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After some public launch hiccups for the latest addition to Ubisoft’s super-popular stealth franchise, many were calling for the company to visit Madam Guillotine for its poor handling of such a big launch. With a new open-world racing IP (the companies first since Driver: San Francisco) that’s been in development for 7-years and so close in the calendar, gamers have raised some yellow flags for fear that we’ll see repeated disappointment.

Straight off the starting line your first questions are “Does The Crew work and can I actually play it?” Yes, it does and yes you can! The beta certainly did a good job of discovering and addressing tons of bugs and glitches and in my meaty playthrough I’ve yet to find anything considered a game breaker. In fact I’d only experienced the odd disconnection (nothing I wouldn’t expect from an always online world ..err.. America). After the testing period was complete, shock horror, Ubisoft actually listened to comments from the community on features they’d like added – and they were added along with implementing other tweaks, such as around car handling. *Phew*

You’ve another big question before I delve deeper? Fire away. “Have Ubisoft re-invented the wheel game?” Answer: No. At its heart it’s an arcade racing game which sees you speeding from check point to check point in a variety of auto-mobiles under a variety of race conditions (beat this driver to the finish or drive X miles without taking damage etc.). What it has done is reinvented how driving games are presented, how you play them with friends and also importantly how big they can be!

You play Alex Taylor, voiced by seasoned video game actor Troy “I’m in everything” Baker, on a quest for revenge with some help from a government handler and some acquired crew mates. Alex and cohorts must earn nationwide favour to infiltrate a two dimensional car obsessed criminal organisation and uncover some dirty weasels within the federal and police agencies.

Taking part in races and running errands for that regions honcho or nefarious deep throat earns you reputation to progress up the ladder and ultimately expose the conspiracy. The narrative takes heavy cues from films such as Gone in 60 Seconds or The Fast and Furious franchise however even on these films worst outings (2 Fast 2 Furious anyone?) they’d be considered Oscar bait compared to The Crew’s story. Cutting to the chase and to be quite brutal, the story is pish. The narrative is overly generic and really only serves as a XXXL loose justification for the exploration of the huge map and levelling up process to award upgrades, new cars or cash. Each story mission cut scene could easily be completely skipped however for those that do wish to fully immerse themselves in the game, like me, you’ll be gobsmacked at how large you could drive a Humvee through the plot holes.

A weak story however can be saved by good and memorable characters ….but we have none here either. Ubisoft has previously crafted some unique NPC’s such as smooth Hitman Jordi Chin in Watch_Dogs and more recently Far Cry 4’s “What gun would Jesus choose?” Longinus or the evil pink power suited Pagan Min (Troy Baker again!). I was shocked to learn that Troy Baker was the games lead actor as although he does try, he’s unable to elevate the abysmal and clichéd dialogue. Other crew ‘characters’ I encountered were also instantly forgettable and fell into stereotype territory.

The bulk of your time is spent on tarmac racing however you do have the option to forge your own path across snowy mountains, forests or swamps. Doing so allows you to search for hidden parts to build secret cars or find satellite dishes to unlock more activities in that area. To get to these areas, you’ll need something rough and tumble to get to the bottom of the Grand Canyon or later on need some oopf to keep up with some serious high end super cars. As you level up you can unlock new “specs” for your rides. These include the country road rattling Dirt spec, the super off-road Raid monsters, a super car Performance configuration and lastly the circuit racers such as you’d see in NASCAR. A small variety of licensed cars are on offer in the game however most can be respec’d into each of the classes above as well undergo cosmetic changes or be tuned to high motor heaven to provide some further variety/usefulness.

After each regions story missions are complete you’re promoted to the next county. Between these regions you can forget about the protagonists backfiring adventure and can indulge in any number of fun “side-quests”. These small activities provide you with necessary upgrades for your ride (earning you bronze, silver or gold upgrades with positive attributes), additional XP and cash. On-the-fly challenges from this A-to-B come in a few flavours, however most commonly you’ll encounter:

• Speed – Drive as fast as you can without coming off the road or hitting anything.
• Slalom – Drive around gates
• Scramble – Hit targets
• Accuracy – Drive through ever decreasing in size gates.
• Jump – How far can you go?

AI for the other cars is certainly competent but not groundbreaking or difficult to beat. It was only on later levels in which money was getting tighter and upgrades proved more allusive that I was truly challenged. Traffic was my biggest nemesis and added a real dynamic feel to each race and never having the same experience twice. America’s law enforcement are also out in force so excessive property damage will result in instigating high speed pursuits until they could be shook. The police are quite under utilised I feel compared to other large scale racing games. You never quite get the thrill of the escape as you did with the Need for Speed games. Cops constantly try and pit you and road blocks never seem effective at stopping your escape.

Leaving the story and grind behind as a big positive I derived much enjoyment from exploring and playing with friends/acquaintances. Some of the in-game locations are very well drawn although you can’t really digitally capture the grandness of the Grand Canyon the developers have given it a good stab. The map isn’t one-to-one but it can still take you a long while to drive from East to West coast and even more to drive around all the middle. Because of this geographically the company can be commended on making the terrain unique. If you ever have been fortunate enough to visit any of the USA’s locations you’ll recognise a lot of detail are present.

Away from the world map, graphically Ivory Tower’s creation is a little bit of a let down. Technically speaking I can see why the game looks “last generation” as no doubt the team have had a lot of world to create or been concerned that physics on all objects could break the world. Glitches and physics problems are evident and most notibly these appear in multiplayer, possibly the result of some sort of de-synchronisation between players. For me these were niggles and detracted little from the overall experience.

The worlds easy on the eye appearance cannot have the same said about the The Crew’s game interface which is amazingly cluttered. Although everything can be switched off in the HUD leaving you to drive around au natural, when it comes time to tackle some challenges you’ll soon find your head spinning from visual stimuli. A classic example of this involves on an on-the-fly contest which has you trying to hit a series of transparent markers whilst racing a ghost pace car. Mix in the hovering racing line, low light , being on the wrong side of the road with traffic and you’re bound to come a cropper quickly and frustratingly!

Ah, the multiplayer. Here we delve into what Ubisoft were really trying to achieve. Although the name ‘The Crew’ refers to the single player story of finding cohorts to help you reach your objective, it more importantly was to refer to your interaction with the online populous. The big irony is that for a massively multiplayer game hardly anyone I encountered wanted to play together, team up in our own gang to take part in competitive races. Being a minority in my friends circle of people that owned the game I relied on public forums and in-game chat to find like-minded racers. I’m unsure if this is a backend matchmaking issue , low server population or folks not wishing to play together, but joining at sporadic times day and night I struggled to take advantage of these features. Features that are quite key for the end game experience. When I did managed to find some cohorts, I was able to  take part in Player vs. Player (PvP) events which (naturally) set you up to race against other players ranked to score yourself XP, money and rep in your faction or just for fun in a free-for-all.

Speaking off end game after you’ve completed the main story and dabbled with some PvP, you can indulge in Faction missions.  Faction missions are the driving force and designed to keeps you going in to the weeks, possibly months to come. Like an MMO’s ‘dailies’ these missions are scattered about the world and can be repeatedly visited to earn  some serious cash and reputation. Reputation points earnt increase your standing/rank within that faction and produce a daily reward for your allegiance.  The kicker is that these faction missions can range from taking a short (10 minutes) to epic time (over 2 hours!) to complete – however you’ll naturally be awarded handsomely for your participation. You’ll need to weigh up here which faction you want to join as doing the best in the smallest will land you more money, or joining a bigger group and playing less will get you a steady salary.

Ubisoft have done a good job of wrangling a mix of popular and, what I consider, fringe artists from a multitude of genres to provide the in-game tunes.  120 songs across seven radio stations  are featured as well as an original score by Joseph Trapanese, who is also known for his work on films such as Oblivion, The Raid films and TRON: Legacy. I get the feels that each track has been vetted scrupulously for its “Road Trip” value, but if you don’t have an eclectic taste you may find yourself skipping frequently. If you do choose to go coast to coast then you can create a custom playlist so you’ll always find something to speed you on your way.

In summery The Crew is a solid open world driving game. As a racer it’s not perfect, but it is ambitious.  No invisible barriers block your drive (unless you include the Mexico or Canada border) and no loading screens dilute the immersion. Its unique selling point for me is that it is large. Many would argue that size doesn’t matter, but boy when it is this big you have to stop and take notice. Fans of Midnight Club, Test Driver and Need for Speed should certainly check they have an up-to-date TAX disc, grab some friends and indulge in a road trip with the The Crew.

Review code supplied by publisher.

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