Don't Expect Any Early Reviews For The Crew

Yeah, maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, but aside from some of the expected open world jank FC4 has been rock solid for me. Haven't had any major issues with Unity either, for that matter. Some people standing around in geometry and such, and the fairly major issue of it not being a very interesting game, but no progress blocking bugs or anything.

What does it even mean to trust a video game publisher in 2014? Ubisoft is a massive network of studios so expecting like everything to be a winner is just crazy. FarCry 4 is great so far, Assassin's Creed Unity seems kind of dull/messed up. You win some and you lose some, this isn't any different from how it ever was. Wait for reviews and buy accordingly. It seems like people struggle way to hard to attach some sort of dramatic narrative to all this nonsense.

Given the nature of this game, I think it's incredible fair to wait until it's out in the public before writing a review.

if people would just wait a week before buying the game.... and no preorder of the game. We could stop all the nonsense and companies would up their quality control before releasing new games. If we buy the premise that it is an mmo than even more reason to wait to buy the game and let them patch it a few times

You can't understand The Crew man, you can only experience it and hope to live to tell your crazy madman tale about cars, open worlds and Troy Baker.

I don't see a problem with this. I mean, if the game is meant to be played online then it makes sense to me. If the online is just superfluous then it doesn't.

It seemed like a pretty cool concept on the unfinished look Giant Bomb did a few months back so I already have feelings on this game anyway.

And thrice-ly, moi. The dominant opinion shared across most mediums is that, currently, Ubisoft's words are not to be trusted at this point in time.

I'm still not quite sure what this game is about.

The says who argument is probably the weakest one I've seen against an opinion piece. Not only does he cite 2 issues within this month but he simply it stating his opinion there. The company hasn't earned back that trust. And that is true for most people. If its not true for you then don't just be like "PSH your opinion doesn't match mine!" say something like Ubisoft recently earned my trust back with... Be constructive and create strong statements that someone, anyone, could stand behind. Of course if you just want to reply with another "says who? you?" no one here is stopping you and would work much better in response to this comment than the article.

You must have really high standards to think every Ubisoft game this year was "bad / mediocre as hell". It might just be your opinion and the games might not have been your thing but I think that statement isn't fair. Just look at the games they released this year:

• South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Child of Light
• Watch Dogs
• Assassin's Creed Unity
• Assassin's Creed Rogue
• Far Cry 4

All these games have high review scores and sold really really well. Some of them had technical issues but that doesn't mean they're bad games. Watch Dogs was a good game, it just gets hate because people think it was over hyped. To call it a bad game because of that is ridiculous.

I'd say Ubisoft has had a pretty good year and The Crew is still coming. I don't know what you expect but from Ubisoft to think that people should have lost their jobs over this year.

@xeirus said:

And my axe!

Oh...

Have you even LOOKED at the games Ubisoft released in 2014 before claiming they are all bad? Apart from the AC:U trainwreck, most of them were pretty decent to good. Also, Ubisoft is the only one of the three big publishers consistently creating interesting games (Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, Blood Dragon, M&M Legacy, the first AC,...) that you will never see Activision or EA risking. Yes, if a concept is successful they will create more, can you blame them?

I will agree their PR team seems to consist of 100% aliens who have no idea how to talk to an audience.

You would think Ubisoft would have an idea about how many review copies they send out... It's not like there are 20 reviewers in the world. Most big game companies send out review copies to everyone with a YT channel. I write reviews for a local site, and I've never EVER had problems finding other people to play a game with, especially one from a big publisher.

Sure, maybe there won't be tens of thousands of people to play with, but there will definitely be thousands, and unless I can see all of them in my game (which I won't) there is no real difference between a playerbase of 5 000 and 5 000 000.

I didn't run into any issues with my time in the alpha, and I don't think it'll be anywhere near as bad as Unity. That said, not something I would pre-order. I also think it's fairly reasonable to wait until the game's fully out anyways, partly to see if the online's any good, and partly to see whether the online actually works.

Not sure how this doesn't make sense. Why does an online-heavy game need to be reviewed before it's publicly online? And why do I need to "trust" Ubisoft? What is so hard about waiting a week to see if the game is working in the wild?

Griping about a non-issue here. I do not understand how people have so little self-control, especially with all that's happened this fall, and can't wait a few days to see how a game REALLY works. Plus? There have been three Crew betas, all of which were easy to get into. If you were THAT desperate to try the game early, you have no excuse for not having done so already.

My condolences to the self-entitled games press for not getting the game early. Though it's well-deserved. Given how many broken games have gotten rave review scores this fall, why should we trust *you*?

Was excited about the game until I participated in the PC beta, I didn't notice any performance issue but the game was boring, just your typical Ubisoft open-world game with weak story and massive amounts of collectibles and repetitive challenges.

But, I suppose that's not representative of the final products because Uplay servers did not crash nor did I have any connection issues, those are the exclusive features we must wait for until launchday.

I bet this will be a winner...

Lordy. I'm disappointed with Unity too, but let's get a grip on that hyperbole, can we?

Well they're having a beta so it will most likely launch smoothly. Both Titanfall and Destiny had betas and had great launches, Driveclub and The Master Chief Collection did not and had terrible launches.

It is not a scientific analysis, but you can't deny that betas improve launches most of the time.

I'm kind of glad that I got my copy of The Crew free with my new graphics card. I won't be surprised if it's complete garbage at this point.

I swear I'm not trying to be cynical here. I've played and finished Watch Dogs, and I'm gonna stick to my previous stance - it's 90% mediocre, 10% bad. And the reason I finished it cause I was genuinely hoping for something good to happen.

Hell, I'm not the type of gamer who asks for innovation in every single title. For games that aren't too unique, I ask that they make up for that in how they feel / control as an action game. It's why I'm still playing Destiny even though several of their design decisions are straight up stupid. As for Watch Dogs' controls, while they're serviceable, they were just not fun. Nothing felt rewarding, the shooting / driving / hacking, was just too... plain.

And Assassin's Creed Unity is broken, that's well documented. We really shouldn't be okay with games releasing in the state that that thing came out in. Even if it did work perfectly, it would've been more standard AC stuff. And as fantastic as AC 4 and its naval combat was, I just wish they had a different hook this time around. Just more of your standard AC is not that interesting anymore. I lost interest in that stuff by AC Revelations. And Rogue, just like FC 4, is good, but exactly the same as the prequel. Especially a problem in Rogue's case, cause unlike FC 4, it's only been an year since AC 4.

And Stick of Truth, Child of Light - I'll admit - they both look pretty neat. Not my type of games, to be honest - but the people who are into those genres seem to love them both.

I guess I feel that way about Ubi mainly because of how tone-deaf their PR is. It's unbelievable just how dumb they think their audience is. Add disappointing games to that, and it's not hard to see why people's opinions of the company have sank so low.

A company that people mistrust usually needs about 3-4 years to earn some trust back. So yeah, not happening anytime soon. Look at EA: They are slowly starting to gain people's faith back, but still have ways to go after all the shit that happened last year.

@professor_t: Destiny had a prelaunch alpha and beta. That didn't help the problems people had with it at launch.

Ubisoft is going out of the way to make sure I don't spend a dime on their games! It's like a little holiday gift!

Ubisoft's problem IMO is they have to many games in development at the same time with un-realistic deadlines. I suspect the Crew is going to be another buggy mess

I'm just looking forward to climbing towers as a car, checking out the area to unlock the map, then zip-lining to the finish line.

The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world. And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can’t be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press.

Hilarious! It's not like you're going to be interacting with thousands and thousands of players. They're just going to be driving by you focusing on their own bullshit radio tower quest. The excuses that online-centric games need to be experienced with everyone else is such fabricated nonsense I can't believe that quote doesn't end with a winky face.

I hope the press rips this thing to shreds if the online doesn't work day one. If Ubisoft claims that this function is paramount to the experience than it should be graded as such. If this game doesn't work directly upon release than this "living playground" is failing at its very purpose.

I really think it's funny that Ubisoft is trying to justify this. We get it, it's a multiplayer game, but there are other things involved in the game besides the multiplayer. Physics, story, etc. Plus, there could have been early copies in the hands of enough people to give some sort of experience similar to the final product. This just shows Ubisoft has no confidence in the product.

@hailinel: I mentioned Destiny's betas and it had a fairly smooth launch. Nothing compared to the disaster of Driveclub and Halo: MCC.

Every online game is going to have some issues and considering the huge amount of players Destiny had at launch, being multiplat and so anticipated, it had a good launch.

I just hate, hate the doublespeak of saying "there's no embargo at all", but only letting reviews be published after launch and basically undermining anything bad anyone might say about the game pre-emptively.

I do enjoy it when game companies get precious. I suppose us peasants just won't understand this mind-blowing game until we've played it, I mean it's not like I've played about 500 driving games by this point.

I don't want to do a "shots fired" but when I see sites give decent reviews to games that they then complain about being broken...I can only shake my head. Sure, its hard to accurately review a game's online...so don't put the review out there til it is or give it an accurate review of the time and then update it later.

I seem to be getting a different idea of what embargo means than this guy. By not making the game available to reviewers before launch, they are effectively making impossible for any game review to exist before launch.

This is like saying "we are completely against the idea of censorship, bias and closed discourse, so we are not allowing any discussion of out product, positive or not"...

I would like to think that Ubisoft is doing this because it is a open world game, that can only be properly reviewed when played with others online. What I really think is that they wised up after Unity. Another sneak move, so the consumers will make a blind purchase. Damn I need a good racer too.

It doesn't matter, I played it. I already know it's a mess. I don't need to be told. Unlike Destiny it's not an example of a great game let down by baffling design decisions on ancillary systems and a surprising lack of willingness to implement a couple of extra modes to provide more variety. Destiny is a good game with some very disappointing flaws. The Crew is just a bad game. One example: the handling. Cars in The Crew handle like shopping trolleys with bowling balls in them. When the handling of your driving game is no fun, it pretty much doesn't matter if the rest of it is any good (And there's more than a few reasons I'd say the rest of it is only marginally better if at all).

Well that's a shame.

Jeff and Drew seemed pretty positive about it in the Unfinished vid from a while back.

The beta is up today right?

A Ubisoft game? Should be perfect at launch. I already pre-ordered 5 copies.

@tomba_be: Well, if you are willing to go back to the first AC (2007), one could say the same thing about EA (Mass Effect, Sims 2, Rock Band, Skate, Red Alert, Burnout Paradise, Dead Space, Bad Company, Alice, Orange Box, Crysis, Dragon Age, Brutal Legend, Titanfall, Mirror's Edge)

In 7 years, they are bound to make good and/or risky games. The point is, in the recent past, Ubisoft has lost a lot of good will, because even when the games may be good, they are force feeding us crap like UPlay, which at best is a nuisance and its broken most of the time...

great, don't expect any pre-orders Ubisoft!

Something tells me that online or no, WHEN this game ends up being broken at launch, any review that gives it a poor score will be on the mark.

Ubi has shown that quality control is the least of their concerns.

It's not really about the game's quality, but the politics that the game company uses. Here, we don't get to wait for reviews.

I guess I don't understand what you mean. What politics are they using? If people waited for reviews and didn't buy that shit sight unseen, you better believe things would change. Nothing makes a company change like change in their bottom line.

Far Cry 4 is broken for a lot of PC users. It'll boot into a black screen and crash. If you can play it, you'll find a game with massive stuttering issues. A fix was promised on Friday and it was pushed til Monday. When the fix came out, it didn't fix anything.

Ubisoft has not had a winner this year.

@billyok: Unless you're referring to the people here at Giant Bomb for giving rave reviews about games broken at launch then you're insulting the wrong people.

Take that anger to the reviews who actually do what you described. Don't lump in the honest reviewers with the bad ones.

"We also know that many of you will be eager to turn to experts for their professional advice. You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew."

This sounds so hilariously sarcastic. Yeah, fuck off, Ubisoft. No interest in buying any of their games any time soon.

Don't expect any preorders for The Crew.

The only reason there shouldn't be reviews early is because the press should be smart enough by now to determine that online-centric games should be judged on the merit of their online when they are out in the public. Not because Ubisoft delays review copies or claims that it wouldn't be fair to the experience. That is the press allowing the publishers to determine the terms of how online games should be reviewed.

@patrickklepek I hope to see someone from giantbomb follow the online reliability of this game the second it is out and judge it by how quickly and efficiently it is brought to a working state. As a matter of fact, I would love to see that be the standard and bare minimum requirement for any studio releasing this type of online game. If they can't get their $60 product working for their customers than they are failing as creators and stringing along the people that support them.

Does anyone have any good will left for Ubisoft after the nonsense they've pulled this year?

"hey, we read reviews too!" (ugh)

and yes Ubisoft, I will definitely also be reading them before I even begin to think about buying your game.

You know what guys? I was in both of the larger betas for the Crew (PC) and aside from your usual beta bugs and some irregular connection issue with my router it ran fine for me, I don't see any acceptable reasons for these relatively minor issues to still be there after a few more months of development.

While I'm not sure you need a thousands of players, they do have a whole background factional meta thing going on that was disabled in the beta, but visible in the menus. I will also fully agree with the idea that playing this game with other people makes it much better, I played it with a few friends of mine and we got a few hours of entertainment just driving around.

I did not buy Unity or Farcry 4, however having put quite a few beta hours into this game I'd be shocked if it turned out to have the same issues those two games reportedly have. I honestly don't feel active malice the way I do from activision from ubi, they feel more like a bumbling drunk that you stick around because sometimes they'll spit out interesting things. (Like child of light, valiant hearts and so on)

If this makes me sound like a shill or something? So be it, I was originally skeptical about this game but those two betas made me look forward to it. Take what I said or leave it, no skin off my back, if I'm somehow wrong and this game is a broken piece of crap you can tell me how wrong I am later, but I don't think it'll turn out that way.

I had a lot of fun time with it, I just felt like I need to counterbalance the extreme negativity in here for some reason.

Politics as in not allowing reviews to go up before the release date so they can get as many people buying the game based on marketing and hype alone, which they did with AssCreed Unity. Even Kotaku had to make a big change to their coverage based on this post-release review embargo garbage. Taking future Ubisoft games (Unity, Far Cry 4, The Crew) off Steam. They put them back but they're still removed in the UK. Every statement that comes out of their mouth insulting the intelligence of the audience. Microtransactions. This post on NeoGAF sums it up well: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=138431938&postcount=914

They're as anti-consumer as a game publisher can get in this day and age, which is saying something as now Ubisoft are considered the new EA.