The Crew
The Crew is a racing game set in a persistent open world environment for free-roaming across a scaled-down recreation of the contiguous United States. The map is split into five regions: The Midwest, East Coast, The South, Mountain States, and West Coast. Each region has its own unique geographical features. Six main cities (one in each region, two in the Midwest) are featured in the game: Detroit and Chicago in the Midwest, New York City on the East Coast, Miami in The South, Las Vegas in the Mountain States, and Los Angeles on the West Coast. Various other cities, namely St. Louis, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Seattle, are also featured in the game. Over thirty smaller cities and towns line the countryside, such as Nashville, Norfolk and others. It takes approximately 45 minutes in real time to drive from coast to coast in-game.
Steam User 81
Much better than The Crew 2.
Steam User 56
1>2
Steam User 24
TL:DR
Get this game when on sale. Its a large open world with enough cars to have fun with. Beware, the driving physic need some hefty use-to tho!
Pros:
- Old but Gold. The game does show its ages, physics are a bit out of whack, but it still look good enough (much better than a Forza Horizon 1 / 2).
- Map is big. You can cruise around for hours without hitting the same roads twice, now that's something nice. As for accuracy of the location, i can't tell, i ain't 'murican, but the cities look pretty nice, especially under night rain.
- Car Customisation. The fact that most car have different set of bumpers, hood, spoiler and soo much more. This remind me of Midnight Club (minus under-glow) and NFS Underground.
- Still Online, but for how long.... If you have a/many friend, you can still play this game fully multiplayer. If your more of a loner like me, know that PVP and Summit (their season event) still ''work'', but i've yet to be able to join online PVP after trying at various hours. Can't blame the game on that, its getting old. Just an FYI.
- Mostly Seamless Loading time. I remember playing this game on X360 and that wasn't the case. But here, (im running the game on an SSD) CHANGING CAR take about 4 seconds. Yes, really. Fast travel? 4-6 seconds. Turn 10, please, take note!
-The Campaign isn't Garbage. I liked it so far. Your MC stay in character and the story is rather dark when you take the subtleties into account.
Con:
- Online will die. The game will have 10 years soon and i assume The Crew 3 will probably arrive too sometime in the next 2 years if it ever happen at all. PVP is already mostly dead.
- Physics. This is where it scratches all the wrong wound. Sometime, during cut scene, your car will flip over (happened a lot with the Dodge Challenger). Its fun once or twice, not every time i reload a 3 part mission. Most car I've driven feel kinda if they had 4 soap instead of tires. The jump are especially weird. Collision are also bizarre. Drift setting is the worst imo. Liked the Drag minigame tho, pretty fun.
-Crashes. Albeit not frequent, it did happen at least 3 time at the time of this review. The autosave system seem pretty good to avoid any data lost, but keep it in mind, it happen.
Overall, thats about it really. Its a fun, old racing open-world game. It sure doesn't deserve 60$ today, but i got it for 10$ with all DLCs and its a fun game.
Good day!
Steam User 50
The Crew is a powerful game that not only offers solace in times of personal loss but also raises awareness about the devastating impact of street racing. Sadly, I experienced this firsthand when I lost my parents in a tragic accident caused by street racers. The Crew became an escape that allowed me to heal while shedding light on the consequences of such reckless behaviors. It serves as a reminder to cherish our loved ones and work towards safer communities. With its immersive world, captivating gameplay, and meaningful message, The Crew has the power to inspire change and provide comfort to those who have experienced similar tragedies.
Your support and feedback are essential in spreading awareness and making a difference
Steam User 24
In my opinion the crew is the most underrated racing game of all time. Let me explain. The crew 2 and motorfest are fun games sure, but they lost what I think made the crew series so great and unique. The Crew may not have an extensive story or the biggest list of cars but what it does have is the best world in a racing game ever. It was so ambitious to create a map of this scale not just due to the size but mostly because of having to scale the entire U.S just right so that the player feels like they are actually in the country and I think they nailed it to the best of their ability. Players may see that many places are missing but remember this game was released in 2014 and this idea was never expanded on sadly. The world feels so big and unique to the point where you can keep driving for hours and not get that all too familiar feeling that you will reach the end of the map. Furthermore the open world police chases and things you can see along the way as well as real city and state landmarks keep the exploration of this game an absolute blast! I highly recommend people just try this if you are a fan of NFS or other arcade racing games and looking for something fresh!
Update as of 16/12/2023- Today we got some tragic news... The Crew 1 Servers will be shutting down on March 24th 2024. To most the crew 1 may just be a footnote in the series or gaming in general. But to me and im sure many others it was so much more. The crew is one of the most unique and extensive games ive ever played, especially for a Ubisoft game. I still remember when I first picked this up, how excited I was cruising around the midwest just looking at the map thinking WOW I get all this?! I wish I could feel that again. But this game didnt only have the width of an ocean, but the depth too, for a map this size there is a shocking amount of detail, when you cruise around the world feels alive, there is so many things to see. not just the hundreds of landmark locations but different events in the world, traffic, air traffic, animals etc. There is just so much to see and do. This game is honestly the U.S.A road trip that ive always wanted to do, and im so grateful for getting the opportunity to do so on here, although i dont have too many hours on here, i spent many hundreds on PS4 exploring every nook and cranny. Its sad to see that the crews uniqueness was never expanded on in the sequals. no matter what anyone says, the crew was never about the cars or customisation... It was about the world and exploring in a massively online setting, thats what made the crew so amazing and unique. Not to mention the awesome police chases going between different jurisdictions hearing the radio chatter and the vehicles its just so much more fun and realistic to me personally than NFS or anything else. Anyhow it is a shame that the crew 2 and subsequently motorfest diverted from all this and wanted to be like Forza Horizon, not saying theyre bad games just that I wish we could have got more of this, because its a master piece. But who knows maybe in the future! Its good to stay hopeful :) But in the words of... Idk someone, 'dont be sad that its over, be glad it happened'. So my friends please, enjoy these last few months with this gem of a game before it goes. I was hoping when they shut the servers off they would still make some way to play offline but it seems that isnt the case :( So cruise around, sightsee, enjoy the last police chases. Have fun and thank you for everything The Crew 1!!
Steam User 27
I enjoy this game more than the sequel "The Crew 2" and I like the inspiration taken from the Test Drive Unlimited franchise on some things like the map transition, car parts collectibles or the hidden credits when you zoom out on the map…
Ubisoft made gems at their peak.
The ultimate version is not expensive on sale (Something like 12 bucks)
Two complains I have in my 10 hours of playtime is how the cars handle sometimes, it's overally good, but it can be frustrating sometimes, especially when you want to do light steers
And the freedrive mini games that forces your way when you just wanna drive around the map chilling with no specific goal
You have 3 choices, you drive into them letting the challenge start and annoy you with the countdown sound effects, you try to avoid them making more efforts and ruining the fun of driving normally, or you constantly pull up your phone clicking « abort » eveytime you run into them
Whatever you choose, they’re the only ways I can think of to dealing with them
Otherwise, super soundtracks and graphics as well I just keep the ambiant radio on loop, it fits so well with the game
Not a fan of the story/characters but the races and exploration backs up the bad points pretty good
Steam User 41
WTF! So much better than Crew 2.