There’s no lobby system either, meaning you can’t race against strangers on your own. You’ll see other players in the world as you drive around, but they can’t be challenged to a race, unless you go to the trouble of inviting them to your crew first. But this, amazingly, is the extent of multiplayer in The Crew 2 at the moment. If you’re in a crew you can enter these events with friends and race against them. The Crew would benefit from having no story and focusing entirely on the driving But upgrading doesn’t appear to give you any edge over the AI, who always seem to adjust to your current specs, rendering the whole activity futile. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ‘rare exhaust’ I found that gave me an utterly meaningless 0.07% boost to my follower gain.
#Crew 2 upgrade#
There’s also a hilariously jarring loot system that lets you upgrade your car with new parts. It’s some of the most obscene rubber-banding I’ve encountered in a racing game outside of Mario Kart. You can drive perfectly for two laps, only to make one minor mistake and see the rest of the pack immediately rush past you. I do like the off-road races and how they let you choose your own path to each checkpoint, but otherwise this is stuff I’ve seen and done in a dozen other open world driving games. This is the game at its most basic, with all manner of checkpoint races to take part in, as well as distractions such as drag races, aerial acrobatics, and motocross competitions. But if you want credits to buy new cars, you’re gonna have to take part in some events. Going on cross-country road trips with friends is easily the most fun I’ve had in The Crew 2. This is where the size of the map earns its keep, giving you miles of road to tear up and a powerful feeling of travelling across a great distance. But when you hit those long desert roads, which seem to go on forever, it’s hard not to feel a rush of excitement. The cars all feel vaguely the same, and the physics are cartoonishly bouncy, like your chassis is made of hard rubber. The arcadey handling is smooth and responsive, but has none of the wonderful, weighted nuance of the Forza Horizon games. The Crew 2 is not a great driving game, but the cars are far superior to every other mode of transport. It’s immensely fun being able to switch your mode of transport on a whim
![crew 2 crew 2](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/9kWSvUtVLervaVCTdBqTmc.jpg)
It’s a shallow thrill, however, and I found myself spending as much time in cars as possible. But they do have their moments, such as navigating a plane through the snaking rocky corridors of the Grand Canyon or back-flipping a Harley Davidson off the top of Mount Rushmore.
![crew 2 crew 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/aplus-media/vc/a10551ad-955c-4fe5-a2a2-0a75da4e3efe._CR0,0,970,300_PT0_SX970__.jpg)
None of the vehicle types (well, except for the motocross bikes) are terrible-they’re just deeply underwhelming. And the boats are unremarkable, failing to create a convincing sensation of moving through water. Flying in planes feels sluggish and laboured, with a feeble sense of speed. The motorcycles, particularly the motocross bikes, are frustratingly stiff to control, with completely rote physics. It’s immensely fun being able to switch your mode of transport on a whim, but the enjoyment is tainted by the fact that, cars aside, the vehicles just aren’t much fun to drive in The Crew 2.
![crew 2 crew 2](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/889890/capsule_616x353.jpg)
You can be screaming along the highway in a supercar, before transforming into a plane and taking to the air, then changing into a speedboat as you fly across a river, landing safely in the water.
![crew 2 crew 2](https://staticctf.akamaized.net/J3yJr34U2pZ2Ieem48Dwy9uqj5PNUQTn/1P8hpfJdZL4ZOPmsJF9Y5G/1a1792acf23b91a240187b2a8e536f3e/crew2-buy_v2-ncsa-details-gold_digital-1920x1080.jpg)
It’s on the road, away from all this embarrassing “How do you do, fellow kids?” noise, where The Crew 2 is at its best-particularly in the way it lets you seamlessly transition between land, sea, and air vehicles on the fly. The dialogue is astonishingly bad, and the whole thing comes off like a desperate attempt to piggyback on contemporary culture without really understanding it. As you play, a cast of obnoxious, horribly written characters are forever buzzing in your ear about how rad you are, how many followers you have, and how many more you could get if you take part in this awesome event, dude. But the game gets impatient when you do this, insisting you focus on earning followers for some non-specific social media network instead: the primary metric of your success in The Crew 2.įollowers are earned by winning races, performing stunts, driving dangerously, and dozens of other activities that send the counter ticking up. There’s fun to be had in just aimlessly driving from state to state, watching the scenery change around you, visiting famous landmarks (of which there are, curiously, fewer than the first game). It’s a vast and varied setting, and it’s undoubtedly the best thing about it. To give you an idea of its size, it took me 46 minutes to drive non-stop from Los Angeles to New York City in a Ferrari 458. The Crew 2 is an open world racer set in a massive, condensed approximation of the continental United States.