THE CREW 2 Review for Xbox One

If you thought your racing days were over, then I think we have something here today that might bring you back. It’s not Mario Kart at your best friend’s house, but it’s definitely something worth checking out. The Crew 2 isn’t limited to just cars; it also has disciplines in planes and speedboats. Let’s take a look.

Before you even get to start the game, you will need to be able to sign into your Ubisoft account. This was a little bit of turn off for me, but after the first sign-in I haven’t had to bother with it again. Then you can begin your story and start a career any normal person would have a hard time explaining to their parents.

From here you get to choose your avatar from a list of random people, though I would prefer to create my own character. The game starts off with your agent telling you he’s finally got the in he’s been looking for with the Xtrem racing network. You briefly get to try out each of the disciplines in a very flashy cinematic.

After being told you’re so awesome, you get to see a map of the United States. From here you get to start the trials for each of the disciplines. I personally feel like the tutorials should have been better, because they don’t necessarily tell you how to play (except for free flying). Even when you come in dead last, the main person for that discipline acts so impressed with you. It’s actually kind of funny.

As you do stunts, races, and crazy selfies you increase you follower count on a pink version of twitter. Your fanbase is kind of like your experience points, and as your fanbase increases you get invitations to more and more events and there’s a 4-part tier system. I just recently moved up in the world from rookie to popular. So I’m kind of a big deal now (36,000+ followers). You can find me on my yacht off of Miami.

My experience has been primarily single player, but ever since they made me sign into my Ubisoft account from the start, I’ve been trying to figure out how to race other players. I think maybe the developers can make this easier for folks trying to race with friends for the sake of the full The Crew 2 experience.

I am impressed with the number of car models available in the game, though! I don’t know much about boats or stunt planes, but the developers definitely did their research. I even found my jeep wrangler in the store. I wouldn’t mind rigging it with all the upgrades you can get in this game. I think I can call a lot of these cars product placement.

I personally prefer the freestyle flying. I might just put myself out there and say that freestyle flying is the best part of the game and should be a game on its own. Maybe I was a pilot in a previous life, but I just enjoy drifting in the skies and gliding close to the ground. The graphics are amazing, I can assure you of that, but I feel like boating and driving take away from the experience (which is ironic because it’s a racing game – who would care about the environments? This guy!). I took my time cruising around the Golden Gate Bridge when I finished a mission. It’s really a relaxing way to spend your time. As I did stunts in the air and messed around my fanbase grew exponentially. You can even nearly crash into pedestrians and see them react – all without penalty of the law! My point is: why have these huge environments if you can’t even explore them, right?

As the title suggests, this is a sequel, but I have no experience playing the original. That being said, I can’t say if this game is a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, but I do enjoy certain aspects of it. I think I will be daydreaming about this game at work, rigging nitro boosts to my wrangler and crushing traffic on the turnpike. Overall, I think a fair rating for this game should be an 8 out of 10. (Please make a game with just stunt planes!)

Here is The Crew 2 Launch Trailer:

The Crew 2 is available worldwide for PlayStation 4 system, Xbox One, and PC.

John Pruitt

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I like to think of myself as the average Joe who grew up alongside video games. I have fun playing strategy games, RPGs, shooters, sandboxes, the whole shebang! Every game provides an experience whether it strikes you as profound, mundane, or someplace in between. I'd like to weigh in my two cents before you spend a single penny.

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