The Crew Motorfest

Goated game

I’m utterly underwhelmed by The Crew ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I went in expecting a modern open-world racing game with complicated mechanics and stunning visuals and somehow came out feeling like I had just installed a Forza Horizon fan-made game from 2009. Ubisoft apparently spent four years making this... thing, which is impressive when you consider that the visuals look like they were designed during the development of the first MP3 player. At times, the game genuinely looks less like a modern AAA racing title and more like a mobile game that somehow escaped the App Store. And then there’s the airplane handling... I don't even know what Ubisoft was trying to accomplish here. Calling it "handling" feels generous. Flying an aircraft in Motorfest feels like trying to steer a refrigerator through a swimming pool while someone periodically changes the laws of physics. But my favorite feature is undoubtedly Cara. The game apparently believes that what every racing enthusiast desperately wants while driving is a woman constantly talking over their experience. So naturally, Ubisoft has given the solution to go into the settings and essentially perform a hostile takeover of the dialogue volume slider. Want to enjoy the game without Cara explaining the existence of cars to you every fourteen seconds? Turn. It. Off. Vehicle progression isn't much better. Unlocking cars takes long enough that I started wondering whether Ubisoft expected me to complete a four-year apprenticeship before receiving a steering wheel. And the guidance is just spectacular. The game frequently gives you so little useful information about what you're actually supposed to do that I've spent more time Alt-Tabbing into Google than looking at the beautiful Hawaiian scenery I'm apparently supposed to be enjoying. "How do I unlock this?", "Where do I go?", "Why can't I access this?" So many questions I had to google just for a single game that reminds me of GTA rip offs you find in the deepest corners of Play Store. At this point, I'm not playing The Crew Motorfest, I'm playing Google with a racing game occasionally visible in the background. The frustrating part is that there's a decent game buried underneath all of this. The concept is fine, the open world is there, and the vehicle selection is impressive. But the presentation, progression, the lack of tutorials, dialogue, and especially the airplane handling make the whole thing feel remarkably unpolished. And now, for the real problem that bothers ME, but probably has minimal effect on everyone else: Why are there SO MANY female characters and NPCs? I swear every time I turn around there's another one. I'm beginning to suspect that Ubisoft didn't make a racing festival. They made a nationwide convention for women who happen to stand next to cars. You drive three meters down the road and there's another female NPC. Enter an event? Female character giving you valueless information about the event. Finish an event? Female character. Look at the map? Probably a female character hiding behind it. At this point I'm expecting the next update to add genders to the vehicles making most of them females. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking: Sir, I came here to drive cars. Please stop introducing me to the entire cast of a television series about feminism. Again, this probably isn't a problem for most players. It's just one of those wonderfully pointless things that somehow manages to irritate me specifically, because apparently I needed yet another reason to complain about this game. I genuinely wanted to like this game. Instead, I spent half my time racing and the other half wondering who approved this. -1/10 Though I would recommend to anyone who has ever wanted to experience what Forza Horizon might look like after being left in a drawer for 17 years.