In a different interpretation of The Crew series, you will hardly find any common factor in all three titles, the previous two and the recently released The Crew Motorfest. Her debut came with a title that told a coming-of-age story in an open world. The second part abandoned the narrative piece entirely and incorporated one of the largest maps in history, practically a scaled depiction of the United States.
In the third part, its map is not in the same grand designs of its predecessor, but the title moves the action to the island of Oahu in Hawaii and takes inspiration (in the most mundane way possible) from Forza Horizon to capture a corresponding festival for cars and expand it by adding planes, engines and boats to a rich roster of enormous proportions. The integration into the content is direct, simple and fast and the good thing is that from the first minute to the last minute, if there can be one, the action is non-stop and frenetic. Over 600 models from vintage cars, off-road, new unreleased versions of supercars to last year's Red Bull F1 championship car, but also engines, airplanes and powerboats, fill the fleet and are displayed in a multitude of events. The core of the title, regarding the single player, are the 15 playlists that require completion by the player and are strikingly different from one another.
In them, a series of different challenges are sought, starting from the simplest such as completing races with specific cars, such as antiques, modern supercars and small hatchbacks, or crossing an impressive point on the map with a specific car, such as a Lamborghini or a plane and end up in more complex ones such as the completion of car races with the highlight of course being the use of the Red Bull RB18, in races that require tire management and appropriate pitstops. Of course there are also various playlists that are simply showcases, with impressive collaborators, such as Supercar Blondie, the guys from Liberty Walk and the people from Donut Media, with their playlist undoubtedly being the absolute highlight.
So far the similarities to Forza Horizon are many and given the quality of the title, first contact is indeed impressive. But when time passes, the wear and tear begins to show. The AI is very predictable and quite manageable even on the higher difficulty stages. The matches, mainly in specific playlists, seem to be repetitive, while some significant profit is missing, as the models that we win or that we buy from the money that the victories bring, only concern the open area of the map. All races take place with predetermined loan cars. The worst thing is that even if you have bought the same car and customized it to your liking with a striking color, again in the race the most boring initial choice will come back. Weird, if nothing else, maybe due to a bug, although after several days it looks like it's just a choice made by the creators.
Equally important is that several playlists require the purchase of a car or, even worse, a license, which is purchased with a rather expensive exchange rate for the title's currency. Essentially, there is blackmail that requires the player to use in-game money, using microtransactions to complete them, while there are areas of the map (and thus the game) that are unlocked after completing a certain number of playlists. They may not be necessary for the completion of the title, but certainly the challenging ease of their use and their connection to the points where the flow of matches and in general the main part of the game stops, shows that there is probably an issue there. This becomes more intense in the online part of The Crew: Motorfest, which although it is quite rich and very interesting with three different modes, eventually these transactions become necessary to achieve the goals. The Grand Race, which is a race of up to 28 players with the vehicles, but also the route changing during the race, is essentially the only one that is not affected and is the most impressive, while the other two, which concern the completion of specific objectives, on a monthly or weekly basis, with the best being awarded, they are practically a contest of who has the biggest wallet and not necessarily whats better abilities.
The technical area, in continuation of the previous titles, is anything but disappointing. The scenery is very beautiful and the current generation consoles are wonderfully responsive, with the constant transitions from plane, to boat and then to car being admittedly a very great technical achievement. The same is true with the flow, especially the land and sea vehicles, which have an ideal sense of speed, while the handling is at a fairly good level, always with the controller. In contrast, the integration of aircraft is somewhat misplaced. Planes are clunky, clunky, and probably too slow, which is probably also related to the game's map being smaller. Handling them has also become completely awkward, with no real help from the game, and the fact that the smaller planes are more fun probably says it all.
Ultimately though, The Crew Motorfest's biggest problem is that unlike the previous two titles in the series, it tries too hard to emulate an already flawless result. Those who have dabbled even a little with the Forza Horizon titles are unlikely to see anything more impressive here. Everything seems to fall behind, because in practice it is difficult to find anything that has not already been captured to a high degree in that series. This does not mean that Motorfest is a bad game, quite the contrary, the problems that do exist are not so important to deeply affect the title and those who will enter without previous experience of the Microsoft title, will enjoy a very quality and enjoyable game, with a large map and very rich content. But, surely those who will find themselves digitally in Hawaii will not feel the same as those who had a controller in their hands and Scotland, Australia, Mexico or Italy spread out in front of them.
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