The Crew is a bizarre franchise. The primary recreation was centered on a narrative involving automobile gangs and criminals. The second recreation saved the map from the primary—a scaled-down recreation of the USA—however ditched the narrative and centered on exploration and including extra forms of autos to function. Now the third recreation, The Crew Motorfest, has excised all that to turn out to be a Forza Horizon-like open-world racer with its personal giant pageant situated on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. And whereas Motorfest is a beautiful automobile recreation that presents a wackier and wilder tackle Horizon’s open world, its odd development hampers a whole lot of the liberty and potential enjoyable.
It’s unimaginable to speak about The Crew Motorfest, out now on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, with out speaking about Forza Horizon. The brand new open-world driving recreation from Ubisoft Ivory Tower shares a lot DNA with Xbox’s fashionable franchise that it’s exhausting to think about The Crew Motorfest present with out Horizon.
Motorfest opens with flashy and spectacular introduction sequence, very Horizon-like, that has you quickly hopping into numerous automobiles in the midst of totally different occasions, offering fast tastes of what to anticipate. As soon as that’s over, you meet some unbearable individuals who speak about how the Motorfest pageant shall be a lot enjoyable and the way they’re so pumped that you simply’re right here to expertise all of it. In addition they promise that, should you drive properly sufficient, you may find yourself successful the entire thing, though it doesn’t actually seem to be a contest. Then you definitely set off throughout the open world of Oahu competing in numerous occasions that characteristic colourful decorations, loud music, and over-the-top moments. If it didn’t say “Motorfest” on the entrance of the field, I’d assume Microsoft had stealth-released a brand new Forza Horizon and slipped it onto my Xbox Collection X whereas I slept.
As soon as previous the intro, I rapidly found how The Crew Motorfest is totally different from Horizon, for higher and for worse.
Planes, boats, and cars
Let’s begin with the good things! Motorfest’s big range of autos spans extra than simply automobiles and vehicles, letting you drive boats, planes, dirtbikes, avenue bikes, and even ATVs. These car sorts all deal with fully in another way, every with their very own quirks, resembling having to handle how out of the water your boat is or isn’t.
Even higher, and in an indication of how Ubisoft’s recreation is keen to be extra wacky than Forza, you may swap between your present automobile, airplane, and boat at any level. And I imply at any level. I used to be flying in my airplane and determined to change to my automobile, simply to see if the sport would let me. It did, and I used to be in a position to crash-land my automobile and drive away with no challenge. This rapidly grew to become my journey methodology of alternative after I wished to avoid wasting time. I’d fly towards my vacation spot after which swap out the airplane for a automobile and crash into the world like a Ford torpedo. It by no means bought previous.
Sadly, no less than within the recreation’s first dozen hours, the planes and boats really feel like foolish distractions and never absolutely developed components of the sport. Most occasions early on don’t use them, and I discovered my speedboat bought little use because the map doesn’t really feel designed for it. Nonetheless, it’s rad that I can simply fly up into the skies above Hawai’i, flip into a ship, and slam down on prime of a soccer discipline or race monitor and the sport doesn’t punish me in any respect.
Whereas Motorfest allows you to go wild in its open world, dropping automobile bombs and browsing mountains with boats, the sport’s precise occasions and development are the precise reverse.
So many automobiles, so few choices
The Crew Motorfest is full of numerous playlists containing themed occasions that characteristic about seven or so races or different driving segments. These playlists usually characteristic several types of gameplay and have hosts that speak to you in the course of the races. You may do a typical lap-based race, then a drag race with its personal controls and mechanics. After that, you is perhaps challenged with some drifting and even driving a truck that has no brakes by way of an impediment course. A whole lot of the playlists are a blast, providing up inventive and attention-grabbing occasions.
I used to be shocked by simply how a lot selection is packed in Motorfest. Each playlist feels distinctive, and the sport is consistently throwing new concepts at you. At one level I used to be driving F1 automobiles and managing my tires and when to pit, then later I used to be cruising across the coast of Hawai’i in a Fifties convertible utilizing photographs, not a contemporary GPS, to assist information me to my location. And but later I used to be taking part in a Japanese-themed underground racing circuit full with a crew of racers who heckled and praised me as I drifted round neon-drenched streets and alleys.
Nonetheless, each single one in every of these playlists—I’ve performed by way of the primary seven to this point—forces you to drive a selected automobile you can’t customise or improve. This makes the automobiles you unlock and improve within the open world really feel much less helpful, and makes it exhausting to develop any form of reference to them. And whereas it’s true that Forza Horizon typically has fixed-car occasions, it additionally options loads of races and different actions that allow gamers select their very own automobiles and develop favorites that they improve over time.
That’s probably not how The Crew Motorfest operates, which is extraordinarily complicated and irritating. I saved questioning why I even had all these automobiles in my storage if the sport not often let me use them in occasions.
When you full a playlist, you unlock the power to replay its occasions with any automobile you need, which is good. However I’m undecided why seemingly each single race on this recreation must be so locked down. Moreover, when you end a playlist, you unlock challenges related to it and its theme. Weirdly, most of the challenges ask you to carry out particular feats within the occasions you simply accomplished utilizing automobiles from the identical playlist.
Certain, you may ignore the challenges, however you then received’t progress by way of each’s battle pass-like reward system, lacking out on credit, automobiles, and new car components. All of it simply feels very unusual, like the sport needs you to do the whole lot twice in a small number of autos. This development system feels fully at odds with the sillier open-world motion that occurs between the playlists.
Forza Horizon: Irritating Version
Different little annoyances additionally begin to grind after some time, like being unable to fast-travel to giant sections of the island till finishing a selected variety of playlists, or what number of challenges ask you to do sure issues in particular places, however don’t let you know the place these locations are or information you to them by way of a GPS marker.
You additionally begin each session of Motorfest on foot in a bizarre hub space that’s principally empty except for different gamers and their parked automobiles. You may stroll round and vote on automobiles you suppose look cool, and uh…not a lot else. This odd purgatory doesn’t add something to the expertise past an additional layer between me and the incredible really feel of driving automobiles at very excessive speeds or dropping Ford Mustangs on mountains.
The Crew Motorfest jogs my memory of an previous, badass muscle automobile that wants some work. It may be enjoyable to drive, it appears to be like cool as hell, and with some endurance, it is going to get you the place that you must go. Nevertheless it additionally has a nasty gearbox, stalls at cease lights, and isn’t dependable sufficient to plan your week round. It’s important to battle it to get pleasure from it.
And to be clear: There’s a lot to get pleasure from in Motorfest, like its beautiful open world or the best way it allows you to combine automobiles, planes, and bikes in foolish methods. And a few of us may choose the sport’s tightly managed and centered method to development. I additionally assume PlayStation gamers may get pleasure from having a Forza Horizon-like recreation on their PS5 or PS4.
Nonetheless, I believe Xbox gamers and people who choose extra freedom of their open-world racing video games may simply return to Forza itself as a substitute of placing up with Motorfest’s odd annoyances and shortcomings.
