The Crew 2 Buying Livery Again

Two years later, I played The Crew ii again. I have questions.

, July 18, 2020 | Features

I didn't like The Crew two.  At all.  But that was two years ago, when it was initially released, minus all the cool stuff that comes with seasons passes, paid DLC, and gratis updates.  Presumably, Ubisoft has been difficult at piece of work on their flagship driving game.  And then let'southward encounter what Ubisoft can practice with two years of post-release support.

But first, I have some questions.

Why do I take to run something chosen Battleye to play The Crew 2?

Why am I weird beardguy?  I never would have picked this guy. I don't want to look like a Blackwater thug between gigs.  What happened?

Why did I spawn here? And why is in that location an airplane in my kitchen?

Why practise I ain this abomination?

Why am I now driving this abomination when I leave the business firm?

Why does the license plate on my car's ass never have anything but the game's proper name?  Why is there still no way to customize it?  I tin can change every little fender, exhaust piping, side view mirror, and paint hue, but I can't change the license plate from blurting the proper name of the game into my confront every fourth dimension it catches my eye?

Why is the game's logo in the lower right corner afterwards I explicitly turned off UI elements so I could merely bask an uncluttered view of my bulldoze?

Allow's look at all the skins bachelor for my cars.  Uh?

UHH?

Has anyone at Ubisoft e'er actually been to Los Angeles in the winter?

Why are emotes the main unlockable in the game'due south new progression organisation?

Since when am I expected to care about emotes?  If there'south ane thing I could care less about than the T-shirt my avatar wears, information technology's the emotes I will never use.

I was briefly excited to see a new progression system in The Crew two, based on advancement in three dissimilar categories: collecting, exploring, and racing.  It'south a solid concept, and exactly the sort of thing that drives a practiced caRPG.  Only the reward built into this new system is just emotes.  However, if you lot grind away long enough, at the very top of each advocacy track, you'll find three things that aren't emotes.  First, a new costume for your avatar.  Second, a neon underglow for your cars.  Third and ultimately, a new car.  I don't demand a new car in The Crew 2.  I have dozens of the damn things.  Non to mention planes, boats, and even a hovercraft.  Most of my vehicles are meaningless.  The Crew two makes the classic caRPG mistake of not understanding that fewer more than important cars are e'er better than more and more than meaningless cars.  This new progression system, which should drive The Crew 2, is instead an obvious reconsideration.

But in the process of giving the progression system a fair chance, of tooling around and exploring the new features, of trying over again the different vehicles and issue types, of exploring the open world, something unexpected started to happen.  I started to understand the possible entreatment of The Crew 2.  I started to think, "Hmm, I could imagine spending more time playing this."  If I wanted to choice a favorite vehicle and run it through the dissimilar events to upgrade it, like a character in an MMO, that'southward what The Crew ii is all about.  So I spent a rather silly amount of time doing dirt bike races, upgrading my dirt cycle, and and then doing harder dirt wheel races so I could further upgrade my dirt bike to do harder dirt wheel races.  If there's 1 matter Ubisoft knows how to exercise, information technology's push me gently into the friction-free slide of a fruitless gameplay loop.

Part of the draw is the "affixes" on the parts that upgrade the vehicles.  These are bonuses to gameplay elements, randomly rolled when you detect the part.  A muffler on my clay bike might give me a 4% bonus to lean command.  The handlebars might give me a 7% heave to nitrous recharge rate.  But peradventure I'd rather accept the handlebars that give me a 6% increment in loot drop quality.  Or maybe I'd rather pair the muffler and handlebars that give me a combined 12% bonus to lean control.  This is part of managing the vehicle upgrades, and it'due south as expert a system as whatever to keep me engaged in a loot chase.

Simply wait a sec.  Hold on.  Hold on merely a sec.  This feels familiar.  Why does this experience then familiar?  Where have I seen this before?  I mean besides every other game with a loot chase.  In what caRPG have I seen this before?  Why do I experience like I don't demand to deal with The Coiffure 2'due south many shortcomings to spiral around this exact same gameplay loop?

Oh, right, The Crew 1.  This is exactly the aforementioned thing I could be doing — and indeed, have often done — in the original Crew, which is still a tiptop game.  It'due south the definitive caRPG, in fact, for precisely this reason.  If you want to level upwards a favorite car, The Coiffure 1 will gladly oblige you with its boodle chase featuring parts and affixes.  What's more, because you lot have fewer cars, each car is more important.  Yous worked harder to get information technology.  It wasn't sprayed at you out of a motorcar firehose.  Upgrading a car you intendance about because it was hard to get is better than upgrading a dirt bicycle you lot picked because you were trying to be ironic.

The Crew 1 will furthermore let you lot level up this favorite car in a better looking world, richer with detail, more alive with activity, and more attainable with its wealth of things to do, run across, and notice.  Any caRPG will give you an opportunity to bulldoze your favorite car on a road trip down progression highway.  Few exercise it every bit poorly as The Coiffure two.  None do it too as The Coiffure 1.

Unfortunately, the problems that plague The Crew 2 cannot be fixed.  They are its foundation.  They were put in place when people at Ubisoft gathered in a briefing room to decide how to make a sequel to The Crew 1.  3 central design decisions from early in the pattern process doomed The Crew 2.  The starting time is the variety of vehicle types.  Someone idea it would be a good idea to add planes and boats.  Which is an odd thought, given that the appeal of planes and boats isn't as universal every bit the appeal of cars.

This design decision is even more problematic because you lot're supposed to exist able to swap between machine, plane, or gunkhole at whatever time.  The people in the boardroom who made the decisions that doomed The Crew ii wanted you to be able to instantly wing over the same street y'all're driving along.  The demands this places on a game engine are considerable.  It's not incommunicable, because Ubisoft has done this in the Far Cry games.  But information technology means decisions about the game globe are dictated by entire sections of The Crew 2 that, at best, are tangentially related.  At worst, and to my mind, they miss the point of a caRPG entirely.  Is this why The Crew 2 looks and then sterile, flat, and last-gen compared to The Coiffure 1?  Because I have to be able to wing over the aforementioned street I'thou driving along?

The second design decision that doomed The Crew 2 is the player avatar.  If this were just a head you might glimpse behind a windshield, no damage, no foul.  Like shooting fish in a barrel plenty to add equally a customizable feature.  And information technology would exist nice to accept an alternative to the Gordon Freeman await-a-like from The Crew one.  Just the people in the boardroom who doomed The Crew 2 decided the role player avatar needed to get out of the motorcar and walk around and shop and hang out with other avatars.  They decided he needed to purchase T-shirts and sunglasses and shoes.  They decided he needed to stroll through a showroom to admire the unlike cars for auction.  They decided he needed to visit a festival with booths and a DJ and a festive party temper where he can chill with other thespian avatars.  They decided he would be part of the histrion progression, which would be based on social media.  If you're going to create an economy based on "likes", they concluded, in that location must exist a 3D model of a person to be liked.  Which once more misses the signal of a caRPG.

The tertiary design decision that doomed The Crew 2 is the replay feature.  Information technology'south a great replay feature.  But like the determination to add planes, at what price?  What demands did this place on the game engine?  What limitations did information technology place on the game world?  What sacrifices had to be made to buffer all that data and put it at the player'south fingertips constantly, whether he wants it or not?  How much is it to blame for how ugly The Crew 2 looks?

Steep is an interesting point of comparison, because the replay in The Crew ii is an almost exact copy of the replay in Steep.  Simply Steep is a gorgeous game, worth admiring in a replay.  Considering stunts and therefore player animation is a big part of Steep, this means at that place'south more than to admire in a replay.  And it also gives weight to the histrion avatar.  Y'all care what you lot await like in Steep, because that'southward what you're looking at when you play.  When you lot play The Crew ii, your player avatar is the head you might glimpse through a windshield.

In fact, it seems like the bad decisions at the heart of The Crew ii are all features from Steep. Steep also lets the histrion swap instantly amidst different "vehicles", only they don't place dramatically competing demands on the game engine.  Skiing and flying a wingsuit are much closer types of traversal than driving a machine and flying a plane.  Steep focuses on a character as the actor avatar, but that's considering information technology's well-nigh people on skis and non vehicles.  Steep has a robust replay organisation, and it's a joy to use considering the game looks slap-up.  An open snowy wilderness doesn't accept to exist rendered with the same kind of detail as a city with traffic on its streets, pedestrians on its sidewalks, and a hundred unlike buildings visible from any given betoken.

My guess is that the people in the boardroom who doomed The Coiffure 2 learned too much from Steep and not enough from The Crew one.  Their bad decisions tin can't exist fixed with patches or post-release DLC or seasonal content similar The Crew 2's Beach Tiptop, which encourages you to purchase bundles of new cars, corrective upgrades, and probably fifty-fifty emotes.  But at that place's no reason to be dismayed at the state of The Crew ii, because you can play the game it should have been past just playing The Crew 1.  And you can play the game it wants to exist by just playing Steep.

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Source: https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2020/07/18/a-year-later-i-played-the-crew-2-again-i-have-questions/

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