The Crew 2 hit open beta this weekend for a limited time so that everyone could get a taste to see if Ubisoft has improved on the original formula that was The Crew. More cars, more bikes, more boats, planes & hovercrafts oh my. There is a lot in the new game, but only some of it was available during the open beta. Let's take a look at how the game is so far.
Having played the first game, I had some knowledge of what to expect going in to The Crew 2, but was hoping for improvements. The story is a different beast entirely compared to the first one and seems more of a secondary part of the game from what I played of it so far. It allowed me to focus more on the various racing parts and miscellaneous activities. With all the various vehicles and vehicle subclasses opened up just by getting to the second fame level of Popular, it will be interesting to see just how much more stuff gets opened up at higher levels. Of course, that means spending more in game money that you earn from races to buy the various vehicles or the other currency available.
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The character selection screen felt a bit uninspired, obviously what you look like isn't as important in a racing game as how cool your car looks. But you do see yourself while playing and I thought it was rather funny driving up to a motorbike race in a t shirt and plain helmet while everyone else was in full racing suits. You can buy different clothes to dress up, but at first the money feels better spent on new vehicles. Some options for beards or such would have been nice.
The photo mode really shined and I may have spent an hour or two just taking pictures. There were also activates called photo ops in the game that would net you money from sponsors for taking pictures of certain things, my biggest complaint from that being the info for that is in the chat window and hard to clearly see. Some of the activities were vague about what they wanted you to do or what you got from doing them. Being able to teleport to the races is nice, but takes away from the drive all over aspect of the game, I also didn't see a single played in any of the races I was in.
Overall The Crew 2 feels like a nice arcade style racing game so far and I'm looking forward to what the full access has to offer.
