The Crew 1 and 2 [reblog]
by Raycevick
2022
The Crew 1 is an absolute joke.
The context for this open-world arcade racing game about driving the fastest cars across the entire United States of America, is avenging your dead brother after being framed for his murder and recruited by the FBI to infiltrate a street racing gang.
The only reason this wasn't laughed out of the room the instant the intern drunkenly slurred it, is because of the era.
The early 2010s were polluted with pho-tough guy serious plotlines. Many blame Fast and Furious, and while I'm sure they've got an influence on this, I think it's more likely that Fast and Furious' imitators are more responsible for this trend.
It spilled over into far more than just Films and Video-Games too.
However, The Crew 2, a game with better graphics, vehicle handling, gameplay variety, and drops the bullshit serious tone… is an even bigger joke.
I've come to accept that one of the things I hate in this world with a burning passion is a tone of storytelling that I can't describe anything other as… Instagram.
You know what I mean…
"Ironic" T-Shirts, Liquid Death, Imagine Dragons, Fake Quotes, Kendall Jenner's Pepsi Ad, and basically, every Forza Horizon game.
It makes me wanna vomit.
You're going to a rave with cars.
Enjoy the bad cocktails and laptop beats, do some blow, and shut up.
Stop acting like you're the next Nikola Tesla, because you did an Ollie on Tiktok.
The difference is that in Forza, I can simply mute the voices and ignore it's cringy toxic "positivity" characters and actually enjoy the open-world driving.
The Crew 2 however… isn't better than any other racing game in its handling, presentation, sound-design, music selection, vehicle selection, or mission selection.
So I have a much harder time ignoring the insufferable voice overs, cutscenes, tutorials, UI design, score, and live service model, which are all made with this awful self-deluding self-help trite.
Revisiting The Crew 1, it's not a good game.
The gameplay is kinda trash, the campaign missions are a grind, and the story is outright pathetic… but god damn, is it way more entertaining than its sequel.
The awful story is honestly a little bit charming. It's really funny to see a supermodel hacker unironically named "r0xx0r" wink her way into a ride, only for Hans Zimmer Hollywood chase music to blare in your ear drums while a countdown timer's set to REACH THE SAFEHOUSE.
It's a goddamn mess, but I'd rather see someone try and fail rather than someone tell me they're saving the world by eating Kale and gnarly for drinking Tequila, and the day games stop employing this tone can't come soon enough.
