At the end of 2014, Ivory Tower has released The Crew which was a great arcade-racing-game. We could visit the whole USA in this game. But it seems, that this was a little bit too much for the developers. The game starts to be great after they have released all the expansions and patches. We are asking now ourselves, can the follower game The Crew 2 convince us from the beginning? Let’s find out.

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I’ am not a specialist about the weather in the USA. But I’ am convinced, that they have not winter about the whole USA at the same time. People in Colorado are not wondered about the ski areas, falling snow and slippery roads. But snow in Las Vegas is a little bit strange even if there been a little bit snow at the beginning of the year. The same for Florida or California: A great winter is possible but rather unlikely. But not in open world of The Crew 2 which is build of a combination of the USA. In this world you can enjoy winter through all states. Unfortunately, this is not the only absurdity in this arcade-racer.

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The Crew 2’s AI is very brave and offers with a hard rubber-band-function often a demanding as well as aggressive opponent. It could happen that the leader can win a distance of 15 seconds in front of you. In the case of a endurance-race, which means that you drive from the east to the west-coast we been happy about the AI’s indulgence, which let us get a chance to win after we crashed another car, get out of the road and after we have hit a tree. In this case we used very often the “get me back on the street” function which put us 30 seconds earlier on the street, which is not very good or call it fair. 30 seconds is definitely too much. We do not need a rewind-function like in Forza Horizon. But we think that they have to change it very quickly. Especially if the points you will be set back on the street can be very strange. The points are often not the same and it happens the other cars hits you at the moment you get set back. Great is, that players have the option the restart the race without a long loading time.

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The Crew 2 is in many ways a consistent continuation. Especially if you take a look on all the potentials which been more used than in the game before. But we think, that Ivory Tower’s ambitions been too big. But we like it, that they announced already a support of the game for long time. This it could happen, that they will reduce the problems the game have in near feature. The developers did the same for The Crew and after all these patches the game began to be a great racing game. Ok, we have to admit, that the entrance into this review sounds very negative, but the start of the test of the game shows us very quickly, that The Crew 2 is from the beginning much better than the previous game. And this is not only because they have canceled the story and that they have focused on the gameplay. We think they the developers have take also a good at the reviews of the last Need for Speeds game and also have take a look at the last Forza Horizon games which also renounce a story and makes the player the main actor of a motorsport festival.

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What we love on this game is the diversity in The Crew 2. There are a lot of different racing types in which you can drive with a great selection of vehicles you can choose from. We love it that you are a not limited on normal vehicles. Choose bikes, Rally-Cars, Monster Trucks, Performance-Machines like Ferraris or McLarens up to Indy-Cars. New are the speed trips in which you fly with a plane in normal races or aerobatic-competitions as well as races with boats. In the special races of the Xtreme Series you have to prove your talents. On special place the vehicle type switches. But the switches are for example between a Indy Car and a Jetboat, MX-Bike and Rally-Car or a street-racer and a plane. This is a great and welcome variety for a arcade-racer. Great is also that it is possible to switch between three different vehicle types (for the land, water and plane) while you are driving in the free mode through the USA.

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Thanks to the great driving dynamics this game get no boring. The variety of the driving dynamic comes because great game physics, the direct controls. Great is also, that players are not set in what they have to do to get ingame “Follower” and as well “Bucks” as ingame currency. New competitions are playable after another. The money to get new cars is easily to get. You can get it to play the available competitions, challenges such as slalom, speed cameras or escapes, but also with photo tasks, where you have to meet certain requirements. There are some races that offers nothing new if you compare the races to the previous games. The drift competitions are not so easy, because the great controls are in this races are a little bit too vague. Unfortunately, we have to say, that drift competitions are greater in other games.

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Ivory Tower used two same features they have already used in the game before. Let’s start with the upgrade-system: After a successful race you can collect new parts in different categories and rarity-levels. This is definitely better than to use the standard parts. The parts you can get are selected randomly. That also means, that it could happen, that you can get great some great parts but not the one you need to be much faster. We wished, they would give us more Bucks and a Tuning-Shop to choose the parts I need. We think, they could also do without Crew Credits and get more Bucks instead of or to have the opportunity to get more cosmetic stuff and vehicles.

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What we like is the game’s visuals. It looks fantastic in The Crew 2 to drive through the USA with a fast car, switch to a plane to fly over a forest and to use a boat to enjoy the mirror of the sunset on the see. We love how the engine works and how great the car models look like. The look of the speed is great and the game runs very stabil. We also love the look of the cities Ivory Tower created for this game. They also included fantastic looking attractions like the Grand Canyon or Everglades. But you should not take a closer look especially when you drive through the cities. There are not much life on the streets and you can see that the textures are unfortunately not the best one. We think they did it to keep the great speed and also keep a smooth switch between the vehicles and reach a great highs with the plain. Because of the low level of details, you can port yourself very quickly to the next race without a long loading time.

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Players can use the opportunities for photos. You get hints what is desired or if you are near to one of these photo points. At this points you are on your own. The marked special rewards do not awake your hunting for rare cars like in the predecessor. We like the great varying weather conditions. Together with the Day / night cycles the are atmospheric panoramas all the time that can be captured. And every vehicle offers two outdoor cameras, a hood- as well as a bumper-perspective and even a successful cockpit View. What we also like are the game sounds. The great soundtrack offers some songs for everyone and the sounds of the engines are great.

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You can notice very quickly, that Ivory Tower is unfortunately still in a phase of finding themselves and in which direction The Crew 2 should get. Based on the previous game, which had a bad strat and get better and better after the developers released some patches, you can see how many great anchor points the second title has. You can not be mad about the high number of disciplines. Vehicles that are great to control even if this is just a arcade-racer with arcade-physics and not only offers race with cars, but also with planes and boats. Because of a comfortable and with just a minimal loading time it is great to jump from one event to another without have to drive a mile on the compressed USA. But this is unfortunately the problem: The open world was a huge part of The Crew. In The Crew 2 it is just a great looking place. There are no many places to visit and the bad made “set me back on the street” funktion does not work very well. We have to be realistic and fear: This is one of the dadest open world Ubisoft have created. But like we said before, we have also have to be fair. The Crew 2 is a great arcade-racer which includes a lot of great content, a great look, a fantastic speed and varied competitions. All-in-all, The Crew 2 is a well made racer and we think that arcade fans will have a lot of fun with.

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