“Cars, bikes, rides — and good vibes,” are some of the first words that you’ll hear within the opening minutes of The Crew Motorfest, and it’s a great summary of what this experience has to offer. After taking the new racer for a test drive during a closed beta test held last weekend, I stepped out of the cab feeling exhilarated.
As cliché as it may sound given the context, my time with this beta version of The Crew Motorfest felt like a vacation that I’ll be telling my peeps about for quite some time. Ivory Tower, take my passport.
Shifting gears in the tropics
This impressions piece derives from my experience with the PC version of The Crew Motorfest. Although some users reported major performance issues, personally I didn’t encounter any.
As if The Crew 2 didn’t already cement the series’ departure from the grungy, NFS-styled action tones from the series’ first entry, Motorfest absolutely signifies that The Crew as a series is now all about having a party atmosphere, centered around car culture.
Like the name “Motorfest“ suggests, this game features yet another fictional car festival being held in a signature location, filled with off-the-wall events that have been curated to test the skills and adrenaline of competing gearheads. Sound familiar?
Indeed, let’s talk about the Chevy Tahoe in the room—The Crew Motorfest is certainly thematically very similar to that of the Forza Horizon series; arguably even more so than The Crew 2 already was. In some ways, I find it a little difficult to find a big line of separation between the two ideas, especially now that Motorfest ditches its predecessor’s biggest selling point, which was a massive map of the entire contiguous United States.
In addition, while Motorfest does retain the feature of a multi-vehicle roster, as boats and airplanes are once again playable, they’re absolutely not as prominent. At least from what was available in this beta version, it does appear that cars are back to being the prime focus. Meanwhile, other vehicle seem to be sitting in the trunk, let alone even the back seat. none of this really is a bother to me.
All things considered, however, none of this is yet to really be a bother to me.
The Crew Motorfest takes you on a tropical adventure
The Crew Motorfest finally departs from the series’ long-standing anchoring point of the mainland USA, to now descend upon what’s arguably the country’s most exotic state, the beautiful archipelago of Hawaii. Both this and Alaska were understandably left out of the two prior entries in the series.
It’s quite interesting that Ivory Tower decided to reduce the map down to a single location—and a relatively small island, at that. Even so, it must be said that the largest of the Hawaiian islands, Oahu, is the one that was chosen to be the main stage for the Motorfest. So far, it seems that other Hawaiian islands, although some are visible, aren’t accessible.
All of this may sound like a significant downgrade considering the sheer scope of scenery that was especially on display back in The Crew 2, but that conclusion is thankfully not the case at all.
The Crew Motorfest’s take on Oahu is pleasant, as the scenery designers have clearly taken time to carve out what presents itself as a carefully, stylishly arranged rendition of ‘the Big Island,’ as it’s known.
Famous landmarks and locations such as Pearl Harbor and Honolulu are featured, but this is not meant to be a 1:1 representation of the real Oahu island.
Instead, Motorfest’s virtual Oahu contains just enough recognizable scenery and terrain to be believable, but with some creative flare added in for the sake of moulding the map to fit the needs of the game itself. And, from the various events I tried out, along with just exploring the map itself, it all looks and flows very well.
In my eyes, this is actually much more appealing than the seemingly machine-built map of The Crew 2, which understandably had to make a lot of concessions and simplifications due to its size. Here in The Crew Motorfest, you can definitely tell that the scenery designers have been able to take their time to craft an enthralling new world for players to romp around in, and enjoy some gorgeous vistas along the way.
The sparkling azure waters of the island’s coasts, nicely dense jungles, hot urban sprawl of Honolulu—it’s all here, and makes for a great set piece for various kinds of racing. Of course, racing is The Crew Motorfest’s biggest strength.
Tune-up tales
Almost immediately upon taking the controls of the first race, I noticed a solid improvement in the game’s most important aspect, the driving mechanics.
Back with The Crew 2, one of my biggest pet-peeves is that its driving model felt just a tad ‘off.’ While certainly not bad, in a way, at least to me, it seemed that the game’s effort to have such a wide focus on allowing players to operate such a wide variety of different vehicles led to it not having any vehicle type feel truly amazing. Rather, they mostly just felt ‘good enough.’
With The Crew Motorfest on the other hand, perhaps due to the core of the experience returning to being mostly centered on cars, or just a complete rework of the driving model entirely, the physics feel great.
Vintage cars feel heavy and respond a little sloppily, as they should. Modern hypercars, on the other hand, benefit from better aerodynamics, tighter tuning, and many modern creature comforts.
Off-road cars feel hefty and robust, while bikes feel nimble and very manoeuvrable. This is very much still a ‘simcade’ experience, but a well polished one.
Not only is it great that everything in the garage plays better, but Ivory Tower made an excellent call by allowing users to transfer vehicles over from The Crew 2 into Motorfest entirely for free. This way, once you start your new adventure in Motorfest, you can focus on accumulating funds, rather than having to spend too much early in the game on new rides.
That said, the in-game economy still sports fairly high price tags for new vehicles and certain parts, and pay-outs still aren’t as generous as in the Forza Horizon titles. Though, it doesn’t seem to be particularly slow to get in-game cash, either.
Additionally, Crew Credits are returning, along with the various cosmetic items that you can buy with them. Though I’m not really a fan of having to pay real money for in-game items, I don’t find any of it to be extensively egregious and it’s certainly possible to enjoy the game as it is, without shelling out any real dough.
Activity centre
What’s probably the most interesting change to me is how events are handled. It seems that just about everything falls under the new Motorfest Playlist series.
Each of which is a curated collection of events that are focused around specific themes. For instance, I tried out the Hawaiian Scenic Tour and Vintage Garage playlists during the test.
The Hawaiian Scenic Tour playlist features a variety of different cars, and has you exploring every sector of the map with them.
From whizzing past famous landmarks, to taking scenic routes around different parts of the island, the Hawaiian Scenic Tour honestly felt very similar to cruise excursions I’ve taken in real life. There was a lot to see and even learn as the narrator explained various fact about the island’s history and culture.
This playlist interestingly capped off with the only non-car events I played during the test; one of which was a powerboat race, and the other being a ring challenge in an airplane.
It remains to be seen just how much these other two vehicle types really get to shine in Motorfest, but if this beta was any indication, then perhaps one can expect to stay on the ground for most of the playthrough.
The setting of Oahu is still perfect for housing all sorts of different races, as evidenced by the few events that were available in the beta. If plane/boat events do turn out to be an afterthought in the full game, then it would certainly beg the question as to why they were brought back at all.
As for the Vintage Garage playlist, it has the compelling gimmick of taking you on a ‘tour through the ages,’ as each new event gradually ascends you through different car eras from the 60s to the 80s.
Complete with the scenery being modified to represent the different eras, along with various explanations from the narrator about the car, it felt like I was playing an interactive museum tour, in the best way possible.
Due to time constraints, I couldn’t try the other playlists, but even these two modes gave me a pretty solid taste for how Motorfest handles and how its structure appears to flow. It is a bit strange to not have a varied collection of race activities posted around the map to try out one by one, as per usual in open-world racers of this type.
That said, once you complete the main events of each playlist, various smaller challenges then open up, which are scattered around the map. Some involve completing tasks with specific cars, while others simply ask you to perform a quick challenge, such as a speed trap or a slalom.
Beyond this, there are the various live events which will be cycled in and out regularly. Admittedly, I didn’t try any of those. However, just like every other live service title, they’ll certainly serve as a strong enticement to return to the game regularly.
Overall, it does appear that Motorfest‘s handling of activities is a departure from the norm, including that of its predecessor. In The Crew 2, there are different race teams focused on specific kinds of race disciplines. All of that seems to be gone now, with everything just nestled under the Motorfest Playlists. But, I want to wait and see exactly how the full game looks verify all of this.
The final stretch
Without a doubt, The Crew Motorfest is shaping up to be quite the project from Ivory Tower. Considering the incredibly long tail of support that its predecessor has gotten and is actually still getting right up until the release of the new title, this speaks very well for what the future of Motorfest itself will look like.
In the time between this game’s release and the launch of The Crew 2, two Forza Horizon titles have come out and each have done remarkably well. Forza Horizon 5 notably made quite the splash by having the biggest debut in the series’ history in terms of player count, along with receiving stellar reviews.
That said, from what I’ve played, I do believe it has what it takes to stand on its own four wheels and leave its own tire marks behind. The Crew Motorfest feels and plays differently than the Forza Horizon titles, and its content rollout is handled in a different way. Even so, both titles are absolutely tied to their online functionality and various styles of live events, for better or worse.
Nevertheless, The Crew Motorfest kept me beaming from ear to ear throughout the several hours I put into the beta test. From its fun gameplay, to the gorgeous visuals, well-crafted map and fresh soundtrack choices, “it’s a vibe,” as the kids say. There are so many little quality-of-life changes and additions that I couldn’t even mention here, as I want to see how its all further fleshed out in the full release.
Just like the end of any good trip, I felt a wave of melancholy sweep over me when Monday rolled around and the test servers were shut down.
With just over a month before the game’s proper launch, there’s still quite the wait ahead. But, I genuinely look forward to hitting the streets of Oahu without limit come September 14.
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