Gamers got their first look at Ubisoft’s upcoming RPG/racer, or CarPG as they like to put it, ‘The Crew’ back at E3 in 2013. This year they got much more than just a trailer as they were able to play ‘The Crew’ on the show floor. After ripping our way through the bayou, and winning our race no less, we’re here to give you the inside scoop on how ‘The Crew’ is shaping up.
If you haven’t been keeping up ‘The Crew’ is an open and persistent world racer where racers will be able to team up with their friends into crews and complete missions in order to infiltrate a criminal organization. The multiplayer works so fluidly and smoothly too, so much easier than the attempt that was made in Need for Speed Rivals. In fact I wouldn’t doubt if the team at EA will be playing close attention as they skip over this year’s entry into the franchise to focus on bringing a better game to the table. You can play by yourself of course but why would you want to when it works this well?
The game is set in the USA and the entire country has been put together for you to play in. In fact, it can take up to 2 hours just to cross from one side of the map to the other. If you add in the north and south crossing as well it isn’t hard to figure out that the world is MASSIVE. From Seattle to Miami back to Los Angeles to New York City… it’s all there for you to drive. Everything in game is available to play as a multiplayer mission with no load screens. As you complete missions you’ll be introduced to different vehicle specs and open different areas. All said and done there are over 1000 activities to complete in the game should you choose.
Living up to the term ‘CarPG’ racers can unlock parts for their rides by completing missions as well as accomplishing skill tests (top speed, precision, scramble to name a few) while they race. On top of that players will earn cash and XP too so there are a lot of options for opening up extras. All vehicles are like a 20 piece puzzle that can be put together with 11 mechanical parts and 9 cosmetic parts to upgrade and switch. That is a ridiculous amount of customization and when you see it in action from your garage it looks awesome. You’ll watch your car dismantle itself as you change up parts and put itself back together. I found it far too amusing as my ‘crew’ had to wait for me to finish up my nerding out before we could jump into our races.
At your fingertips you’ll have 5 different specifications of vehicle to upgrade too. Capable of crossing every type of terrain imaginable you’ll have to pick and choose your specs according to the race you’re about to run. First off is the Street Spec which is a lightly modified street racer good for barreling down tight alleys, precise handling, 90 degree power slides and more. Next up is the Dirt Spec which fulfills the rally style requirement as it takes on gravel and mountainous areas. Performance Spec is where all the flash is with its blinged out rides and high end top speeds… at the sacrifice of handling of course. Moving on we have the Raid Spec which you could call a mini monster truck capable of driving almost anywhere and a real beast on the road. Finally we have the Circuit Spec which is a fully race tuned vehicle best suited to tracks rather than the open road.
For our hands on we were able to try out two different game modes. In the first mode, it was myself and two team mates attempting to take down another vehicle. It was fully open world as we chased the bastard up sand dunes into farmer’s fields then out to the beach and back into the forest. The vehicle handled well and was easy to control. We had to work as a team to try and corral our foe into each other but it was much harder than I thought it would be. In the end we’d only made contact a few times and our competition lived to drive another day.
The second mode was a solid indicator of how much fun this game is going to be. It was a 3 vs 3 checkpoint race through the bayous of Southern Florida in Dirt Spec style rally cars. The game is properly weighted in that even if one of your crew finishes in first place you still may not win the race overall. In our particular race I finished in first with my team mates finishing in 4th and 5th. Luckily my lead was large enough that we finished first overall and won the coveted t-shirts. Let’s just pause a minute and bask in my glory shall we? All jokes aside the race itself was fantastic with full open access to anywhere in the environment. I found myself cutting through forested areas in between trees just to get the inside corner of a checkpoint or nailing an opponent over the side of a bridge to get the advantage.
Of course all of this is in glorious 1080p on both consoles but at 30fps. That being said I didn’t notice any hiccups during my time in game. The environments are stunning no doubt but the real prize here is the vehicles; details, details, details! I’m unsure of what the final car count is going to be but I have no doubt they’re going to look fantastic.
This little taste of ‘The Crew’ managed to do exactly what it was supposed to and that’s have me excited for Nov. 11th when it hits retail. Arcade race fans that have a small amount of love for the RPG genre and the MMO genre are going to have their hands full. Keep it locked here on COG for more information as the release gets closer as well as a review when the game drops.
