Welcome to The Crew 2! Here, there is no longer any question of repeating the mistakes of the past, by using, for example, a convoluted revenge story between a nice driver and a bad road gangster. To avoid what had been one of the big problems of the first opus, Ivory tower therefore cunning! In The Crew 2, there is simply no more storytelling. We can barely discern a slight narrative framework, but concretely, the developers have preferred to bet on a very RPG universe where the player embodies a newcomer to the world of piloting, and whose objective is to rise among the best. country pilots. To achieve his goals, our hero (the character that the player actually embodies) will have to hone his skills in four different categories and collect as many followers as possible in order to be seen well by the LIVE company. The latter is a company that markets special cameras for extreme sports (hello GoPro), and that organizes all the events in which we will therefore participate, knowing that the pinnacle is represented by a series of six multi-media races where we should shine. In short, to the toilet the scenario, now just go for it to enjoy, especially since the entire progression system of this sequel seems to have been designed with this objective in mind. Concretely, each action will allow us to gain followers, whether it is to participate in a race (which is very profitable) or simply to clown around in the open-world which serves as our playground. You understood, Ivory Tower brings out its concept of automotive RPG, and the followers are nothing more than the experience that we recover. Of course, the more XP you earn, the more you can access the most complicated races in the game, but also the most profitable.
KEEP ROLLIN' ?
Before declaring victory, you will also have to triumph in the four riding styles offered. Because yes, now, not content to put us behind a steering wheel or a handlebar, The Crew 2 will place the player at the helm of a boat, or even behind the handle of an airplane. The first style is called "Pro Racing" and will put us face to face with a guru who swears by pure racing, whether on the circuit at the wheel of powerful cars, on the water at the helm of cigarette-style Powerboats , or in the air with a super-powerful airplane stick to take part in ersatz Red Bull Air Races. On the side of "Street Racing" we only like cars, and so we will be asked to race through cities in tuned sports cars, drift on ports, or drag on the Las Vegas Strip . There's not really anything to get shivers since all these modes are directly taken from what we saw in Need For Speed, like drifting where you multiply the combos, or drag where you have to shift gears when a gauge is in the green (QTEs in fact). Among "Offroad" enthusiasts, we are a little more open because they offer cross-country (sprint races across fields at the wheel of big off-road vehicles), rallycross, and even motocross with pretty bumpy terrain. Finally, the last chapel is that of "freestyle" enthusiasts where you will have to play crazy in a monster truck, perform many acrobatics on the handle of an aerobatic plane, and finally take part in hyper-nervous jetboat races. With a plethora of activities available, let me tell you that the garage will be well stocked, to the delight of fans. Indeed, where the first opus relied on micro-transactions, which drastically limited the number of unlockable vehicles in play, The Crew 2 literally drowns us under the beautiful fuselages, the beautiful bodies and the pretty hulls. Honestly, we appreciate this wide choice as much as the fact of no longer having to do an off-road race at the wheel of a Nissan GTR R-34 oddly prepared for the Dakar.
BORN IN THE U.S.A.
Big highlight of the previous episode, the open-world is still as vast. It must be said that the developers have recreated all of the United States, even if the scale is devilishly reduced. What was the strength of The Crew always makes The Crew 2 shine, and to give you an idea of the size, know that it took nearly 45 minutes to connect New York to San Francisco by sinking at more than 320Km/ am driving a Ferrari on the highways. Of course, the game doesn't really allow for sightseeing, and only specific points of interest in each state have been modeled. We thus recognize the salt lake of Bonneville, the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan in New York, or the Space Needle in Seattle. Do not expect to be able to make a visit by proxy, and for example, Venice Beach is much more glaring truth in GTA V than in the game of Ivory Tower. Moreover, if the previous opus offered a lot of real circuits (like Laguna Seca), these have all disappeared in The Crew 2, replaced by fictitious tracks which will host most of the Pro-Racing events. The USA is also even larger since we can now enjoy all the rivers thanks to the arrival of boats, while the airspace will be used by planes. To accentuate the impression of space, the Lyon developers have even "replaced" the traditional map with a zoom-out system directly inspired by that used in the winter sports game Steep. We will indeed be able to move away from the position occupied by the player, until we can see the entirety of the USA. Unfortunately, it will still not be possible to teleport where you want, fast-travel only working for trials and challenges. If this is not really a problem in cities like Los Angeles which offer a high density of races, certain areas such as the far north are much less well off in events, and then require spending a little time behind the wheel. Whatever, the interest of this superb playground also lies in the exploration, many ancillary activities being hidden there (including specific photos to be taken via a tool as complete as in Gran Turismo Sport.) everywhere.
Even on difficult, the AI remains catastrophic, with aberrant behavior and performance that depends only on you. Basically, the opponents will drive like grandmas if they put you more than 3s ahead, while once too late they can make incredible comebacks, as if their car had gained 300hp and 2 tons of fuel. aerodynamic support.
Unfortunately, even removing all driver aids, and taking into account the arcade orientation of the game, we have to admit that the physics of the vehicles is rather bizarre. Everything is extremely permissive, and whatever the car chosen, we will always be confronted with understeer (except with drift cars), which makes driving uninteresting. Indeed, as soon as the front tires smoke, it is enough to release the accelerator to take almost all the turns fully. This failing physics is particularly visible in street racing where sports cars perform many city jumps. The defect is thus less noticeable during races on land where the grip seems better managed, while the motorcycles are picking up on almost all surfaces. As far as the boats are concerned, there isn't really any subtlety apart from tilting the stick back to gain speed, or pushing it forward to turn shorter, which limits their interest. On the air side, we end up with a maneuverability that will bring back memories to all players who have flown in GTA 5, the controls being strictly identical. Anyway, as far as driving sensations are concerned, the Ubisoft license clearly does not come close to the Forza Horizon from Playground Games. If the gameplay wants to be very accessible, it is ultimately too much, and we almost never start a race again, which is detrimental to the player's involvement in the game. The Crew 2 is an Easy to Learn game, Easy to Master in a way, which should put off players looking for a challenge.
MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY
Moreover, even in difficult, the AI remains catastrophic, with aberrant behavior and performance that depends only on you. Concretely, the opponents will drive like grandmothers if they put you more than 3s ahead, while once too late they will be able to perform incredible lifts, as if their car had gained 300hp and 2 tons of downforce aerodynamic. We have thus seen AI take corners at full speed on trajectories that we could not hold despite a fully boosted car. Indeed, Ivory Tower has put its loot system back on the menu, and the performance of your car will depend more on the parts you have obtained and mounted, than on the intrinsic qualities of the car. Let me explain: a standard Ferrari can be dropped off by an Audi TT if the latter is loaded with high-performance parts. At each race, we will obtain these famous mechanical parts which apply to one or the other of the categories of vehicles, and which make it possible to boost their performance according to the score of the part, its rarity and the affixes of which it has. The system is not really very interesting insofar as the affixes do not offer significant advantages, to the point that one generally prefers to opt for the parts with the best score.
THE ROAD IS LONG
Pure speed will therefore be your ally, and above all it will prevent you from noticing how empty the USA is (little traffic, life) and really unattractive technically. It is that if the graphic quality of the title has increased overall, certain points are more successful than others. Thus, each vehicle is modeled with the greatest care, whether it is textures or technical specificities, interior or exterior. The specialists will also be able to enjoy the cockpit views which are all strictly identical to reality, whether you are in an airplane cockpit, at the wheel of a Ferrari or in the seat of a DTM car (Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft). Unfortunately, as soon as we focus on the sets, the result is much more disappointing. Indeed, the massive size of the open-world must have required some serious concessions, and some details are painful to see. Even on PC and in ultra, the texture of the asphalt is more reminiscent of a coat of paint than macadam, while a violent clipping is obvious when flying at a certain altitude by plane. Indeed, as soon as you exceed a hundred meters in altitude, the road traffic suddenly disappears, as well as most of the shadows, while the vegetation also clips when you continue to climb. Worse, certain weather effects (therefore the impact on driving remains incredibly limited) such as snow cause artefacts to appear in the image. It's a shame, especially since other points are rather successful, such as the lighting, which has beautiful effects, while some night races are downright pretty. Conversely, many animations are absent, which means that each accident will be masked by a loading screen, while the transition on the fly from car to boat or plane (only outside the events) will also be done there without transition.
In short, the technique of The Crew 2 will play roller coaster with your retinas, and that's a shame. Finally, as in the first opus, online features are still mandatory without anyone really knowing why. Indeed, the game forces us to play on a server that remains empty of players 90% of the time, while the absence of PvP prevents us from taking advantage of the lack of human presence. The multi therefore comes down to forming a Crew, whose interest is to be able to allow all its members to benefit from the maximum reward provided that one of the players wins the race. With The Crew 2, you're a winner, even if you came in last, as long as one of your friends knows how to play. All that to say that we would have really appreciated an offline mode, nothing really justifies the online game, if not the pleasure of being sent back to the home screen during maintenance periods. In reality, we suspect that this is a trick to avoid piracy, and thus avoid having to invest in expensive DRM systems. Indeed, with a permanent online on dedicated servers managed by Ubisoft, it necessarily becomes more complicated to hack The Crew 2. Finally, with regard to the lifespan, know that we completed all the races in a little less 20 hours of play, which means that despite its size, the game is not really loaded with content.
