The Crew 2 Reviews

Rising star
The Crew 2 doesn't actually contain a story. You are the new driver in the world and it's up to you to become the best in all disciplines that The Crew 2 has to offer. You become famous by collecting followers and if you have enough followers your character will rise in rank. The different ranks are: Rookie, Popular, Famous, Star and Icon. Here the Icon rank is the highest, which then works like the progression system that is commonly used in MMOs. Even if the maximum level has been reached, you can continue almost indefinitely with a new level system.

To get all those followers, you will have to race. There are four different disciplines consisting of street, offroad, freestyle and pro racing. Each discipline consists of three or four classes and each class has its own vehicle. All vehicles are present: cars, motorcycles, boats, planes, monster trucks and so on. The different classes also have their own events and by winning these you get more followers. Followers can also be gained by doing certain peripheral things, such as taking pictures of specific objects or animals, or performing minor feats. For example, by driving past a certain point at high speed or doing a slalom assignment. Each discipline has its own final boss, which you can challenge after enough events won. If you win this challenge, a cool vehicle is waiting for you.

On land, at sea and in the air
The game world of The Crew 2 therefore includes all of America with the most important cities such as New York and Las Vegas. A drive from east to west takes about forty minutes by car. So the world is quite big, but I was not inclined to go from event to event with a vehicle. Especially because for me it seemed to lack the real necessity. Picking an event and going there automatically was just easier.

However, occasionally fooling around in the large game world is certainly fun to do and The Crew 2 has the perfect solution for this. There is an option to change vehicles at any time. This is really fantastic and works flawlessly. Imagine flying over water and thinking: "I'm going to continue sailing!" With the push of a button, your plane changes into a boat and you immediately continue sailing. It is therefore a pity that Ivory Tower has not done more with this. There are the so-called LIVE events, with races where vehicles are changed during the race, but there are only five of them! A missed opportunity.

Transportation devices
Each class has its own type of vehicle. This means that as soon as you want to play a new class you have to buy a new vehicle. This brings us to a sore point of The Crew 2. I get that you can't race a Grand Prix on the road with a boat. But there is also no option to turn a drift car into a street car, for example. When purchasing the car, the class of the car is fixed and you are therefore forced to purchase several cars. The vehicles can be purchased with the in-game currency and are quite expensive. You get the money to buy these vehicles by winning events, although there is also another currency that can be bought with real money. I know that in-game purchases are an indispensable part of today's games, but I still don't like being confronted with them all the time. Whenever you search for new vehicles in the catalog, the price will also be displayed in the currency purchased with real money. This lowers the threshold to pay for that one cool car, for which you would otherwise have to drive the same events for a few hours.

The Crew 2 also includes a loot system. After an event won, you receive this loot, which can be common, uncommon, rare or epic. The loot consists of several upgraded parts for the vehicle you used for the event. Of course, to get the best out of your vehicle, you also need the best parts. For this you will have to do the same event very often, because each class only contains a maximum of ten events. However, there is a higher difficulty level that can offer some extra challenge. Fortunately, the loot can only be obtained by winning events and cannot be purchased with real money.

In a racing game it is of course mainly about the racing itself. That's fine with The Crew 2. The control of the cars feels good and is a big improvement compared to the first part. It remains a real arcade racer, so don't expect the most complicated systems to set up. No fuel to keep an eye on, tires to think about or chance of broken parts. I find the controls of the boats very simple. Pressing the accelerator pedal and not letting go plus a little steering often yields the profit. Perhaps the developer could have done a little more with this.

High and low flyer
Graphically, The Crew 2 is a bit hit and miss. The vehicles all look fantastic. The same applies to the effects of mud or snow on the vehicles. The views in the world are also beautiful. But due to that gigantic game world, there are unfortunately also some misses. For example, The Crew 2 suffers quite a lot from pop-in from different trees / houses. It is also sometimes not entirely clear what you can or cannot break. For example, one bush can be broken, but the other is made of concrete. The same applies to the lampposts and certain fences. This makes it sometimes difficult to estimate whether you can cut off the road somewhere.

Unfortunately, the characters don't look very good either. If someone told me they were taken straight out of the PlayStation 3 era, I would have believed them. This contrast is especially visible in the cutscenes that are used for a new racing class. Here the characters stand next to the beautiful vehicles, which is not actually a face. Well, you better skip those cutscenes anyway. The voice acting used is of such a cringeworthy quality that it is better not to talk about it. They may all be small side issues, but in the end they have influenced my gaming pleasure somewhat.

Conclusion
I generally had a great time with the large playground and all the vehicles that The Crew 2 has to offer. Being able to change vehicles at any time is also fantastic, although unfortunately Ivory Tower has done too little with that. However, the graphical mistakes and the combination of the loot system and being able to buy cars with real money weigh quite heavily for me and provide the necessary negatives. But can you overlook this and are you looking for a fun open world arcade racer? Then The Crew 2 might be something for you.

3.5