Now it's time to review the MMO racing simulator The Crew. Quite a lot of information was revealed even before the release, and some data on upcoming additions was also announced, but it is much easier to see, play and understand once, although a review is sometimes enough to make a decision to buy the game if you were not sure at the time its release.
In 2007, the Ivory Tower studio first appeared to the world, consisting of developers from different companies. Their idea to create an online multiplayer racing game was supported by Ubisoft, which eventually resulted in such a large project as The Crew.
The plot of the game is replete with standard clichés and many hackneyed techniques, but does not concentrate on them, which does not cause discomfort. The introductory video is quite short. In it we learn that the main character's name is Alex and we see general form his car. Then the passage of the game begins.
The player receives a Ford Raptor as a starting car, which positively distinguishes The Crew from most races, where you have to start with the weakest and most difficult to drive cars. Basically, there are no bad cars in the game. It all depends on the purpose for which they are used.
From the very beginning, all progress is automatically saved on the game servers, so any error cannot be solved by rebooting, but only by trying to replay the mission.
Map of the area - all of the USA, except Alaska. Americans love their sights, so the landscapes and buildings in the game are depicted with considerable zeal and are often more beautiful than in life. For the beautiful rendering of trees, meadows, fields, lakes, mountains, etc. it's worth paying tribute to. Of course, the main emphasis is placed on the main characters of the game - the cars, and the roads, of course, are free of cracks, asphalt patches and open hatches. True, there is some on off-road and country tracks, but there it is normal.
Much emphasis is placed on the physics of accidents. The cars flip over with ease and tumble repeatedly in the air and over cougars, either accelerating centrifugality or slowing it down for a better visual effect. Of course, after this your iron horse is in the trash, and the mission will have to be replayed.
In addition, the eyes are pleased to look at the believable transmission of sunlight with all its glare and rays passing through gaps in foliage or clouds, as well as various shades sunsets cannot help but touch you. The videos that tell us the story are also well done. Although the voice acting and plot are far from excellent, you still want to watch the videos to the end.
The controls are easy to understand, where is which button, but difficult to get used to. Thus, apparently, the developers maintained a balance, since only those who have spent more hours at the controller will be able to control their sports car more masterfully.
There was an error in conveying the sensation of speed. Perhaps this was done on purpose to make it more realistic (not counting the absence of a vibrating car seat) and to make it possible to see what is happening on the side of the road, or perhaps by accident, in which case, after numerous requests from players, an addition will be released that will correct the script.
Tuning places the main emphasis on design, where you can change the shape and coloring of any part of the car, even the clown type, as well as change leather upholstery salon with dashboard. There are a lot of icons to choose from, but the most important thing is missing – the ability to draw on your own, at least within some frames and on certain parts of the car.
In the game, most of the events take place at night, so there are not enough people on the streets, but you can still scare someone with the horn or even try to knock them down, if desired, although the latter will only attract the police to you more, and this is very fraught, not to mention the fact that people are all some kind of supermen, capable of running away in any situation. So far, no one has joined a team to drive a careless pedestrian into a corner and run over in a crowd to check how well the developers have tried and where they screwed up, so nothing can be said for sure about the immortality of bipeds.
However, if the police do start chasing you, you just need to throw off your tail, which is quite simple, and then go beyond their radar, which is shown in a special window. After waiting a few minutes, all the pursuers are overcome by mass psychosis with side effect– amnesia, and they go about their business.
As in any MMO, there is an opportunity to upgrade your skills by going to your headquarters. How important and useful this is, or whether it is useless and inappropriate, only time will tell.
With all the enormity of the US map and the beauty of the landscapes, which are breathtaking at first, it is difficult not to recognize the monotony of the flashing views. It feels like there is never any wind, or the trees have stopped swaying and started holding back the gusts by force of will. Therefore, over time, you have to look at your own and other people’s cars, which are designed in much more detail and better quality, and when you get tired of it, you change the color. You can also switch to the view both from the windshield and from behind the car, as well as from inside the cabin, when the dashboard is visible.
There are very few people in the game so far, so getting a team together to play together becomes incredibly difficult. This is very significant drawback the huge size of the locations and the inability to instantly move from city to city.
Adding to the good news is that used nitro fuel is automatically restored. Apparently every machine has a built-in matter converter, for which cold nuclear fusion is a thing of the past.
Playing on Uplay is a must, even though you still have to play on your own without the support of a team of fellow car enthusiasts. In addition, the server sometimes freezes, causing the game to exit to the main menu.
Of the game modes, there is only a standard set, known to any virtual racer. This is a race on a looped track, delivery expensive car as soon as possible on long distance, so as not to scratch, pursuit (to catch up with the target and destroy it - the mode is called “elimination”), racing in a straight line, driving from one to another control point and so on.
Based on all of the above, the conclusion is that the game sooner or later brings boredom. And with all this, the developers also set a level limit for participation for many missions. For example, a mission is available, but you are not allowed to complete it because the level is not enough. Then you have to spend hours on missions similar to each other, earning racing experience points.
And all this costs 1300 rubles per regular version and 2000 for extended. Either the developers have no conscience, or they have a zombie device that will provide them with crazy sales. By the way, the game has already been hacked by pirates and it’s easy to download it on torrents.
Today we would like to present to your attention a completely new and modern presentation of the online video game in the driving simulator genre presented by Ubisoft - The Crew. Let us remind you that the game went on sale at the end of 2014 for consoles and PC. Let's get to know The Crew a little closer.
The Crew
The Crew is racing online simulator a new generation, where everyone can test their strength in legendary racing battles in the open virtual world of the USA. I would immediately like to start with the plot of the game, where every user will be able to find a familiar story. Your character finds himself in a very difficult situation and ends up behind bars, but after 5 years he is given a chance to correct his mistakes, find and punish the people who killed his loved one and thereby framed him.You have to travel hundreds of miles to get to your final goal and go through many racing battles different types: drag racing, drifting, racing cars with huge wheels, motorcycles, etc. In total, the story part of the game can be completed in approximately 20 hours, but if you are a true connoisseur of games in this genre, then the passage may take weeks, because it takes time to learn all the features and subtleties of The Crew. If we talk in general about the plot component of the game, we cannot say that this is a perfectly developed story; most likely the developers decided to take it as a basis various material and combine it all into one whole. It seems to us that this was the main mistake, because we still wanted to see something really new and interesting, not a banal story. In other words, players will be much more comfortable just riding around the huge world of The Crew, completing various missions and improving their iron monster, than trying to get to the truth and go through the plot component of the game.
It should also be noted that on this moment no Russification. That is, players who do not understand in English, some points will not be entirely clear, and you will have to get used to the game at random. Let's hope that the game will be released in Russian in the near future.
On your way there will be many different tests, for completing which you will increase your level and receive credits that you will need to buy a car, a motorcycle, various improvements and even move around the map. Moving to a specific point on the map is quite interesting solution, which allows you not to waste your precious time and, for example, fly by plane to a certain point in another city. The further the point is, the more credits you will have to spend.
The developers took a very interesting approach to improving your cars. Players are given the opportunity to almost completely customize the parameters of a particular car to suit their driving style. In the game The Crew, you can replace almost the smallest detail that will decide the outcome of the race, and this is a very good approach for which you can give the game a plus.
I liked the fact that from an ordinary Camaro you can make not only a racing ballide, but also an SUV with big wheels. In other words, the open world and an incredibly large number of possibilities allow you to create whatever your heart desires.
If you're tired of four-wheeled "monsters", then it's time to switch to two-wheeled solutions. Yes, you can replenish your garage not only with high-speed and off-road cars, but also with powerful motorcycles, for which they made a separate racing area.
The game features great amount cars and motorcycles, and in order to purchase the best ones, you will have to spend a decent amount of time to accumulate credits, but if you don’t like to wait, then you can spend rubles and buy unique sports cars.
First impressions
When you first get into the game, you can’t say that this is some kind of unique project. Yes, there is a huge open world, yes, there are many possibilities, but it seems that the developers simply took as a basis what was already created in other projects and combined it all into one whole. Still, I would like to see something new, something that could captivate any gamer from the first minutes, even those who today refused to play such games.
After playing for a certain time, this feeling begins to go away a little better side, but it still remains, which is not good. I was pleased with the abundance of vehicles presented in the game, two-wheeled solutions and the opportunity to create a huge “monster” out of an ordinary sports car that can conquer any road. But generally speaking, there are more positive aspects than negative ones. We can only hope that in the near future the developers will try to do everything to ensure that their project is at the top of the racing battles.
By the way, speaking about updates, it should be noted that recently, on November 17th current year, the game received the Wild Run update. The game has a lot of interesting things: a monthly tournament among players, new cars and classes, joint stunts, free mode challenges, a player search system (LFP) and many other updates, which you can find out in more detail on the official website of thecrew-game. ubi.com.
Game modes
- Free mode
- Cooperative play
- Single player game
In addition to all this, it should be noted that in the game The Crew there are five factions that have divided territory with each other and there is a constant struggle between them. As you progress through the game, you will be given the opportunity to make a choice and join one of these factions. In order to defend the interests of your group, you need to complete certain tasks to increase your reputation and receive certain rewards. At the end of each month, the faction that has gained the most reputation will have access to special events where players can earn unique rewards.
Upgrade
There are a huge number of modification options in the game, about 20 in total. In order to open them all, you need to complete various tasks and increase your level. The higher the player's level, the more details It will open up to you, and therefore, do not forget to complete as many missions as possible.Before you start improving your iron “monster”, you need to buy a basic car, which, in fact, you will have to start working on in the future. In The Crew you have the opportunity to create many different car options:
- Street cars
- SUVs
- Rally cars
- Supercars
- Racing cars
Skills
With a new level, the player receives one skill point, which allows him to learn a certain skill. For example, you can learn a skill that allows you to earn more in PVP mode, etc. In other words, each player must decide for himself which direction to go.Graphic component
As for the graphical component of the game, it cannot be said that it is top level, however, it’s quite well drawn. Plus, in addition to all this, it should be taken into account that the game is receiving updates that add not only new features and cars to the game, but also affect the graphics itself. There is a lack of some liveliness and realism; it seems that the developers still need to work out the graphical component of the game in more detail and carefully. Let's hope that this project will still receive wide public attention, and the developers will not stop there.Results
To summarize, The Crew is a great start to something new in this genre. Generally speaking, The Crew has received a worthy start to a new generation of online video games in the car simulator genre, but what exactly its future will be and whether it will be successful depends directly on the developers themselves. We can only wait and hope for the best.Begin review The You want Crew not with the traditional and tedious introductory paragraph, which will describe which studio worked on the game, a story about its past projects and something else like that, but with impressions. The Crew is simply a storehouse of impressions and generally resembles an encyclopedia dedicated to the USA. For example, I had absolutely no idea that near Miami there are such colorful swamps that are so nice to drive an SUV through. Later I remembered that I had seen these places, like many others, in a bunch of American travel films. Now everyone who has bought or will buy The Crew will have the opportunity to take a virtual tour of interesting places USA, you can do this quite easily and playfully. I want to pay tribute in advance to the game designers who managed to charm the player and give the racers the opportunity to visit the most colorful places in America.
Well, now it’s time to come down to earth and dismantle The Crew to its bones. You take on the role of Alex Taylor, a street racer who loves to torment cops, dragging them into yet another chase and leaving them with nothing. Alex's brother is the head of a huge group of racers called "5-10". These bandits make money from everything: smuggling, street racing, theft and much, much more. Alex is tired of racing alone, and he decides to become part of this large network, after which he immediately loses his brother, who is killed in front of our hero. After several years in prison, Zoe, an FBI agent, comes to Alex, wanting to expose her colleagues covering up participants 5-10. To do this, you need to infiltrate the gang and grow from an ordinary six to the right hand of Razor - the leader of the group. The path will be short and thorny, and Alex will have to travel the United States from East to West and from North to South.
The game is divided into five zones: Midwest, East Coast, South, Mountain States and West Coast. We will have to go through them in the order listed. Along the way, Alex will visit: Chicago, Detroit, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and a bunch of little-known cities. He will have to overcome a variety of natural landscapes: swamps, deserts, plains, forests, and finally salt marshes. Throughout the entire game, my eye never got tired, because it didn’t have to look at the same picture all the time. During your travels, America will surprise you and present you with new beauties. And this became the most memorable part of the game for me.
Throughout the journey you will be accompanied by an interesting story. In principle, it could already be seen in several parts of Need for Speed and in the films of the Fast and the Furious series, but for some reason such a light narrative fits perfectly here. In addition, it is the plot that will give incentive to study the United States of America and make you drag from point “A” to point “B”. There are few types of tasks: win a race, catch up and crash an opponent’s car, meet the allotted time, deliver the car with the least damage, evade the police. There are also quite unusual tasks like: defeat your opponents in supercars while driving an SUV. I will explain the delicacy of the situation: the first ones reach speeds of up to 400 kilometers per hour, and your car, at best, up to 230. To win such races, you will have to cut corners in every possible way, go into the wilds, that is, to places where a supercar would never go in its life. . At the end of the game, however, it becomes somewhat sad that during this entire 12-hour dashing action game there was not a single shootout.
Story events are not the only thing the game has to offer. The Crew will have to start on a weak street car, which, of course, needs to be prepared for new battles through many improvements. But here's an interesting thing - parts that increase the power of your car cannot be bought in a store. They must be earned by participating in challenges scattered throughout the map. What’s nice is that improving a car in this way is suddenly unobtrusive. I received new details simply by driving around the map and admiring its beauty. Having seen the test, I began it. Realizing that I could complete it better, I pressed the restart button, realizing that the task was beyond my capabilities, I simply drove on. No one will force you to improve your car on purpose. Just keep in mind that the lower the level of your car, the more difficult the next mission will be for you. More difficult, but more passable.
The Crew has this weird thing called "Car Level". It consists of the level of the pilot, that is, Alex, various skills, and most importantly, the details. About ten categories of spare parts affect the performance of the car, and all of them are obtained either in tests or in story missions. The simplest spare part is bronze - it gives only a small increase in performance. Silver and gold give an even greater upgrade, as well as a random bonus increase to some other characteristic of the car. Therefore, sometimes it turns out that a silver part of level 12 gives a greater increase than a bronze part of level fifteen. There are also platinum parts, but access to them will open only after Alex reaches level 50. A platinum spare part gives an even greater increase and a cooler bonus.
As the pilot gains a level, he will receive skill points, which can be spent at headquarters to reduce the cost of various spare parts, increase nitro power, increase experience gained, and much more. At any time, the accumulated skill points can be reset and redistributed. For this, however, you will have to pay a small amount of in-game currency. I write in-game, since there are also funds purchased for real money. These are the so-called “Team Points”. After joining the group (I will return to this later), Alex will receive 100,000 team points. I recommend spending them wisely, since you will not receive any more team points - they can only be purchased for rubles. Therefore, I recommend saving this amount for buying a cool car or buying skill points (the latter can only be done with team points).
In the world of The Crew, power is in the hands of five factions. With the acquisition of levels, you will be able to join one of them and receive a supply of team points. After this, you will have access to group assignments. Basically, they are very exhausting and will take you from 20 minutes to 210 minutes to complete. And this is in a continuous session. The tasks will not pose a particular challenge, but will require maximum concentration and high costs time. For completion, you will receive not only money, but also a chance for further bonuses if at the end of the month your group is the strongest in the area.
If The Crew simply has a huge choice of where to go and what to see, then with cars the situation is somewhat sadder. There are about 30 cars, which is somehow not enough for a racing game. However, there is a point that many vehicles can be changed beyond recognition. The Crew has the ability to transform an ordinary sports car into a street racing car, an off-road car, a rally car, a real supercar, and even a racing car. And all this from one car! For example, my Nissan 370Z, which I drove through the entire game, looks simply unrecognizable in the “Rally” and “Racing” modifications! If you put them side by side, you won’t immediately be able to tell that they are based on the same car.
And now a little more detail. A street car is a car for the streets, which directly follows from the name. Easy to drift, excellent handling, don't mind crashing. At level 10 it will be possible to turn a car into an “SUV”. This is a fast car that easily overcomes off-road conditions and even manages to reach good speed there. “Sports car” is a kind of second-level street car. High speed, less maneuverability, likes to go into terrible drifts. Level 30 will give you the ability to modify the “Rally”. This is a real demon in the flesh, which simply does not need roads. It will go where it is simply impossible. And finally, the “Racing” modification. Huge speed, which is gained in a matter of seconds, but is killed by the weak ability to take turns. Let's remember the brake button and go into battle!
Until now I haven’t said anything about physics or controls. I'll start with the last one. The controls in the game are specific and quite simple. You instantly get used to it and master it, and soon you even begin to criticize it for its simplicity. Only a sports car and a racing car will have to be truly curbed. The latter has the most specific controls, by adopting which you can firmly establish yourself in the first place of the winning podium. As for the SUV and the rally, these cars are the same in mastering, except that the rally mod maintains a stable 200 kilometers/hour on any off-road.
But something strange is happening with the physics in the game. You can crash into a wall and immediately see the camera savoring your accident. You can drive into a car at full speed... lose speed and drive on as if nothing had happened. The strangest thing happens when traveling in the forests. You can crash into 10 trees and bounce away from them, but you can crash completely if you get to know the 11th one. In addition, every jump you make on a bump always leads to unexpected results. You can drive straight, turn around on the spot, or flip onto your roof.
What else I would like to criticize The Crew for is their level system. The maximum level of 50 is taken very quickly, this can be done already halfway through the campaign. The point here is that you get experience for literally everything: you completed a mission - experience, completed a test - experience, overtook a car, even just one, but - experience. After that, it’s kind of sad to see that your level bar no longer grows. Somehow I got used to the fact that after beating the game and doing a little grind along the way, you are far from the last level and have something to strive for.
The highlight of the game will definitely be the ability to complete missions in the company of friends, who instantly turn into your partners. This makes it much more fun to complete missions to destroy cars and avoid being chased. In the latter case, only the head of the gang escapes from the police, and everyone else must ride alongside and drive away the cops. In regular races, the goal is still for at least one member of the group to finish first. In this case, the mission is considered completed for everyone. The only strange thing is that both you and your friends will play as Alex Taylor, the story campaign is also designed for a lone wolf. Who all these racers are, why they are clones of the main character and help is a mystery.
The saddest thing comes when you decide to go to PvP races. More Alex Taylors await you here. I want to emphasize: there is no character customization in The Crew, even in online battles. The only thing that has to stand out is the car, since there are so many options to customize it. Choose a color, a vinyl sticker, choose a cool hood cover, choose a bumper, side mirrors, interior color and install a more fashionable spoiler. What you can love about The Crew is precisely the possibility of good old-fashioned car customization, which racing fans are already desperately hungry for.
But let's get back to PvP. Lobbies will open with game progress in different parts of the map. There are two racing options - every man for himself and a team of four people for a team of four people. And then the trouble begins... To enter the lobby you need to wait about three minutes. The rooms are constantly empty, and in team competitions, trying to find an opponent always ends in disaster. Opponent cars constantly jump from one place to another during the race. If someone in the session experiences problems with the connection, the game is paused. The race is paused at the most unexpected moment! And it’s also filmed unexpectedly, so all the racers scatter in all directions. With all this, PvP is the best place to make money (and waste your nerves). By the way, during a normal journey around the map you can also meet random live players. Apparently this is why The Crew requires a constant (!) Internet connection. That is, no Internet, no game! But there’s no point in moving around with other racers. It is impossible to challenge them instantly. And in general, it is impossible to interact otherwise than to drive into an oncoming car. And this, I want to note, is very annoying when you complete the next test, go for gold, and such a “buddy” flies at you.
The Crew has a pretty nice picture, but it doesn’t smell like a new generation of graphics. The game designers did their best, and the natural landscapes here look very beautiful, but not high-tech. But the urban jungle is inferior in detail, probably to the same GTA 5 in the version for the PlayStation 3. The musical component is presented in the form of three dozen compositions, settled on several radio stations. Available in rock, indie, electronic and... classical music. The latter is a real savagery for me, since I simply can’t imagine how you can have fun racing with this.
If someone decides to take platinum in The Crew, then they will have to spend a lot of time on it. The game will have to be played through twice. The second time you will need to achieve a platinum result in all story missions. It is also necessary to hack all satellite stations. Unlike the Assassins Creed series, here it is not some kind of tedious activity, but quite useful. Thanks to this, you can quickly learn about the location of parts for the secret car (for which you can recreate a trophy) and various tests that will help improve the car. Well, I also can’t help but mention the trophy, to win which you need to complete a race lasting three and a half hours in the company of one or more people. By the way, the game has the following trophy: “Spend 24 hours in a team.” In fact, it is not difficult, although it is time-consuming, the problem here is different. The Crew somehow carelessly keeps statistics and shows, for example, that I played it for 0 hours and 0 minutes. The statistics are reset to zero with each restart of the game, which makes it very, very difficult for trophy hunters to obtain a number of trophies. We can only hope that this will finally be fixed in the coming patches.
The review was written based on the disc version of the game for PS4, provided to our editors by the developers.
Company Ubisoft at the end of the year it fired a salvo from all guns at once. Several games were released: , and . Standing apart from this list is a new IP in the racing genre - which was presented with fanfare at E3 2013, then postponed, and now, finally, appearing on store shelves.
The game was developed Ubisoft Reflections and company Ivory Tower. The latter arose in 2007 and consisted of immigrants Eden Games, which are known to fans of duology racing and PS1- versions Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed.
At the core The Crew lies the story of a former street racer who is incredibly similar to Gordon Freeman (except that the glasses have changed a little, and the hairstyle and beard have become more fashionable). His brother, who, by the way, does not look like him at all, is killed in the prologue of the game, framing the protagonist. The accusation and several years behind bars - all this remains behind the scenes, since it turns out to be background history.
The action begins to actively develop around the group “ 510 ” - street racers who don’t put their words under the hood. These people are ready to threaten, kill and smash cars if this is necessary for the prosperity of the gang. A car crime group has gained control of all major US cities. It is clear that this situation does not suit the country’s authorities, so a sexy secret service agent approaches the main character, offering to become their undercover person. Wanting to avenge his brother's death and years in prison, main character agrees and now his goal is to become the head of the gang “ 510 ”, defeating all the leaders, and at the same time feel like a detective on wheels, having found a connection with the “rats” from the agency who have been covering the group all this time.
To say that the plot is banal is to say nothing. We saw similar “moves” in “ Fast and Furious” and in single player campaigns Need For Speed(same ). But since the time E3 2013, everyone's attention was riveted by one idea - the location of the action. All of America on a huge map without downloads, big cities with recognizable streets and monuments. Realists said that Ubisoft It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to do everything very reliably; they’ve set the bar too high for themselves. What happened in the end? Let's figure it out.
The first city, Detroit, is almost extinct in reality, but in the game it appears to us, one might say, as polished as it was during the heyday of auto production. Having completed several not very diverse tasks, gaining the trust of the leader of the local “ 510 ” and once we got into the group, we moved to St. Louis. At this moment you understand that there can be no question of authenticity. The distance between St. Louis and Detroit is almost 750 kilometers, and in the game there are only 20. The path from New York to Los Angeles 4000 kilometers away, but in The Crew limited to 120 kilometers of winding roads and changing landscapes. Just for fun, we drove the last route, spending about 40 minutes of game time on it. It would seem not bad for games, and the local world can be called truly huge, but the scale of 1:30 is hardly comparable to the big words from the announcement of the game about the map of all of America. Moreover, the chosen proportion not only reduces the distances between points, but also the cities themselves. IN New York, for example, only a couple of blocks separate Central Park from Times Square, instead of 10-15 “blocks”. The scale can still be accepted, but it is impossible to accept the many shortcomings.
For example, every car, of which there are about sixty in the game, has a view from the cockpit, which is very commendable, but the mirrors “don’t work”, they are dead. And we're talking about a racing game in 2014 on next-gen consoles! The cabin is a separate issue. It would seem, how can you screw up the gear shift? Just! The animation starts a moment after you hear the sound of the gearbox going up or down. As a result, it looks like the player is tapping the steering wheel. At the same time, the gearshift shift paddles remain motionless. The on-board computer also does not work in the cabin, which can be classified as an unpleasant detail.
