The Crew Assembles at PAX East 2014 - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 12 April 2014 / 7,039 Views
The Crew is an upcoming street racing game from Ubisoft. It features the arcade street racing quality of a Need for Speed game, but also knows how to take the fun off road a la Codemasters' DiRT franchise. The Crew draws inspiration from those two franchises, as well as a wide variety of other racing games, in its attempt to provide something that feels unique for the current/new generation of consoles.
My hands on time at Ubisoft’s booth at this year's PAX East gave me a taste of both the game’s single player and multiplayer components. I played the PC version of the game using an Xbox 360 controller and drove a black 2012 Dodge Challenger.
The racing portion of my demo was pretty straightforward, featuring a course laid out on the streets of Detroit at night. The mission was titled 'An Initiation', and my goal was to win a race in order to prove I was skilled enough to run with the crew. The controls are standard for a racing game, with the right trigger accelerating the left trigger activating the brake. The Crew features a nitrous boost system, which is activated using the A button.
This particular race was not based on a set number of laps; rather you speed from one check marker to the next until you reach the eventual finish line. I took first place easily enough and maintained my lead for the rest of the race. There were some signs of a police presence, with sirens blaring and police lights flashing, but they did not seem to have any impact on the actual race or try to slow me down. At one point a helicopter flew directly overhead and followed me for a few legs of the race, though again this had no actual impact on the gameplay and seems just for show.
Once I completed the race, the booth attendant set up a co-op mission between myself and the gamer at the adjacent demo station. The objective was to take down the driver of an orange pick up truck by smashing into his car until it became immobile. After a brief cutscene, we began the mission in identical model cars with slightly different paint jobs in order to tell us apart. Both of our cars appeared in hot pursuit of the same rogue objective.
This mission had an off-road spin to it, taking place in the dirt, wild grass, and even sprawling out onto a nearby beach. It took a small amount of time to get used to coordinating efforts between the two of us (at one point we recklessly smashed into each other and nearly let our target get away). Under the pressure of a two minute time limit we eventually succeeded in ramming the truck so much that it flipped over. Mission accomplished, and the game declares a winner between the two human players based on how much damage you inflict on the enemy.
Visually, The Crew does not appear to be much of a technical upgrade over what the PS3 or 360 could accomplish with racing games, although I am willing to hold back on my criticism due to a less than ideal display set-up on the show floor.
Thus ended my hands on with The Crew, but by no means is that the limit of what the game promises to offer. The Crew will give you the opportunity to race all across the United States, with cities such as Chicago getting their own unique sandboxes for the player to explore. On top of that the mission variety is said to be huge, including both single player and cooperative multiplayer set ups.
The Crew is scheduled to release on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC some time in 2014.
