The Crew

Despite its huge open world and ability to keep you trapped, The Crew fails miserably on its core requirements due to its awful gameplay and relative lack of car variety.5Crew Cutscene fetish Ivory Tower Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005) Trap ubisoft...

Good: A solid game that definitely has an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun....

Ultimately, The Crew is much like the Fast and Furious movies. You don't watch them for their brilliant plot lines or engaging acting: you sit back and enjoy the action. The Crew may lack finesse because it tries to do too much, but there's just enough...

The Crew deserves credit for the frankly staggering size of its open world, and the fact that it's absolutely filled to the brim with racing, challenges, a fat multiplayer offering, and exploration potential. This scope, however, has resulted in some...

When you struggle to find people to join your crew online, balk at the outdated graphics, and shake your head at the AI and the occasionally unpredictable physics, you realize: The Crew isn't that good after all. When you can't play due to server issues, you find a new game to play and leave The Crew in your dust.

There's no doubt that a huge part of The Crew's appeal is nostalgia for US road trips, whether previously experienced or just imagined. No game has mined that cultural seam quite so authentically or with such all-encompassing ambition. It's a game that requires and occasionally enforces patience, but like all great road trips it's about the journey, not the destination.

If the Xfinity-branded hypercar race a few hours in is anything to go by, The Crew is an overt attempt to capitalize on the popularity of modern car culture, and it would seem entirely cynical if not for a few redeeming design decisions. In the world of modern racing games that's just not enough to earn a victory lap.

The result may very well be the most frustrating game I've ever played — not because of its myriad frustrations, but because of the painstaking artistry buried beneath.

The Crew has a fantastic open world to explore and some excellent racing, but too much is second-rate about the visuals, the handling, the narrative and the mission design for it to make the most of all that good stuff. It’s worth playing for the scenery, the challenges and the variety of the gameplay, but it’s neither polished enough nor consistently strong to stand up to Forza Motorsport 2 as a thoroughbred next-gen racer.

As far as road trips go, The Crew is about as average as they come. There are some fun times, but you may be surprised to discover that America is a pretty empty place.

One of the most exciting racing game environments for years, unfortunately bound to a slew of dull races and superfluous...

The driving, while enjoyable, requires grinding through repetitive side missions before handling feels right, and the selection of cars is lacking. The Crew is an overly ambitious project that just doesn’t go the full mile.