Racing

The Crew 2

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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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STEEP

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The Game

STEEP by Ubisoft is an open world extreme sports simulator that will keep you coming back for more. Locked up and unable to practice your favourite winter sports or if you ever played SSX back in the day? Check out STEEP – the game throws you into a vast open world of mountains, cliffs and beautiful scenery. There are 5 base sports to choose from: skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, wingsuit or the rocket wingsuit. You can also purchase some additional sports like sledging, speed skiing (skiing with a parachute) or base jumping.

The core gameplay is focused around completing various challenges around the map. There are challenges for each of the base sports and various difficulties and types of challenge. Some will challenge you for freestyle points and tricks, others for extreme situations (like wing-suiting near the ground) or even the bone breaker challenges, which may leave you needing a new controller. With some of the harder challenges you will find yourself retrying for ages until you get that perfect line. That aspect of the game is quite addictive as it’s a great sense of satisfaction you get after attempting something 50 times and then you manage to pull it off in style. It can also be extremely zen to just plough throw the fresh powder and take in the scenery. There is also a snap photo option for some artistic shots and for any run or line you’ve done you’ll be able to watch the replay back in full to find that perfect moment where you pulled off a crazy trick.

The game also offers up a multiplayer playlist challenges and there’s also several ways to interact with other players while out in the mountain, like pairing up and just free riding together or publishing a sick line you’ve just pulled off as a challenge for all your friends. The main game offers you up the Alps and Alaska as the main two mountains – the Alps being the main game location with the majority of challenges. The game also has access to another mountain range in Japan, however you will need to purchase this using either in game currency or buying one of the DLCs. There are quite a few cosmetic items and DLCs available as “micro” transactions, there is also an in game store where you can purchase various equipment to customise your character with. You have a choice of a handful of pre-existing characters and you can customise their looks for each of the sports.

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Worth it?

While the game does offer an amazing gameplay experience, some truly breath-taking landscapes and loads of fun challenges it’s a bit of a shame that Ubisoft have in a way retired the game. Apart from the occasional weekly challenge, there really isn’t much else going on – a lot of the focus has moved onto Riders Republic (set to be released late 2021), which is going to be the spiritual successor to STEEP. The DLCs are overpriced and offer a handful of extra challenges, which may keep you busy for a day or two. I will note however that being able to purchase the Japan map and the extra sports with in-game currency is quite a cool idea; it would have been interesting to have an option to buy the DLC in the same way.

Overall, it’s an amazing game and definitely worth a play even though it’s past its heyday. Try and get it while on sale and if you intend on buying the DLC do so first and save your in-game currency for cosmetics instead of tickets. Personally I don’t think the DLCs bring all that much to the table, but when you run out of challenges you may find yourself contemplating them. It’s a game that will keep you coming back for a long time and may even frustrate you to new heights (especially trying some of the crazy wingsuit challenges).

Tips

  • Learn when to stop spinning when in flight in order to land properly – generally speaking let go a few second before landing to give yourself time to correct
  • Hold the right stick in a direction before jumping and making a grab to do different grabs (nosegrab/tailgrab/etc)
  • When you reach level 25 you get infinite helicopter tickets (don’t bother buying any before), you can then use these to teleport anywhere you like
  • You can play X-games challenges in multiplayer
  • You can purchase additional sports and tickets for Japan using in game currency

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