I’ve been watching about 30’ of the Eurogamer stream in the background and this looks incredibly bland and unfun: The Crew - Eurogamer Let’s Play LIVE: http://youtu.be/dsSKisGWC1s (skip a few minutes into it to avoid the very early trying to get together and being bored. But there is more of that the rest of the time too anyway :) ).
They are obviously struggling with early day connection issues and trying to get in a mission together, but what I’ve seen is enough to convince me to wait for a few reviews at least.
Edit: short story after about 50’: not very exciting, graphics OK at best (they compare the American NW to the not very pretty SE London town where I live), there is a giant cow, the game is reputedly grindy and the micro transactions seem pricy. Time for a new, more interesting background video.
I have to admit to not agreeing with most of that, then again I am actually playing it (well one issue is 2 crashes of the game rather than the car). Again if you liked Test Drive 1 it’s very similar, The racing is pretty cool, the cars feel different, I am using my Mini Cooper at, now level 15, I ma only level 4. Again graphically it’s pretty nice, looks way better than anything I am playing on the 360.
One of the issues you will have is that really it’s a city based car racing game, not much more than that too it at heart.
Interesting. Thanks for chiming in. I’ve kept watching, but as someone who loves open world racers, I still can’t see anything with the price of admission. But I’ll definitely be looking forward to reviews and impressions by gamers.
A quick example, just had race over farmland alongside the coast, 2 off road souped up racing cars, the idea was to take down the other car, have to admit I only managed a silver medal after 5 or 6 attempts but the off road stuff is great, lots of uneven ground, cutting through the coastline and big skids, traction issues, mid air stuff as well as trying to hit this other car at 135 mph, I drowned a few times but took him down by cutting across a dust bowl as he barreled round the outside of it.
One issue is you can do mini missions to soup up your car and you get either a bronze, silver or gold rating and the better rating upgrades your car quicker and obviously having a better level makes the challenges easier. So mostly I get bronze, but you get a ghost car showing you what gold is so you can see if your car is under powered, poor handling or you are just crap. Really I suck but I think if you get in a decent crew and roll with mates it could be great fun
Oh yeah one other thing is for many of the missions at the start you get supplied a car by your contact rather than having to use your own so you get something souped up and decent.
Oh, it’s good. There’s no question that it’s a worthwhile entry in the open-world caRPG entry. It’s just a matter of how good and what kind of players will like it. I can imagine some middling reviews from, say, harder-core driving game players or folks who don’t really like the caRPG structure. But for folks like me who like this genre, this is definitely a game worth getting.
Firstly, be sure to change the driving model before you write it off as floaty and unresponsive. And dial the steering dead zone all the way down. I don’t know why someone would want a steering deadzone on a gamepad, but the default setting is half way up the scale. Weird.
There is a wide variety of cars, or at least versions of cars. Most of the cars can be kitted out for various types of races: street, dirt, raid (basically high-speed demolition derby), and supercar mode. I think the idea they’re going for is like classes in an RPG. And the mission structure is wide-open. Crazily so. There is some gating by level in terms of when you should go to different areas – you can immediately bop down to Miami if you want, but until you’re level 20, the usual events and challenges will be locked – but you can freely explore as soon as you’re out of the prologue. And there’s plenty of advancement from exploring.
Well, I hate to tell you this, Wendy, but you’re going to want this game. Based on our time with Test Drive 2 – you know this is by those developers, right? – I can assure you this is a game for you. :)
I figure it’s doing that to tide us over in the early levels until we level up enough to spec cars for those events. For instance, you can’t spec a car with its dirt racing form until you’re level 10. I’ve played for probably about three hours today and I’m still only level 7.
Also, how’d you get a Mini Cooper? I don’t think that was ever an option for me. My starting options were a bunch of modern American muscle, or a Nissan. And beyond that, the only thing for sale in the Midwest dealership is a weirdly expensive Volkswagen Golf GTI and, uh, some other car I’m forgetting. But no Mini Cooper. Now that I’m sitting on 80,000 and I’m ready for a second car, I might have to fly around and see what’s for sale in the various dealerships.
You had to mention TDU2. And no, I didn’t realise they were the same developers. Now I might indeed have to get it. :)
I’ll give it a few days to see how you guys feel about it with some more driving under your belt, how it behaves over the weekend and how quickly a patch drops to solve the current connectivity issues.
I got my copy from simplygames for £25 and while not advertised it came with a second key code, it didn’t say what it was but once used turned in to a Mini Cooper. Maybe it is a UK deal but the game icon had worldwide on it when installed, so I am assuming it’s not a local server.
Not seen much on Crews, I am assuming they are like guilds, hope so as I think that could be integral to the game in the later stages.
Crews are just the equivalent of parties. You can form groups of up to four to do events or just drive around. It makes all the events coop in a PvE way and it has an effect on awards and some other things. For instance, one of Zoe’s perks is bonus xp and money when you’re in a crew.
I don’t think there’s an equivalent to guilds in The Crew. The factions, which unlock around level 10, are probably the closest thing. Everyone join eagle faction!
Well got a quick update. Got the afternoon off and have been playing some. So far I have had 3 game crashes, it just freezes and it says thecrewe.exe has crashed and spits me back to desktop, tried a reboot and all my drivers etc are up to date. Unsure if it is a network issue or a computer issue. Very frustrating as I am really enjoying it.
I did my first crew mission and came first getting a massive 25 level jump for my cooper which is now level 60 and it sure felt good coming first against other people.
Tom is so right about setting the dead zone to nil really works, I am loving the handling on my mini on sport setting, very responsive, great for catching those skids and corrections in steering.
I set my way point to Ohio which was 21 miles away for a mission and off I went. On the way I came across a cow running up the road, then a herd going mad on a back road. I did 4 or 5 road missions as I went getting a few gold ratings and stuff that was too high a level for me but in to the HQ it goes.
Anyways took a while and I arrived then it crashed.
one thing I really hope is we get an east - west or vice versa race. Like the old Hawaii 100 mile race it would be cool to have something similar or even a few of them, especially in crew mode.
Love their description of the waypoint guide line. :)
But, as Tom pointed out, the TDU lineage is going to be a big draw for me.
I’m much more likely to play on the big screen on XBox One. I don’t suppose there is any scope for cross platform play? I’d miss joining you guys on a crew.
I much prefer the line, works fine and stops me looking on the mini map. There are some issues which need ironing out but hopefully they are invested in it. Not sure how they compare re xbox 1, pc and ps4 though and if all the issues are on all the versions
When I watched streamers playing last night, the line did seem a bit wavy and temperamental, especially right before a turn. I think I would prefer a GPS option. But glad to hear it is not that bad.
They are quite wavy but then there is a lot of weaving in and out and through gardens, fences, lamposts and some of the courses go through and around those things.
Servers down for 30 minutes now to fix crashing issues so at least they are trying stuff
Oh, I’ve definitely done plenty of free-driving! I’ve even flown to other cities just to have a look around. Unfortunately, the activities are gated by level, much like an MMO. So even though you can go anywhere you want at any point in the game, you can only do the exploration activitities unless you’ve leveled up appropriately.
It’s the folks from Eden who did the Test Drive games and the folks from Relfections who did Driver: San Francisco. And it shows. It’s absolutely shot through with touches from those two games!
I was playing Test Drive 2 for literally years after it was released, even if just to have a nice quiet drive to explore some roads I hadn’t found yet. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is one of the reasons I’ll never get rid of my Xbox 360. In my book, a good open-world caRPG is a uniquely timeless game. And this is a good open-world caRPG.
Oh, pretty much everything is doable in crew mode. In fact, I think literally everything is doable in crew mode. As for what you want, wait until you unlock the faction missions. I think you’ll be very pleased. They’re all labled by how much time they’ll take and some of them take more than an hour. :)
We’ll probably put a man on Mars before we get cross-platform play for games like this. :( Which is why I hope you guys are picking this up for the Playstation 4, you jerks! Right now, I’ve only got one friend playing and he’s not even playing!
I like that the line is in the air, because it lifts it above the ground clutter and it keeps me looking ahead. It also makes it much easier to use in the cockpit view. Also, your second crew member, Omar, gives you perks that affect how the line works! I think there’s even a Forza-style color-coded gravity line.
