Ubisoft’s Ivory Tower is back with a new entry in The Crew franchise. Third in the series, The Crew Motorfest brings cars, motorcycles, boats, and planes for a cruise to Hawaii.
When Ubisoft wants to compete with Forza Horizon
I don’t think it’s hard to deny it, but it’s difficult not to compare The Crew Motorfest to Forza Horizon 5 from Playground Games.
This time, the place chosen to give free rein to our desire for speed is Hawaii, a superb island with a very exotic appearance. No story is offered in the game, even if it is only an invitation to the most significant automobile festival in the world, which will provide a range of different disciplines in an idyllic place where jungles, dormant volcanoes, villages, beaches, and of course, the sea as far as the eye can see.
Whether you like racing in the forest, on a circuit, on the street, in the air or on the water, The Crew Motorfest has everything to please any speed fan.
A small island to compete against the entire United States?
The Crew Motorfest had the painful and complex challenge of offering a map that could compete with its predecessor, The Crew 2. It provided a condensed version of the United States from coast to coast with many iconic locations. Although smaller and much less iconic, Hawaii offers a vast, not to say immense, map with multiple biomes that will allow you to ride, fly and surf as you wish. In addition, the proposed environment is simultaneously colourful, spectacular, varied and sublimely loaded, making it possible to demonstrate the power of current-generation consoles, which have always, to this day, been slowed down by the previous generation.
Offering a distant horizon line with effects of light, shadows, reflections and movement, the game has no reason to envy what it will provide you with on the screen without forgetting everything on your way.
Offering a performance mode at 60 fps and a quality mode with improved graphics, you can choose between a smoother or more detailed experience.
The Crew Motorfest Has A Lot To Offer
Hop aboard your four-wheeler, motorcycle, boat or light aircraft and explore Hawaii in all its splendour. With a simple button, you can switch between your land, water or air vehicle without loading time. Isn’t that nice? Do you want to go to a specific point and don’t want to go around the mountains? Then, you seamlessly move from car to plane. It’s your vehicle that takes the time to appear on the screen, that’s all!
But beyond tourism, there remains the most essential part: the playlists. These are, in fact, events that will bring together different races or different challenges that you will have to take on with particular vehicles, be they muscle cars, motorcycles, drift cars or even Formula 1!
There will even be events with branded cars, such as the Porsche 911 and Lamborghinis, or races made up of old cars from the 50s to the 80s. You will also have the opportunity to participate in competitions hosted by the famous James Pumphrey, the editor-in-chief, obsessed with cars and humour, and owner of Donut Media.
There are also environmental challenges, such as finding hidden treasures that can grant experience, credits and car parts using radar.
The Crew Motorfest offers three difficulty levels at the start. These levels will allow the AI to be more complex or more accessible, depending on your choice. Subsequently, the game will allow you to increase or decrease the difficulty level depending on your race performance. You, therefore, have the possibility of playing at five total difficulty levels: the first being very easy and the fifth level being very, but very, difficult and intense. You can also decide to display or remove the driving assistance display to make everything as immersive as possible.
Finally, on the musical side, it’s just as exciting! The soundtrack has improved significantly, including superb retro licensed themes for racing with classic vehicles.
Like Looking In The Rearview Mirror
With this approach, it’s hard not to think that The Crew Motorfest is similar to Forza Horizon but with boats and planes. The system, the music, the style, everything is there.
On the other hand, I have to say it: although there are nearly 600 vehicles available, many are duplicates with stickers and visual changes. You may purchase cars and customization, but many challenges often require us to have a rented specific vehicle without modifications. Fortunately, you can then make the same playlists with your purchases later.
So that’s the significant negative aspect of the game here, in my opinion: the ability to build a gigantic garage but, in many cases, not being able to use your custom cars. And it’s very long and painful to accumulate money or even level up. Acquiring new vehicles will, therefore, be very long and tedious! A bit like Gran Turismo 7, in fact.
Microtransactions are also coming to The Crew Motorfest.
Of course, like most games for years, it is also possible to buy premium currency to buy certain cars directly. Can you consider the whole thing to be “Pay-To-Win”? Not really, since you can’t use your vehicles during playlists. But I’m still talking about a game sold at total price, which also offers the ability to buy cars, not just cosmetics, with real money.
The fact that certain events and playlists temporarily penalize the player who cannot connect every day or every week but, on the other hand, allows players to experience new activities almost permanently.
Lots Of Playlists and Weekly Events To Keep You Busy
The Crew Motorfest wants to emphasize continuously renewable content. Therefore, via weekly playlists, Ubisoft will allow its players to race against each other on new tracks and with new challenges.
In the Grand Race and the Demolition Derby events, players must compete and achieve the highest ranking possible. So it’s his way of offering people a single-player experience in always online mode.
I say always online because, to play The Crew Motorfest, you must be connected to the servers to play. If you’re travelling and don’t have internet access, forget about playing it. If there are problems with the servers, as Gran Turismo 7 experienced in its early days, playing this game will be nearly impossible.
Frustrating bugs
I haven’t experienced any glitches or bugs that make The Crew Motorsport unplayable, whether in the Alpha, Beta phase or at the launch. I would say that the main concern is the display of the ranking when you play in crew with friends and the problems of disconnections. Indeed, it happened very often that I played with my son, my brother, as his son and that at least one of the four of us was permanently ejected from the crew or had the loading screen between two playlist races that remained on the screen and we all needed to exit the menus and come back.
Is it because there are two of us playing in the same house causing this problem? Maybe! But the problem is present.
The other problem with displaying the rankings is simply that on a screen, one of the crew members can see that he is in third position and another is in fifth. The other two are in seventh and eighth position, but there is one in first position, one in second, one in fifth and the other in sixth place. Does this affect the money and experience gained at the end of the race? Probably! Fortunately, that said, if specific challenges require you to reach the Top 3 and you are eighth, you will still win the challenge if a member of the crew manages to place in the Top 3.
Technically, The Crew Motorfest is solid. The races and events are very entertaining. The driving system has improved considerably, and the visuals are sublime.
Verdict
Undoubtedly, The Crew Motorfest is the best title in the franchise. Ivory Tower succeeds with flying colours, and I can even say that the studio is iterating on the series in exciting ways. Still, it’s also heavily pulling from Forza Horizon. The experience is nevertheless tremendous, and the different playlists will please everyone. Fans of F1, where driving on the edges will make your vehicle slow down to take the corner better, will be delighted. Fans of drift racing on a road resembling Tokyo will also be excited.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
