The Crew Beta Thoughts

[virtualTune]

Consider this a quick review ^^

 

First of all, Since I only received my beta code today, I can only reflect on about 2 hours of gameplay. 

 

Since this is a Beta, please note that all the bugs I will mention are not complaints, just observations.

 

First Impression:

The game looks a lot like Need for Speed Most Wanted. It has a similar interface, that can be accessed while driving (which I find rather stupid ^^). Anyways, the game looks nice for the most part. Sometimes the character model is more detailed, other times less. For example the clothes seem to have a poor shader, while skin looks very good. The AA is for the most part terrible, especially on diagonal lines. Round edges are smooth. I believe this is in part because the models, like background parts in the garage, or small assets in the city just have a very low poly count compared to the car models. Round edges like Exhaust pipes are sadly not round, though that is again because of the model, not the AA. I have yet to see a racing game with high poly models. On the other hand, many engines don't support that many polygons, and the required resources would probably be very high as well. 

The driving is very bad. It is very unresponsive and even when set to manual and maximum sensibility you always have to compensate for about half a second response time. After about half an hour I figured out how to turn properly, but cars still under-/oversteer far more than realistic. This makes weaving through traffic a nightmare. 

 

Performance:

At 1440p Ultra with a gtx 780 the game is barely playable. No surprises there, the game isn't optimized yet, no drivers for it and at the end of the day a single gtx 780 just isn't enough horse power to play a game at that LoD. I get around 25-33 fps at that setting. 38-45 on High, which is fine for me. I'd rather have a nicer game than some fps more (in a non-shooter). The game eats about 1.4Gb ram, which I find very surprising considering the Beta is over 15.5 GB to download. 13% CPU load. Takes about 20 seconds to get into the game upon start-up.

 

Bugs:

I will only list the major bugs that bothered me the most. First up, like with nearly every Beta, the game crashes sometimes. More frequently than others though. I'd say on average every 10 minutes. A problem that goes with that is that about 50% of the time you lose your save game. It's a beta so the savegame doesn't really matter, but it's annoying when you have to do the same mission 2 or 3 times. Next up freezes. Again something common for Betas, but just as annoying. For example, when done Tuning a car, the game will freeze (see video below). You will still see your car and an animated camera rotating around it, but you have no controls. When trying to close the game through windows, it pops up again, shows you an error and then ends. The whole process of crash to restarting the game takes nearly 5 minutes, because it takes for ever for the game to load again right after a crash/freeze. 

 

-vT

 

I will continue playing until tomorrow when the Beta unfortunately ends. If i make it substancially further through the SP, or be able to play in MP races, I'll add that to the original post. 

 

Here the Tuning video (with freeze)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7yBqbr6EYM

[MattP123]

Meh

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

It is such a dissapointment. all they had to do was make the handling of the cars realistic and it would have been one of the best games ever made.

[Excon]

The driving chararcteristics are bleh, reminds me of Burnout: Paradise. Also they butchered the shape of the US and scaled it to small.

[virtualTune]

The driving chararcteristics are bleh, reminds me of Burnout: Paradise. Also they butchered the shape of the US and scaled it to small.

Ohh please, the driving in Paradise was indeed Paradise compared to this crap. And yes, as to be expected it isn't the whole US, but rather a bunch of cities with a little bit urban are around it ^^

[Excon]

Ohh please, the driving in Paradise was indeed Paradise compared to this crap. And yes, as to be expected it isn't the whole US, but rather a bunch of cities with a little bit urban are around it ^^

To be fair this is still in its early stages and can/will be refined. The map is atrocious 

[virtualTune]

I doubt the map will get much bigger in just a few months. they could fix the driving though

[Brandonsr]

I was excited about this game, but I don't think I will be buying it after playing the beta. The driving mechanics just didn't feel right to me, and because of that I did not enjoy playing it. If they can fix the biggest issue, I will probably reconsider buying it.

[virtualTune]

I agree. I wont buy it until somebody tells me the mechanics have improved.

[TheSLSAMG]

Xbox has Forza Motorsport, a game that is so good that it will eventually make me buy an Xbox One.

PlayStation has Gran Turismo, tried and true.

What does PC have? Shit. The good games are in slow development and the shit ones run rampant. GTA IV has more realistic driving characteristics than this.

[Superspeed07]

for a beta it isn't terrible, horribly optimized, they need to get the settings figured out so that the fps limit isn't greyed out, unlock the rest of the control mappings (cough shifting cough) a better control of the Voice system needs to be put in, I think it should be with the audio settings instead of being something else.

 

physics need a bit of work but they are not that far off, having tried all 3 settings sport felt fairly close to what I would deem decent. Hardcore felt really good when you could keep the car going in the right direction. what needs work though is the jumping, ie the car levels out too fast and just feels odd. Also hitting certain objects curbs are most noticeable the car will just start bouncing...

 

The map seems to be well done from what i've seen so far... It is inspired by the United States(lower 48), they seem to have done a decent job with filling the place up. the size is impressive as there is only one game to my knowledge that has more area to explore.. The map is ~5000 square km / just under 2k square miles.

 

I am still looking forward the game and can't wait to run around on it with my friends.

[ACatWithThumbs]

If they fix the driving then I'm probably going to buy it.
Right now it just feels so heavy and wonky.
The fact that you can customize you car is already a reason to buy it.
Because for whatever reason devs just stopped making games with a big amount of car customization.

[virtualTune]

Xbox has Forza Motorsport, a game that is so good that it will eventually make me buy an Xbox One.

PlayStation has Gran Turismo, tried and true.

What does PC have? Shit. The good games are in slow development and the shit ones run rampant. GTA IV has more realistic driving characteristics than this.

Project Cars? Even Gran Turismo can't keep up with that realism, let alone Forza. 

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

Xbox has Forza Motorsport, a game that is so good that it will eventually make me buy an Xbox One.

PlayStation has Gran Turismo, tried and true.

What does PC have? Shit. The good games are in slow development and the shit ones run rampant. GTA IV has more realistic driving characteristics than this.

You have to be kidding?

 

PC has the most realistic racing simulators that exist.

[killtothis]

You really shouldn't be sharing your opinions of the game at this stage unless you have the expressed consent from Ubisoft themselves, as being in the beta you agreed to the conditions of the NDA.

 

EDIT: Disregard this comment as TC has rightly pointed out there is no longer an NDA surrounding the beta. 

Edited July 24, 2014 by killtothis

[shiftberry]

generic handling, all the cars feel the same which is a serious pun!

 

fuck you Ubi$oft, you suck at making racing games and make sure to stick with your own other profitable franchises!

[virtualTune]

Nope, no NDA on The Crew anymore

https://twitter.com/TheCrewGame/status/491926510379741184

[killtothis]

Nope, no NDA on The Crew anymore

https://twitter.com/TheCrewGame/status/491926510379741184

 

 

I apologise, Wasn't aware this was the case. Wasn't trying to be an ass or anything just didn't want the LTT community to have issues with Ubisoft or for yourself to be black marked for future betas. 

I do completely agree with your impressions though game sure has a NFS feel, and I'm not fond of the current driving physics, I play a lot of sims Rfactor2/iRacing etc and although I wouldn't expect them to be of that nature in the current state they're very sloppy, all the cars I've tested feel the same and handle as if they're AWD. Luckily I've not had many crashes so most of the time I've had with the game has been playing. 

[virtualTune]

I apologise, Wasn't aware this was the case. Wasn't trying to be an ass or anything just didn't want the LTT community to have issues with Ubisoft or for yourself to be black marked for future betas. 

I do completely agree with your impressions though game sure has a NFS feel, and I'm not fond of the current driving physics, I play a lot of sims Rfactor2/iRacing etc and although I wouldn't expect them to be of that nature in the current state they're very sloppy, all the cars I've tested feel the same and handle as if they're AWD. Luckily I've not had many crashes so most of the time I've had with the game has been playing. 

no harm done. I must admit I was a bit unsure before posting this and the video until I saw the tweet. Yeah I just had a 90 minutes session without problems. There was a small patch around 10pm in europe, which I believe fixed some of the bugs.  As far as the cars go, I unfortunately haven't had the chance to try any more cars than the 4 in the beginning and some in the missions. Only Level 6 atm, but I hope I can get to 10, and thus NYC before the end of the beta. I must say that I like the impact of terrain on the friving. Sure it is to be expected, but i think it is well executed. However the Skills races are for the most part nearly impossible with the steering -.-

 

If people are interested in any particular footage, let me know

[leelaa14]

Ubisoft and driving games don't go Ubisoft and games don't go.

[Alpha11]

To me, this game feels a lot like Test Drive Unlimited 2. The driving physics definitely feel like it, and I think they should be improved.

[virtualTune]

Something else I have noticed while we are on physics, in the take down missions it is enough to touch the car at 5 mph and it will load a sequence, similar to the one you get when you crash, with the other car going flying

Also, when you replay a mission several times, you usually skip the cut scene. But when you don't, you can often see your car almost tipping over to the side during the cutscene So I believe those cutscenes before missions are renderd in-engine rather than a third party program.

Also, I made it to level 10, which, for those who don't have the beta, means you have to drive from detroit to St. Louis, to Chicago and then to New York. You get from Chicago to NYC in a little over 5 minutes if you stick to the roads. In reality it takes you at least 12 hours

[virtualTune]

As promised, here is the updated review at the end of the beta. Uplay servers just went down, so I can only assume it was to disable the Beta. 

 

I'll go in order of impact on the game:

 

1. The driving mechanics get better! I have now played trough the story and my car, still a 370z, is much higher rated. As you can see in the video of the original post, my car used to be S13 (S for Street version). Now it is at S152. Not maxed out, but far better than stock. The steering feels more responsive and thus more controllable, far less movement is necessary to turn. Tapping the brakes or simply letting go off the gas is enough for most turns. 

 

2. The game doesn't crash anymore. I mention the small patch before, that seemed to have fixed it, but there was also another patch today (1.01). For me, it has decreased performance I get frame drops every 5 minutes. Not a huge deal, but it used to be just fine pre-patch. 

 

3. With the first patch also came multiplayer lobbies with voice sound. Sadly there is no way to easily disable the received sound. Instead you have to go to the map and then select current session players and mute them one by one. A simple option in the Audio menu would have been far better. Also, there was no "tutorial"on how to disable the voice sounds, so for the first hour today, I played with no game sounds ^^

 

4. The whole map is open. Even though you can only level up to Level 10, you can still drive across the country. This is, while time consuming also very fun in my experience. It is nice to see their interpretation of Major Cities like Miami, different important terrains like New England, Florida or Arizona. I was hoping to make it all the way to make it all the way to LA, but the Beta ended before I could get there

 

5. While you can't compete in the tournaments outside of Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and NYC, there are still things to do all across the country. There are Satellites spread out quite far from one another, that you can locate to enable all the missions in the area. In the case of the beta that of course doesn't matter, but since they are usually near important landmarks, they are still worth checking out. Also, there are Car parts you can find along the way. Unlike the Satellites though, they are not visible on the map. You are alerted when one is nearby and have to sear a little bit. There are 20 parts all across the country and if you find all you get a Hot Rod. It looks a lot like the Hot Rod from Burnout: Paradise although it won't wheelie It's is a bit faster than my car, but not like a Ford GT for example. I think its point is simply to be a trophy. I have so far only seen one player with it, but considering how much driving you have to do, I am not surprised. 

 

6. There are a few new major bugs. If your car touches certain walls or fences that you should be able to destroy but are to slow to, you car will slowly glide up the wall and you can't do anything. once your car is perpendicular to the ground it counts as a crash and you can respawn. Also, every now and then cars come flying onto the road at insane speeds crashing into other cars, or you. Totally random and sometimes quite funny to see the physics engine hard at work, but also a bit annoying. Something else, you can not teleport to crew members. You can, teleport very close to them if you have discoverd the area, but not right next to them - quite frustrating. 

 

I have recorded much more Videos today, mainly of the new Terrains and the major sights not seen in Trailers yet. It will take me a while to compile and upload them though. 

 

That's it for now!

 

-vT

[ericlee30]

Looks like every other racing game to me.

[virtualTune]

then you havent played a lot of racing games Simply the fact that you aren't restricted to roads is quite rare in an open world racer.