Gamescom has unveiled two highly anticipated AAA racing games. The first was the upcoming Forza Motorsport from Microsoft and the Turn 10 studio, from the presentation of which we have already brought you separate impressions. The second title was The Crew Motorfest by Ubisoft and Ivory Tower Studios. I’ve had a lot of fun playing the newest installment in this arcade racing series both at Gamescom itself and through the closed beta that took place just before the show.
As part of closed beta testing, the authors let the player directly into the open world.
Both the Gamescom demo and the mentioned beta showed the very beginning of the game, which takes you to the racing festival. With its atmosphere and style, it does not deny the inspiration of the rival Forza Horizon series. Given the brand’s popularity, Ubisoft’s efforts to offer seemingly the same ingredients in the form of a carefree atmosphere, open world freedom, and a large number of cars cannot be too surprising. However, I think that in trying to emulate Forza Horizon, the authors of Motorfest went too far in some respects. This is already evident in the game’s introductory videos presented at Gamescom.
In the shoes of a self-made competitor, you find yourself on a colorful festival, some parts of which gradually introduce you to one of the characters. Within the short scenario racing scenes, I gradually got the taste of a night race of Japanese sports cars full of glowing neon, followed by an off-road race, followed by a formula single-seater meeting on a closed track and a racing veteran behind the wheel of the original AC Cobra. Finally, the introductory part ended with a supersport race in which I got to try out the Lamborghini Revuelto. It was this novelty from the well-known Italian manufacturer that graced the gaming booth at Gamescom. As with the aforementioned Forza Horizon, the Gamescom demo has ended.
For example, you can visit the famous Pearl Harbor.
But as part of the closed beta testing, the developers also let the player directly into the open world. The previous two entries in The Crew series, 2014 and 2018, boasted a fully rendered map of the US mainland. It was the ability to freely move around the giant map of the United States of America that was the game’s biggest advantage for me. In Motorfest, the developers decided to change this format and send players to the sunny Hawaiian island of Oahu, where they are allowed to visit, for example, the famous Pearl Harbor. Despite the fact that the game world is not processed on a 1:1 scale, the authors tried to introduce real sights into its environment.
As a fan of historical military equipment, I was interested in, for example, the battleship USS Missouri or the submarine USS Bowfin, which today act as a museum. So while the new The Crew will have a smaller world to explore than previous installments, it will ultimately depend on whether the developers manage to fill it with a sufficiently diverse and entertaining mix of content. In addition to a large number of licensed cars, the availability of motorcycles, boats and aircraft could help them in this. In addition to the environment, it was the width of the car park that could distinguish Motorfest from the memorable Horizon.
Subtitled Motorfest, The Crew series relies on a Forzy Horizon-style festival theme in its third installment. But the most fundamental change is the transition to a smaller and more compact game world that takes you to Hawaii. Otherwise, The Crew series, even with its third part, has remained true to the purely arcade gameplay, which, in addition to easy accessibility, relies primarily on a variety of races and a large number of vehicles. Crew Motorfest kicks off September 11 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Amazon Luna.
Source :Indian TV
