
This pack includes yet another three cars; the Spyker C8 Aileron is probably the most helpful out of the three.
Overall rating: 7.0
Raid Car Pack
This pack includes three cars for the Raid car type. The Volkswagen Touareg NF is probably the most helpful.
Overall rating: 7.0
Wild Run
This is the first actual DLC with more substance. The DLC introduces a new multiplayer event called The Summit, and new gameplay events which includes motorcycles and dragsters. Personally, my favourite is probably the trick events with the monster trucks.
Overall rating: 7.4
Calling All Units
The second actual DLC allows players to play as police officers. This is actually pretty fun and I enjoyed the various missions chasing down criminals using different equipments and power-ups. The voice actress is a tad annoying after a while, though.
Playing as police