The Crew 2

Random Game Reviews

The Game

The Crew 2 is an open world racing game developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft. The game features 16 different types of races ranging from airplanes to dirt bikes to hovercraft and power boats. It takes place in a scaled down version of the United States and allows you to race in big cities or through the countryside and some of America’s most famous landmarks. There are hundreds of races to chose from, each with 3 difficulty settings as well. Completing races will award you with followers (essentially XP for levelling up) and new parts for your vehicle, allowing any vehicle to be upgraded and compete with other higher tier vehicles. You don’t need to be familiar with the first game in order to get stuck into this one. There is some loose story, which is basically irrelevant, although admittedly it has some pretty epic cinematic moments at times.

There are 4 main types of races – Street, Off-road, Freestyle and Pro Racing. Each of those has 4 sub-categories depending on the type of vehicle:

  • Street – street, drifting, drag, hypercars
  • Off-road – rally raid, motocross, rallycross, hovercraft
  • Freestyle – aerobatics, demolition derby, jet sprint, monster truck
  • Pro Racing – powerboat, air races, touring car, alpha grand prix

There are also Live Xtreme events – probably one of the games more unique and exciting features, in which you race in several disciplines with an almost seamless transition between vehicles. Once you have completed 50% of each race family’s races you can take on the boss for a chance to earn an ultimate vehicle. There are also hundreds of skill challenges and various other types of races available, including weekly events in which you compete for the highest score on a series of events against other players from around the world.

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Worth it?

Overall the game is every completionist’s dream. With hundreds of races, challenges and vehicles to collect – it will keep you busy for a very long time. One criticism was that certain types of race had a lot less events compared to others – street races seem to vastly outnumber all other types of race and it would be nice to see a few more events for some of the more niche vehicles like monster trucks, motorbikes or hovercraft. While the open world is truly gigantic and there are quite a few events and challenges around it, it can feel a little too big and a bit empty at times. The always online mode of the game also means you can’t pause and walk away from a race because you will get kickedd from the server.

The weekly events give players a reason to keep returning to the game, giving it decent longevity (aside from a completionist approach to the game). There are also seasonal events with a new one being announced just a few days ago – adding new races and challenges to take on. The follower and rank system is a nice touch, allowing you to upgrade earnings or vehicle performance as you increase your rank. The full price game is not worth it by any means (over £40), however you can often find it on sale for as little as £6.99 for the base game, if you are on PS Plus Extra it is available for free. The game will keep you busy for a considerable time, especially if you’re a fan of racing games or a completionst.

Tips

  • Hold L1 & R1 (or equivalent) to reset your vehicle onto the road.
  • You receive car parts after each race so don’t rush to teleport away until you’ve received them.
  • You can spend skill points every time you increase your rank – invest in skills that gain you more bucks as much as possible.
  • Don’t spend money on vehicles in the early game and once you have amassed some wealth make sure you buy the vehicles you need for new race types first – aiming to have one of each vehicle as soon as possible.
  • The New York hypercar race pays the best, however also takes really long, the other money grinding option is the Uber Dam powerboat race, which is very quick to complete.
  • Remember to pull back on your joystick (tilt back) when using a boat to go at higher speeds, let go of this for more control and better steering.
  • Use nitro to recover from mistakes or in stretches when you can use a lot of it in one go.
  • You can get an overview of all completed and uncompleted races from the activity menu, which is easier to navigate than the map.
  • You can customise your racer’s outfit at Home.
  • When loot gets sent to your HQ mailbox you need to go to one of the 4 race types HQs (where you buy vehicles) and look for the mailbox section where your unclaimed loot is stored.
  • Once you’ve acquired good car parts you can start to scrap green and blue parts to generate spare parts, which can be used to tune top tier (yellow) car parts.

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