For a few years now, racing video game lovers have been enjoying two great sagas that do not stop competing with each other with each and every one of the installments they release. I am referring of course to Forza Horizon/Motorsport and Gran Turismo (with the exception of Mario Kart), two IPs that capture most of the attention of the general public.
However, there are very interesting alternatives for all those who want to try different things that are outside the most conventional careers. This is where it comes in Ubisoft con The Crew Motorfest, the third installment of their vehicle driving saga with which they intend to carve out a space among so much competition. And be careful because on this occasion They chose to put a twist on their usual formula.
Ubisoft takes us to Hawaii
When I had the opportunity to test the game months ago I said that The Crew Motorfest was a kind of “Coachella” for the motor world, a festival in which instead of musical concerts, races of all kinds were offered. Although I stand by this statement, now that I have been able to play more hours I want to add that in the game too a “very MTV” spirit is glimpsed.
Ubisoft Ivory Tower quiere transmit automobile culture and the passion for cars and tuning in a more hip-hop way, neighborhood and with all the fireworks possible. He achieves it? Well, personally I think they have stayed halfway, but this is something I will explain later.
The Crew Motorfest presents us with a large open world set on O’ahu, the main island of Hawaiiwhat It is packed with activities and tests that test us in many different ways. In this aspect comparisons with Forza Horizon are inevitableand it seems evident that the Ubisoft studio paid great attention to the Playground Games saga when designing its map and game modes.
The game map is packed with quests and side activities
Unfortunately, the Hawaii of this game does not stand out in the same way that the Mexico of FH5 or the England of FH4 do. There is a lot of variety and most of the tests are entertaining, yes, but something more personality is missing that differentiates it from these two references of the genre. I would have liked to see more things like the “Treasure Hunts” that are all over the map, in which you have to use your ear to find chests in places you wouldn’t normally drive by. It’s a shame there aren’t more activities this original.
On the other hand, one of the things that surprised me the most was that when completing activities at The Crew Motorfest we are rewarded with a good assortment of auto parts that can be installed on the cars in your collection to improve their attributesas if they were armor of a RPG. The idea is interesting, but this customization system ends up taking a backseat too quickly. A twist would have been nice.
And of course the fun also carries over to the onlinewhere we can find quite curious game modes (there is even a battle royale) and the strange absence of classic options such as having a simple race against people from other regions.
Variety, fun, good ideas and regular execution
However, The great novelty of this The Crew lies in the “playlist”, thematic mini campaigns that address different aspects of automobile culture such as tuning, Japanese street racing, Lamborghini style or the elegance of vintage cars. We have more than 15 playlists available and all of them offer dozens and dozens of races with juicy rewards, however They didn’t finish giving me what I wanted.
As I mentioned before, The Crew Motorfest is a game that, for my taste, falls halfway when it comes to sharing this passion for cars. and that he chooses the worst moment of all to tell us the interesting things. Most of the explanations and curious facts about the cars are narrated during the races, and since the game is not dubbed into Spanish, it is very difficult to pay attention to the subtitles (any mistake will cause you to lose).
It is very curious that Ubisoft, one of the companies that cares most about dubbing its most important games into Spanish, has decided to leave The Crew Motorfest hanging. It is something that undoubtedly penalizes us unless we have a fairly high level of English.
But hey, let’s go to one of the most important points of the video game: How is the driving? Well, the truth is that although I am generally happy with the result, I think the result is too arcadey and still has room for improvement. Vehicle control responds well and the differences in grip and brakes are noticeable as you change vehicles. In addition, knowing when to use the nitro (turbo) provides a strategy component that suits you wonderfully.
What left me most unhappy were the physics and collisions, which give the feeling that your cars can crash into anything without suffering hardly any consequences. And this is something that was seen in games from 20 years ago. In summary, I would say that with a little more work, a much deeper and more attractive gameplay would have been obtained, at the moment what there is is a “good” and that’s it.
Of course it’s not all cars and motorcycles. The Crew Motorfest also allows you to drive small planes y speedboats motorized in an attempt to add more spectacularity and variety to the set, which is appreciated, but here the control is simpler and has less appeal than that of land vehicles.
Collisions between vehicles leave a lot to be desired
Hawaii looks like never before from the road
At a graphic level the truth is that The Crew Motorfest performs very well and knows how to take advantage of its fantastic setting. O’ahu is a very varied island that presents all kinds of scenarios, at any time you can leave a bridge and be surprised by what you have in front of you, and you even have the option of going off the road to explore the most remote places in complete freedom. .
The game offers two graphical settings: one to appreciate Hawaii with a higher level of detail and another to explore it at 60 fps which practically remain stable at all times. There are small details that dampen the experience a bit, such as popping when you are speeding or the erratic behavior of the camera that sometimes happens when crashing into other vehicles. However, I already tell you that I am very satisfied with the visual section de The Crew Motorfest.
Especially I would like to highlight Ubisoft Ivory Tower’s work with haptic feedback in the PS5 version. It is not very common to find games that take advantage of the Dualsense and know how to transmit interesting sensations through vibration, and luckily this is one of them. The adaptive triggers change their resistance depending on the braking and the surfaces you run on, and when you pass other vehicles you can feel the vibrations of the air on the side of the controller, which adds a lot of realism.
On a sound level I already mentioned that in this case the absence of a Spanish dubbing greatly damages the experience that The Crew wants to convey to us, so I will not add much more. What I will comment is that despite not having radios in use, the game’s soundtrack is very varied and has songs of all kinds, from eighties melodies with synthesizer to hard electronica.
Conclusion
The Crew Motorfest It is a racing video game that has good ideas and that tries to offer an experience similar to what we can find in the Forza Horizon series, however it seems that it has been left behind. halfway between excessive inspiration and originality. This is a title that stands out for being very varied and for offering a arcade fun through its multiple activities and races throughout a visually very attractive open world. That’s why it makes me a little sad that as the hours go by, all that passion for the engine hasn’t fully penetrated me because of the way it is presented.
The playlists are an interesting addition that aims to address many of the branches that make up the love for tuning, competitions and street racing, however the feeling I am left with when finishing them is that they have really not given me almost anything. that I didn’t know before. It’s a shame his MTV approach didn’t have more Top Gear elements, it would have suited him wonderfully..
2023-10-11 17:44:49
#Analysis #Crew #Motorfest #Variety #driving #entertainment #Hawaii
