You can replay the story missions at will. It is not as if you play them once and only once. And you can replay the cutscenes as well in your HQ. See how tough that Latina chick is! Again!
The review, as well written as it is, is extremely biased. In many cases you straight up say what “you” want. However, the Crew 2 wasn’t striving to be exactly what Tom wanted as he sat at his desk waiting to write a review on their game. They made what they thought people wanted. As wrong as they were, they still tried to appeal to a greater audiences than the small pool of people who played their original game. With this, there were many misconceptions and one-sided opinions in your review, so I would like to show my–and other’s-- side of it.
You said you get less rewards for photographs when rewards count on what event you are doing. In fact, photos usually give you the same amount of followers (2,000) than races, with exceptions being races like the one from New York to Seattle. You also said it annoyed you that instead of letting players explore, they would be able to fast travel anywhere. This is an example of something that could appeal to everyone. If someone wanted to go an explore the world, they could. While someone who was only playing the game to do events could fast travel however they wanted. You also asked in your review, rhetorically, why Ubisoft would think you wanted to ride in planes and boats. This is where I have to come in with my own opinion. Outside of the Live Events, I haven’t done any street races. I have focused solely on the other branches and appreciate Ubisoft allowing users to beat all of the Live Events without having to do a branch they didn’t want to do. This goes with the previous statement about exploring: they allowed people to be able to explore their open world, doing a minimal number of events, and still get followers and loot (Live loot boxes) through their exploration. Next, you said you never saw any players. This is of course annoying, but they have said they are adding PvP later, which goes to show you did not research anything for this review, just like your misconception about photographs. Finally, something I can support is you saying drift events suck. I hate drifting events. However, I know a LOT of people who actually love them and couldn’t wait to unlock those in the game.
Again, your writing is phenomenal, but your review, giving this game a single star, seems more like personal hatred towards Ubisoft than anything else.
EDIT: I’m not trying to be a fanboy lol. This game is FAR from perfect and I have a very long list of complaints. I just thought I’d point out some things that others may enjoy that you simply pushed away.
I think this review is obviously biased and you’re just throwing a fit because Ivory Tower didn’t make a game solely for you. Sucks you don’t like airplanes, monster trucks, and boats, etc. Other people do though. The Crew 2 did take some steps back, but painting it as if it does nothing right at all is just dishonest.
Someone will no doubt be along shortly to explain to you how reviews work.
Oh, is that all? giggle. Yes, creating a whole new setting would have been a totally non-labor intensive monumental task.
I agree with the rest of your post.
Hahahahahahahaahahahahahahhaahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha yeah okay.
If the Forza Horizon guys can do it every other year, then I’m sure these guys could’ve done it in four. And especially if they dropped the stupid planes and boats, and all the other shit nobody asked for.
I mean clearly they reworked the world here as well. They put a lot of work into that…
To make it look worse, sure. But still, this wasn’t like they did a complete copy pasta job either.
Kind of. I actually like the Forza Horizon games a whole lot more than even the first Crew, but the Crew was a much bigger world than each of the Forza Horizon games. Now, if they had created a smaller area, more like the Horizon games, then I agree, it’s a more reasonable ask.
If you look at the last Ubisoft game Tom reviewed, FarCry 5, he gave it 5 stars out of 5. Tom does not write reviews based on how he feels about the developer, but how he feels about the game. In my opinion, he was 1 star too kind to this turd of a game.
Expectations were VERY high for a lot of us who played The Crew, as it was such a great experience. Perhaps even the best driving game I have played since Gran Turismo. Had The Crew 2 been made with a different name, it would not have been such a shocking disappointment.
If they can’t make it just as big for whatever reason, just do what TU2 did, include the original map and add another.
Indeed. Tom seems to hate Microsoft (he even managed to get in a dig against them in this review), but he still praised State of Decay 2.
I guess I did word that terribly. All I met was that he had some misconceptions in his review. And I do see how he personally didn’t like the game, which is totally fine for a review. But to me, it seemed that he went the extra mile and thought what he wanted was what everyone wanted. Which isn’t really the case for things like the boats and planes, as planes were my personal favorite part.
Fair enough, but that is always the case with all reviews. They are written from the perspective of the reviewer. I don’t always agree with Tom’s assessments, or any reviewer for that matter. It doesn’t mean he is wrong, and doesn’t mean I am right. It’s just how we personally feel. And that is the essence of a review. One persons thoughts about a game.
I know I totally get that. It was just his wording that put me off. Like how he says “No one” would like this or “Why would Ubisoft think people wanted this.”
Yes, obviously, there’s a lot of work involved in making a new setting. Probably a ton more than downgrading the hell out of the first game’s map to work with planes and boats. “All they had to do” was meant in the sense that the decisions they made, as exciting as they seemed on paper, were the wrong ones. Instead of moving the sequel to another setting, they added vertical mechanics. Rather than refine what they had, they dropped versus multiplayer.
I mean, damn, how do you make an always online multiplayer racing game and leave out player versus player racing? That’s the dumbest thing ever.
I never read that at all, so maybe you’re putting your own spin on someone else’s words.
He goes on for a whole paragraph about how its weird that the Crew “thinks” he wants to play in a boat and plane. When the Crew wasn’t really concerned about that. He states many of his opinions exactly like this. I see how I am wrong, that he was just stating his opinion. But I also hope you can see it how I see it: he states the Crew 2 as a being that does what people want, when people want different things. And that’s really only one point I was trying to make. His biggest complaints are options to the player. He doesn’t have to go to loot boxes if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to fast travel if he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t have to use boats or planes if he doesn’t want to. And yet he gave it one star simply because Ubisoft gave him the option to do more and he didn’t want to, and didn’t need to.
For once I’m 100% in Tom’s camp. Wanted a better, bigger Crew, got a planes, boats and maybe cars magical Ubimap game. Thankfully only played the closed beta.
One star is one star too many. How they got rid of the overhead blue line is the most baffling part of the whole deal. Well, maybe besides making the game’s visuals actually worse so that they could add planes. (Just guessing.)
0 stars over here.
But as a critic, it’d be ridiculous if he didn’t talk about those things and how he felt about them. C’mon now.