{"id":35244,"date":"2023-09-15T15:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/the-crew-motorfest-review\/"},"modified":"2023-09-15T15:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T14:00:06","slug":"the-crew-motorfest-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/the-crew-motorfest-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crew Motorfest Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Not many things are better the smaller they get. Mortgages? Certainly. Golf scores? Sure. Kidney stones? Okay, yes. But video games? That\u2019s more of a grey area. For The Crew Motorfest, developer Ivory Tower has chosen to give its chunky interpretation of the entire continental USA the chop in favour of something far more concise: a scaled-down riff of the single island of O\u2019ahu, Hawaii. The result is better in some ways and worse in others, but overall it\u2019s actually an experience that sometimes feels like it\u2019s trying harder to emulate Forza Horizon than its own predecessors. I can\u2019t say I blame them considering how much I loved Horizon 5, and they\u2019ve done a good enough job at it that I\u2019ve had many great moments in Motorfest over the past several days. It has the best handling in the series so far, and it does boast some incredibly strong lighting. However, while Motorfest is a mostly earnest romp for car lovers in a vibrant, tropical paradise, it definitely loses some momentum due to its confusingly dead world and slightly uneven campaign, and its omnipresent, baked-in microtransactions are a constant bugbear.<\/p>\n

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After its handbrake turn from an illegal, underground street racer in the 2014 original to the sanctioned motorsport TV show format of The Crew 2 in 2018, The Crew Motorfest has peeled away in yet another new direction: that is, it\u2019s now based around a bustling summer car culture festival. Let\u2019s admit it\u2019s not exactly original, though: the Forza Horizon series has had this patch accounted for since 2012.<\/p>\n

A Motorfestivus for the Rest of Us<\/h2>\n

However, it really does get off to a very positive start, with a confident and well-curated prologue segment that gives us an effective taste of Motorfest\u2019s varied racing action and \u2013 immediately after that \u2013 the freedom to head out into O\u2019ahu to tackle the large pile of events in essentially whatever order we choose. <\/p>\n

Admittedly, Motorfest has far, far less real estate to race on than The Crew or The Crew 2.<\/section>\n

Admittedly, Motorfest has far, far less real estate to race on than The Crew or The Crew 2. You can drive all the way around the island in a little over 15 minutes; in The Crew 2 it takes around 40 to 60 minutes to drive from one side of the map to the other. However, the narrower focus has <\/em>resulted in a map that\u2019s more handsome and densely detailed (and, while it lacks the same ambitious scope, it doesn\u2019t seem to be plagued by nonsensical, procedurally generated storefronts selling chicken-grilled coffee). I do miss the sheer variety of vistas and landmarks of The Crew 2 but there are moments \u2013 particularly during sunsets \u2013 where it looks quite exceptional, although there are also times where low flying reveals some pretty egregious vegetation and shadow pop-in. It\u2019s at its worst hedge hopping over the centre of the island.<\/p>\n

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Overall, the map is a little dead, though. There are no people on the streets, and traffic is extremely light. Motorfest tries to add zest by tossing in AI racers that spawn in suddenly and dart through the streets around us, but it actually just makes the free-roam driving occasionally frustrating. Traffic cars can be collided with, but AI cars and other racers can be ghosted through. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not always instantly clear which is which at 400 kilometres per hour. Motorfest does have a better approach to trackside smashables than The Crew 2, though, and far fewer of them will completely stop us dead.<\/p>\n

Motorfest splits its campaign into a series of themed Playlists, each drilling down on either a particular car type, driving style, or other aspect of auto culture. For instance, one Playlist focuses on Japanese custom shop Liberty Walk. The voiceover work here is a little stern but it\u2019s a cool and occasionally educational showcase of some heavily customised cars. Another highlights the history of the 911, which is a clever way to make use of several generations of the iconic Porsche that Motorfest has at its disposal. <\/p>\n

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My favourite so far is definitely the Donut Media Playlist, which is mostly a series of fun showdowns between famous rival vehicles. Known for their automotive apparel and YouTube content, Donut has already had a couple of collaborations with Forza Horizon 5 prior to its appearance in Motorfest \u2013 but the addition of hosted vignettes before each race here injects a little more of Donut\u2019s madcap approach to motoring, and I actually found their Motorfest appearance the more entertaining of the two.<\/p>\n

Not every Playlist has landed for me, though. For instance, I\u2019m quite disappointed in the drifting Playlist. The first few events are passable, although I don\u2019t love that they\u2019re hosted on huge and unrealistic raised structures \u2013 including one that coils into the sky like a giant spring. The next few actually resemble real-world drifting on twisting mountain roads, but then it just loses the plot completely and throws us into several traditional races. The pretext is that you\u2019re supposed to discover whether a drift car can beat street cars in a conventional street race, but the upshot is\u2026 we\u2019re driving to be as quick as possible and not to look as cool as possible. It\u2019s essentially the opposite of drifting. Why these events constitute the whole crescendo of the drifting Playlist is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m also doubly disappointed that Motorfest\u2019s boat and plane events have been lumped together into a single Playlist that largely feels like an afterthought. Like The Crew 2 before it, the water effects in Motorfest are genuinely great and racing through huge swells is chaotic fun \u2013 but there are far fewer boat events in Motorfest than there are in The Crew 2. <\/p>\n

Aircraft events are again mundane races against the clock, and the planes are still woefully slow. Motorfest adds a Grumman F8F Bearcat to its hangar \u2013 literally one of the fastest piston-engine aircraft of its era \u2013 but it\u2019s barely capable of a third of its real top speed in Motorfest. Thanks to this, flying feels mostly dull \u2013 and it\u2019s not helped by the fact the default flight model is absolutely awful. For reference, there\u2019s an aircraft handling assist that automatically locks some of the flight axes, but the flying feels infinitely better with it toggled off (I\u2019d recommend using the chase camera that rolls with the wings \u2013 not the one locked to the horizon).<\/p>\n