I had the good fortune of being accepted into both betas for Ubisoft'sThe Crew, one of the last big games of the season, and (what I believe to be) Ubisofts last big game of the calendar year. I started this write up after the conclusion of the second beta but decided against it, but decided to put my thoughts up after Ubisoft publicly told consumers to disregard early reviews of The Crew.

Additionally, the games lead designer Serkan Hasan stated "For The Crew, we've reaped the benefits of a long term beta program, designed specifically to push our infrastructure as far as possible in real world situations, with thousands of players from all over the world playing the game at the same time,".

In all fairness, Ubisoft said that early press of the game would be useless because "While we fully anticipate that you might see some reviews immediately at launch — largely built around the preview sessions we facilitated during the past months or the limited content of the closed and open betas — they won’t be based on optimal conditions or reflect the finished game,".

Which is also true. So I'll just talk about way the game plays, and not focus on things like online play. But as far as stress testing the game and all that, I can say this--between both betas, I only ever encountered about fifteen players, and all in the same gameplay session. The one time I managed to complete a mission with players in my session, the game locked up after it and wouldn't let me access the map...or do anything besides drive my car.

That's what's expected in The Crew. It's a driving game, but whereas it seems like the big mainstays of the driving-game genre sometimes don't even have drivers in there cars, The Crew is different in that it has a story. You play as Alex Taylor, who is a well-regarded street racer. You're framed for a murder by a dirty cop, and you go to jail. Some time later you're approached by a female detective who wants you to infiltrate the street racing crime syndicate the 510s to nab the dirty cop, her own personal beef. Alex agrees because he's equally interested in tracking down the man who framed him and put him in the penn., So for the first act of the game all you're hearing is people talking about "getting that 510 ink), which by the way is a police code for "Speeding or Racing Vehicles". Clever. Additionally everybody in the gang is ranked as V2, V4, V6, V8, and it feels...silly. I can't tell if it feels teenage or just uninspired, but it doesn't feel good.

For what it's worth, the cutscenes do look nice, and all the character models look like they have hair on their heads, which is a big step-up from the aquatic creatures that topped the heads of everybody in Watch Dogs. At least they hid it under hats on the two lead characters. Clever.

But in the end people want to play The Crew because those people want to drive vehicles, and make no mistake, that is what The Crew is. The Crew has two unique hooks: its social aspects, which I can't say anything about, and it's setting. Rather broadly, The Crew advertises that it's set in the US of A. Obviously truncated, but also unpleasantly truncated.

It would be wrong to assume that every duder here is stateside, but even to our dudes north, south, and overseas: what the fuck am I looking at? I know I would be a fool to ask for a scale model with every pothole and dry riverbed in the contiguous United States, but this just reminds me of every time a game has ever set itself in a real world location. It feels unremarkable to anybody who doesn't live there, and even less remarkable to those who do. Myself a former resident of Flint and someone who often works in the greater Detroit area, I would like to say I know Detroit about as well as anybody who doesn't live there can.

That big tall train station is in The Crew. So is Comerica Park, and the GM tower. But I also noticed this big sign painted on the brick wall of a building about bail bonds and loans. Then I saw that same asset again. And another time, so theres that. It would be like Chicago having Sears Tower and Navy Pier and replacing every other area with Chicago-style pizza and caramel corn shops.

About fifteen minutes into the game, you get to choose a car from a small line-up. My first time through I picked a 2012 Dodge Challenger, which handled like a giant ice cube once I approached any significant rate of speed. I found myself smashing into cars all the time, but the bummer is, there doesn't seem to be a lot of damage modeling. There is, but it looks the same every time. I don't need my car to look like something from Wreckfest, but it felt extremely undercooked.

Savvy eyes will notice that isn't a Dodge Challenger, because this picture is from my second time with The Crew. After seeing how weighty the heftier Challenger seemed to be, I chose the lighter option, a Nissan. At a glance it really did feel better, but then I got to that magic 80/90mph mark again, and my wheels were made of plastic again. Nothing about the handling feels good, and every time you hit the gas, you burn out. Didn't the PS2 have pressure-sensitive buttons? Why, in 2014, am I peeling out no matter how hard or soft I'm pressing down on R2?

In the games opening, you're escaping the police in a big 4x4 truck, and the most baffling thing is that the three vehicles I drove were wildly different from each other, and all felt about the same. That's unacceptable for a driving game.

It manages to do make that same bizarre mistake that Driveclub makes by trying to balance simulation and arcade-style play and finding a really poor middle point.

The mission design isn't interesting, but it's a driving game, so maybe that's okay. There are races. There are time trials. There are missions where you have to wreck another car. Since the map is so large, you do end up driving long distances, and the game attempts to make this interesting by placing mini-events along the way that seamlessly flow into and then out of your game, but the only parts of The Crew I really liked were the long stretches of driving. Nonetheless, you'll drive through a translucent icon and you'll be tasked to go through slaloms, jump off a ramp, crash through successive targets. It's distracting, and at no point does it not feel like padding.

Once you finish a mini-event, you get this drop-down menu, which is awful design. It doesn't look like it takes up that much real estate, but if you're zipping down a winding road, it feels like somebody is walking in front of you. You just end up mashing on the X button so you can finally see what's up the goddamn road.

A lot of The Crew is like this. The game is constantly showing you something else while it's showing you yet another thing, like it's trying to hide the whole game. In my opinion, the marquee part of this game is the big giant map. However, whenever you set a waypoint for a mission, the game presents you with the option to fast travel to the location, or just play the mission. The Crew: Look at this big old map! Or, uh, just play the mission! I mean, you can jump off this ramp! Did your friend jump further than you did? The leaderboard isn't loading?! Oh shiiiiiiit!

The Crew isn't all bad. In fact, I really like the part where you can just go. That's inevitably one of the shittiest parts of any open world game, waiting to unlock the map. But as far as I could tell, The Crew didn't do that. The most fun I had in The Crew was deciding I was going to take a straight shot from Detroit to Miami and then to Los Angeles, and that was awesome. The landscapes were awesome, even the half-baked small towns that made up the rural counties...had soul. I drove most of the time while doing this in the dash mode, which looked really good too. Honestly I would dig the hell out of this game if it was just HUD-less driving and a big wide open map, a good radio, and it was called Two-Lane Blacktop: The Video Game or some nonsense.

Unfortunately though, The Crew pulled my leg in about a thousand different directions. It distracted me from its big open franken-USA and instead told me I should give a shit about a murder plot and then invite some random assholes I beat a mission with to join my crew.

Honestly though it still wouldn't be a great game, because its core driving mechanics are not enjoyable or natural feeling. And it's a shame, because there is something deep within The Crew that is excellent. It just isn't the focus. In fact, no part of this game feels like the focus. Even though it's being developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft, it still bizarrely shares those Ubisoft issues and gameplay tropes. Just like Assassins Creed or Watch Dogs, it feels like a game that nobody got to put their stamp on. The Crew remains a product of nobody in particulars vision.

In stores now.

Man, that sucks to hear about the driving physics. As a Challenger owner who has driven his car over 100MPH, your description doesn't sound the least bit accurate to real life.

is it just me or do the locations of Chicago and Detroit look really really wrong on those maps?

dear god the driving feels awful in this game. it's loose and unresponsive. i've driven in 3 different vehicles and they don't feel different from each other. there's no sense of speed either. i was halfway through one of the first few races and glanced down at the speedometer, thinking i was going around 80 mph and it read 153 mph. i suppose the driving model is built this way to make the upgrade system worthwhile

i'm still interested in exploring the open world but the way the game feels is discouraging me from doing so. also i won a non-multiplayer race and the game immediately booted me back to the menu because i lost my connection with the ubi servers. i'll come back to this later i suppose

I thought Driveclub found the sweet spot between sim and arcade. If it feels like that I'll probably like this game.

If you like roaming from one location to the next, may I suggest playing Euro Truck Simulator 2? It's the perfect podcast game as far as I'm concerned.

THERE

Edit: Was kind of hoping for a live stream of The Crew since Ubi didn't send out review copies. If they managed to fix the feel of the handling for release, I'd consider buying it.

Once again I'm in the minority that enjoyed a Ubisoft product. I played the early PC beta and had fun with it. I will admit that the driving was strange at first but like all games it just took a bit getting used to. On a scale of great driving to horrible driving physics, like lets say GTA IV, it was definitely middle of the road. That said there were plenty of interesting hooks. All the offroad stuff felt really great and I thought the sense of speed was very good when shooting down a beach or up a sandy hill only to hit a massive jump at the crest. It was exciting whenever the path suddenly took me through dense forests forcing everyone involved in the race to weave left and right between the tree trunks. The story was stupid but at the end of the day it's a driving game. I either race to get first place for my own satisfaction or because I need to get accepted into a gang. It really doesn't matter, they just added a bunch of window dressing there.

I also really liked the leveling up that happens on the fly. You drive your car to a destination and do small events along the way. After winning you can seamlessly integrate your brand new part into your car. I dunno it felt neat but I'm a sucker for leveling.

I know most people already made up their minds because this is Ubisoft and we all got so viciously tricked by Watch Dogs, and then further battered with the oh so incredibly buggy Unity. Already I can see everyone posting the same animated gif of some guy bumping into another car and getting catapulted across a field much like everyone always posts the same few screenshots from Unity. Still I would say keep an open wind and give it a shot. A lot of things may have changed since the Beta I played but who knows, the game might surprise you.

@humanity: I agree.

Played the release version for 5 hours straight, I like it. Yes, the driving is weird, but you'll get used to it and car handling significantly improves with upgrades.

@humanity:

I played the open beta or whatever it was for a few hours and liked it well enough that I'd buy it if I had time to play it. The driving could have felt better, but as someone who just loved crusing in Test Drive Unlimited (the first one, second one was okay too) it really appeals to me. I had studied abroad in Long Beach the spring of this year, so the first thing I did was just B-line it from Detroit to LB, and to see that the stuff was that close to real life was pretty awesome, even though I wish that the size of LA had been a bit bigger.

And people do seem to be jumping on the "fuck Ubisoft wagon", fine if they don't like it, but I feel this game won't get a fair shake from a lot of people just because it is Ubi, and every little flaw is just magnified.

I failed the first 4x4 truck mission about 5 times before I wrapped my head around how terrible the controls were. I eventually passed the mission. I played for another few hours but never felt confident going more than 70mph. Ever have the feeling in a game where you are up to speed and are just waiting to spin out or plow head first into another car? That's what the Crew is all the time. Other games like Test Drive Unlimited or Forza inspire confidence at speed. I'm guess the physics or steering response changes as you go faster, but in the Crew the controls are super touchy and even a tiny amount of input can cause your car to go ape-shit become uncontrollable.

I really want to like this game and maybe they tweaked the controls for launch. I loved TDU1&2 and really like the scale of world. Its too bad with Ubisoft you only get the stereotypes of a uncultured computer programmer portrayed through the games. Its like they do a google search and then use those assets in their games or read the wiki page and then try to write a story for the region. I'm looking at you Watchdogs!

I posted this on another video, but thought i'd share my input:

I am a car enthusiast and have competed in BullRun and other road rallies. The idea of The Crew excited me very much, and I've been eagerly waiting to see the car list. I have to say it's highly disappointing. Did they just watch a recent Fast and Furious movie and say, "Ummm, the red one is pretty! Let's put it in our game!" Obviously a lot of car manufacturers aren't going to license a lot of cars in a game like this one, because it shows their product breaking the law, but this list sucks.ass.

I can forgive some quirks in driving games, and I don't want all of my driving games to be simulators where actual car physics are put into play, but when I see a racing game where a Ferrari is competing against a Eleanor Mustang and the Mustang is keeping up?! Nope. I just don't buy it. Why even bother licensing Ferrari in the game if you can beat it with a Mini Cooper? I'm sure when Ubisoft sat down with Pagani and said, "We'd like your car to be in the game." They went, "Ohhhhh tickle my fancy! What will our elite line of automobiles be competing against?" Ubisoft gave them a firm assurance and said, "Competition is tough in our game. You'll be competing against Fiat 500 and a Volkswagen Touareg!"

I just want a game like the crew, with some realness in car classes, with a list of cars that actually wow me. I don't want to drive across the USA and compete in street races and be beat by Mazda MX-5s when i'm driving a Lamborghini. I drove a Lamborghini (No, never owned, just drove), and when you pull up to a stoplight next to a Chevy Impala, you don't go, "Wonder what he's got under the hood?!"

There, rant done. I'm sorry!

Welp. I own a 370z and nothing aggravates me more when games fail to capture car feel at high speeds. Guess I won't play this much, my dad pre-ordered it already for some reason. I'll at least give it a fair shot

Does the online work? How pivotal to the experience is it? Would the game be significantly worse if the online aspects weren't present or replaced by ai?

@spraynardtatum: I have no idea since I played the game in a beta build. Whether or not it works though, the online components are one of that games main features.

Thanks for the review of the beta. I will say the review embargo is not exactly confidence-inspiring, especially given all the issues with AC:Unity. I'm not expecting anything much different than what was in the beta, either. And I don't buy for a second that the embargo is intended for anything other than ensuring sales of day one copies, but that's another topic. FWIW, I'm not a "fuck Ubisoft" guy. I've loved most of the Tom Clancy games, enjoyed much of the AC series, thought Watch Dogs was better than most people say it is, thought Far Cry 4 looks fun, etc. However, expecting greatness out of The Crew seems like a setup for disappointment. I hope I'm wrong, but it just looks fairly blase. I don't think it will be a particularly bad game, but I'll be shocked if it's anything above decent. As stated above, the environments look good (Ubi usually excels here). On the other hand, if the driving truly is Driveclub-style and the side mission/collectible shit is as obtrusive as it is becoming in most Ubi games, that would be a few big marks in the negative column in my book. Additionally, while the concept of "drive across 'Merica" seems pretty great on paper, the liberties they've taken seem pretty large. I surely don't expect a 1:1 recreation and fully get the licensing issues for buildings and whatnot, but Dallas isn't in the desert with tumbleweeds rolling around, either. I figure everyone across the country is going to have a "not even close" moment when they drive through what's supposed to be a reflection of the area where they live. I applaud Ubi for going big on scope, but in doing so, they're likely going to miss the mark on a lot.

I'm with the OP in that I just want to be turned loose on a big-ass map. I don't have to be told every five seconds what to do. I can find the entertainment if it's there; trust me. Some of the menu/interface bullshit these days is the equivalent of internet pop-up ads, and Ubi has historically been one of the worst offenders. I fully expect The Crew, based on what I've seen of it and what Ubi tends to do, to have an interface that's the video game version of a Ford truck commercial. By that, I mean annoyingly in-your-face. I picture playing the game as follows. "No, I don't want to do a side mission right now." "Yes, I know the game has DLC." "No, I DON'T want to join this club." "NO, I REALLY DON'T CARE how my time stacks up against xxchronicsmoka420xx." "NO, I DON'T WANT YOU TO PUT A GIANT LINE ON THE STREET DIRECTING ME TO A GIANT MISSION ICON ON THE MAP." "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE AND LET ME PLAY THE GAME MY WAY, GODDAMNIT!!!" Maybe today's overstimulated kiddos love that kind of ADD shit; I don't know. For me, whenever a game stops me and tries to tell me "HEY! you should do ____", my immediate thought is "Hey, you should STFU and let me do what I want to do". Immersion has taken a back seat to billboards. I digress.

I'm curious to hear the final thoughts once proper reviews come out. I'm skeptical of this one because of the embargo and because Ubi doesn't have a ton of experience doing driving games. I know Ivory Tower is composed of some guys that do, but that didn't exactly help Evolution Studios. I'm expecting a Watch Dogs of sorts, where it's an enjoyable enough game with some flaws. I predict that those expecting something special will be disappointed, and those going in with low or no expectations might be pleasantly surprised by it. I'll also take an educated guess that it will find a fanbase on the PS4 simply because the other racing game options aren't good at the moment. Based on what I've seen and what can reasonably be expected, as of right now, I'm inclined to go along with the OP. It seems like it will be a 70-75ish game all the way. I guess we'll know shortly.

So pretty much every game that was released by Ubisoft this year had lots of issues. Why are people still trusting them?

I'm loving Jeffs tweets on the homepage for this game. "incomplete/10"

haha!

Thanks for your impressions. The Unfinished video made it seem promising, if rough around the edges, and I'm a sucker for the idea of an open-world driving game set in places I recognize. It's a real shame how streamlined the process of removing character/vision from games has become at Ubisoft.

@slag: Chicago's in Wisconsin; Detroit's up around Gaylord.

As someone who lives in the United States and is originally from Long Island, I was super disappointed when i played the beta and saw what Alex refers to as the "interpretive take on US geography." Just look at the map posted above: that's not where New York is; Long Island is completely misshapen; etc. That map looks nothing like the one that was on the floors of all my classrooms in elementary school.

EDIT: I found Texas; don't see how I missed it the first time. Still, Florida looks kinda fat.

@jack_lafayette: As I said, the open world just-drive-around freewheeling parts are excellent, unfortunately I believe those aspects to be marred by lesser things.

It's a game I would buy, but probably not at a price tag over thirty dollars.

Just cleaned up a bunch of off topic arguing and other garbage, please keep things on topic.

Also, please don't offer unsolicited advice about another user's writing skills or grammar. That kind of thing leads to threads quickly devolving into petty arguments and personal attacks as was the case in this thread. If you think someone's writing is so bad it is causing a disruption on the forums, then notify the mods. Otherwise, suffer in silence.

Did anyone play the game somewhat "solo", and if so what was your experience in it; especially when it came to playing set races/events? Is it feasible to play this game without always doing the "social" thing for every mission?

I wonder what kind of legs this game has down the road when servers are not working, or if it will even work at all. Is it true that you need a full-time online connection to even play the game? (One of the greatest things this year for me was finally delving into Burnout Paradise - it would be a real shame if I could not play The Crew several years from now because it requires a server connection that no longer functions. I know I'm a niche case, but I do let "future" playability play a role in selecting games to buy.)

Thanks for discussing the open-world part a bit - can you expand a bit? You mention the constant distraction of mini-events and missions/story, but am I also reading correctly that past that there is nothing stopping you from just driving across the map if you so choose?

I didn't even get into either of the betas, but from watching bits of gameplay and hearing about them I instantly got the feeling this game would be borked. The handling looked terribly floaty and complete nonsense, and everything you said backed up what it looked like from the videos. Glad I stayed well clear of this wreckage.

@whitegreyblack: I've played for roughly 15 hours and probably 10% of that has been with other people or in PvP. You definitely don't need to play with other people but its very easy to invite people into a co-op mission if there are people in your free roam session and they don't have to accept if you do.

I have seen a few people saying that there are balancing issues if you don't play co-op and I don't see that at all, if your car is at or above the recommended level you will be fine.

Yes, there is nothing stopping you from driving across the map from when you start, but in saying that there won't be any story missions for you to complete. You can go to other cities to buy cars from dealers if you have the money, but the tuner garages are locked by level. The mini skill challenges are just gates you drive through in free roam which start a specific driving challenge instantly(jumping, speed, slalom, racing line, scramble). They are pretty intelligently spread throughout the world and you'll find that you'll be doing one every couple of minutes if you're on a road trip somewhere and they serve as a good distraction and they get you car parts, XP and money.

@fissionmailed10: I appreciate the break-down - that makes things a bit clearer for me. I should have tried to jump into the Beta to see if I liked the vehicle handling... oh well! Might get this at some point.