The Crew (Beta review)
WARNING! The views and opinions expressed here are my own. No cars/people/animals were harmed in the making of this post.
Well, I thought I would write up something for you okes that are between two minds about this. Obviously I have been playing on the PC as this is the closed beta. Unfortunately I was not able to get codes for the first beta, so I cannot ascertain as to what was changed/fixed.
The Driving/Handling
I have read and heard a lot of posts and people complaining about this subject. This is an arcade style racer, do not expect precise handling! On the other hand I don't really have an issue with the controls, granted I was playing with an Xbox360 controller for Windows and the entire game functions properly with it. The car handles as an arcade racer would for the most part. I was able to hold drifts around tight long corners, the ebrake/handbrake is probably my biggest concern in that it almost feels like it stops the front wheels and turns you on a dime.
I personally think the physics are quite accurate for a arcade racer. If you are driving a street tuned car and end up on the verge/dirt, you loose traction (like a lot) and wheels just spin. Obviously the opposite happens with a dirt/raid based tuned car. I find it quite refreshing and challenging then. It's a way to up the difficulty or create a challenge for yourself.
As you drive along in the open world your scenery/environment changes, as do the conditions. I find this quite pleasing and adds to the control of the ve-hicle (spoken like an American) in that driving up into mountains you find the car changes down to go up steep hills and grip changes as you find snow/ice on the roads.
The Story/Cut-scenes/Dialogue *slight spoilers*
I find the story to be very generic and done before, over and over again. The same old thing really, get hired by FBI to work your way up the ranks and get to the head honcho. #SpareMe
Dialogue ain't on par with things like TLoU or GTA, but that's not why we play games like this. Don't expect block buster voice acting, but still, it ain't bad. Cut scenes look nice though.
While you're driving though you get these little contact picture displays, which are a bit large imo and their mouths don't move in sync with what they're saying.
Ve-hicle Customization
I was pleasantly surprised here. If you're into this sort of thing there is plenty to customise. From front/rear bumbers to front/rear fenders and skirts. The surprise came for me when I jumped into the car to realise you can swap out the interiors, from seat/dash colours along with trim stiching. Of course this is all aesthetics and your car simply looks ugly again when smashed up and you'll be driving around a lot like this.
The World
To me this is the deciding factor. The world is massive. They have really done a great job with it. The transitions from area to area is fluid and flows nicely. Despite this being American based it was nice to see the use/option to have the metric system so I could guage in kilometers.
I decided to take a drive... I drove for roughly 100km's and looked at the time and I had been driving for about an hour. So it gives a nice representation of the vastness of the world. Last night I clocked just over 300km's in around 3 to 4 hours.
The world is not short of things to do either. From little skill activities which each reward you with parts or improvements for your cars to missions with bigger rewards. Not only that but they all have best times for you to beat yourself and your friends.
Plenty of sight seeing to do as little markers fill the environment with information about the landmarks. A nice touch for us who don't know The Americas and the history and includes a cute little in-game cinematic.
One beautifully amazing attention to detail for me was the fact that each county represents their actual police counterparts. As you drive across borders the look of the police vehilces change accordingly, not only that, but also their accents!!!! This was amazing to me, I was astounded!
EDIT: Network
Something I forgot to mention was that I noticed this was eating my bandwidth, constantly downloading at 3.36mbps. I had TeamSpeak running in the background as I was chatting to mates and I kept loosing connection to a point where I just closed TS. I don't know if this is due the seamless world loading and constant downloading, but make sure you have a decent line speeds too. I had people constantly popping in and out of the world, though I don't know if this will be able to be played offline. I don't think so.
In a nut-shell
Sorry for the lengthly post. Just trying to cover most of what I've experienced. I think this game has potential to be great but needless to say I will be getting it on PS4. I am going to try and stay as far away from this on PC as possible, given the Watch_Dogs debacle.
It almost looks like some of the same methods have been applied. The textures sometimes looks like they have a grainy look (like ISO noise in photography). I have experienced a considerable amount of pop-ins and vehicles dropping in (literally from the sky (or just a meter from the ground)). Sometimes I will be driving along pleasantly and then for no reason, BAM! Sound and video stutters like mad, for a few seconds the game almost looked frozen, then continues like nothing happened. Now granted this is the beta, and I hope they can patch/fix things like this. I just want to make it aware.
Well there you have it. I will still go home tinight and play some more, as it is enjoyable and fun. Hope you found this helpfull.
Peace out,
Beo...
