The Crew 2 by Ubisoft

[jztemple2]

Just wanted to let folks know that I have received my invite to the closed beta and am downloading now, 25 GB. If you signed up for the closed beta you might be getting a notification today. If anyone isn't part of the closed beta but wants me to "invite" them, I have three slots available but you need to be on my Ubisoft friends list. Post here if you wish to get an invite, first come, first served.

[coopasonic]

I wouldn't mind checking it out. I am pretty sure I am coopasonic on ubisoft (and every other thing).

[Isgrimnur]

They also have Ultimate Edition of the first one on sale for $15.

[jztemple2]

I wouldn't mind checking it out. I am pretty sure I am coopasonic on ubisoft (and every other thing).

Actually it won't let me invite you as it says you're already registered.

[coopasonic]

Did you get the invite by email? I haven't seen anything. I guess it might be in spam or something.

edit: Yup, it was in the junk folder on my hotmail account.

[GreenGoo]

I've been considering installing the original lately. Was part of a bundle.

[coopasonic]

Initial impressions are awful. "An error has occurred and you are being returned to the main menu" or something along those lines... twice... in the intro race.

[jztemple2]

I got an hour or so of solid playtime yesterday afternoon, but tried again in the evening and had problems with lack of servers and also crashes. The gameplay in the afternoon wasn't very inspiring. Yes, there are airplanes and boats, but overall it feels less inviting that the first game, which encouraged me to explore the map. My takeaway from my hour of play was that there's little incentive to drive from point A to point B other than to see the scenery and get a few photo ops. I might get the game on sale some time, like I did with the first one, but I'm going to pass on it till then.

[coopasonic]

Were later races like the first one where you used all three modes of transportation?

I never got past the first one due to crashes and seem to have lost my will to try.

[jztemple2]

Were later races like the first one where you used all three modes of transportation?

No, when you want to race you use the map to select the mode (land, sea or air), the vehicle type (offroad, street, etc) and then the location. I never came across a race that changed modes.

[coopasonic]

I might give it another shot this weekend. I really liked the exploration aspect of the first one and I am curious if this one just ruins it all.

[jztemple2]

The Crew 2 Open Beta is now active, for what I assume is the weekend. Seems a bit better than the closed beta as far as the menus. And it looks nice with my new GTX 1060 6GB

I've spent a couple of hours on it and I'm enjoying it. The boat and airplane stuff isn't really all that interesting for me, but the different car disciplines are nice. And it's a good game to just kick back without having to do too much brainwork. I still have no clue about the way I'm supposed to get more followers by editing videos of my runs and posting them.

Followers, ha! I have but one follower, however I think that secretly she thinks I'm her follower

[jztemple2]

I've played some more and I'm still up in the air. The racing is fun and I've finally figured out that if you are using one Street Racer discipline vehicle and win new parts for it, those parts are also available for any other Street Racing vehicle. I proved this by buying an old Impala, which sadly even with upgraded parts is still slow as molasses.

Someone asked if there are any further mixed discipline races in the game. Yes there are, I just raced the Live Xtreme race 2. Which started off with Street Racers, switched to Speed Boats, then switched to Offroad racers (no airplanes). I won it, not so much on skill as that I had upgraded my SR and Offroad vehicles enough.

I'm still confused by a number of concepts, like CC points and capturing videos. CC points can be used to buy vehicles instead of money, but I have no idea how to get them. I've posted the question to the Ubisoft forum.

[jztemple2]

Turns out the CC points are like the "points" in other Ubisoft games, something you can buy with real world cash, so you can buy vehicles in the game without having to grind through to earn the in-game bucks. I'm fine with this as my skill level is pretty low and it gives me an option if I want to go that way.

Ubisoft has posted a couple of articles on The Crew 2 news feed of interest, Activities and Events in The Crew 2 and Leveling and progression in The Crew 2.

[jztemple2]

So I've put in about ninety minutes in the released game, which means I'm just seeing what I saw in the closed and open beta. But things seem to be working properly (this is on the PC) and the game is fun, at least for me. No glitches or problems right now.

[jztemple2]

I put in several hours this afternoon and have advanced to Star level. Lots of new activities have been unlocked. I also just participated in a pretty cool race. Normally races are 2-3 minutes long, sometimes maybe up to five. This one was the first really long, cross country race. It was a spec race on Harleys, riding from Las Vegas to Yosemite. It took over twelve minutes, which is quite a long time when you are hanging on for dear life, trying to navigate the checkpoints and trying to stay ahead of the seven other competitors. Lots of fun.

Overall the game is working very well, no odd issues or problem. I haven't raced any MP at all and in fact haven't seen a way to initiate or join an MP race. Either I'm clueless on how to do this or maybe it's not going to be available till the general release. It's not a big deal to me anyway right now.

If folks have questions, please post them.

[jztemple2]

For those interested, here's a google docs list of all the vehicles in the game, the link comes from a Steam guide here.

[jztemple2]

So, after 14 hours, some more impressions and questions answered.

First, no, there are no different physics settings, like Arcade or Sport or Simulation. Just the default one, which is sort of Arcade-like I guess. For me it feels OK. It's not Forza, which is my benchmark of simulation. But it's not cheesey feeling, you do get rewarded or punished for good or poor driving. Like most of these types of games, the walls don't cause you any damage, just slow you down, so it's part of the driving style; if you come into a corner too hot, you can try to just scrape the wall to save it.

This version of the game has lost a lot of the exploration aspects of the first game. IIRC, the first game had landmark symbols you could hunt for, find and see a short presentation on the history or significance of that particular location. There is none of that in this version. Also while there are a lot of familiar objects in the world, like the Golden Gate bridge, the Las Vegas Strip and Times Square, a lot of the rest feels rather generic.

Since you can use the menus to find any racing activity you want, the only game driven reason to drive around is to find Live Reward boxes. These have loot, or I should say, Loot. Loot are upgrades to the seven performance areas of your vehicle, like gearbox or brakes, or in the case of boats, like throttles and props. Same for aircraft. You get loot for successfully completing activities, like placing in the top three of races or getting the required number of points in an aerobatic event. And you can also get Loot by finding these Live Rewards out in the countryside. So that's a motivation to drive, or boat, or fly around.

The other motivation is to take Photos of specific locations or events or animals or situations. You can find these using the menus but I found it more fun and less frustrating just to drive around, waiting for a popup that lets me know there is a photo opportunity nearby.

I'd say the big appeal of the game is all the various disciplines:

Street Racing Family
-Street Race (SR)
-Drift (DF)
-Drag Race (DR)
-Hypercars (HC)

Offroad Family
-Rally Raid (RR)
-Motocross (MX)
-Rallycross (RX)

Freestyle Family
-Acrobatics (AB)
-Jetsprint (JS)
-Monster Trucks (MT)

Pro Racing Family
-Powerboats (PB)
-Touring Cars (TC)
-Air Race (AR)
-Alpha GP (A)

You get several unlocked at the beginning, and the rest unlock in a few hours as you level up. I've found that some disciplines are harder than others, but between upgrades, difference vehicles within the same discipline and practice, I haven't found any that I can't beat, well at least the introductory ones of each discipline.