On the Horizon.
For every great trend, others will always follow. With the success of Forza Horizon, a racing series that blends the driving-sim and the arcade racer into one of the best racing series of all time, it is the festival approach that stands out as one of Forza Horizon’s most recognizable traits. From taking its races across Great Britain to beautiful Mexico, the series has relied heavily on creating these colorful and loud festivals as a beacon of car culture.
Back in 2014, developer Ivory Tower released The Crew, an arcade-style racer that allowed players to drive across the entirety of the United States, albeit a vastly shrunken-down version. Regardless, while the idea was impressive, its world didn’t quite live up to its premise with a lot of races and events not standing out as anything terribly impressive. The Crew 2 brought with it the inclusion of more ways to race, but only resulted in a marginally better experience, one that while fun, was left in the dust by the likes of Forza Horizon.
So, that brings us to The Crew: Motorfest, Ivory Tower’s third attempt at reinventing the series, one that borrows so much from Forza Horizon that the core identity of The Crew is barely recognizable here. While we swap the trek across America for a single island in O’ahu, Hawaii, The Crew: Motorfest is nonetheless a vast improvement over the previous two entries, one that feels more focused with some impressive events and significantly better handling for its huge roster of racing machines. While it does a great job of mimicking Playground Game’s stunning racing series, some ideas don’t quite pass the finish line.
The Crew: Motorfest begins with making your racer from a pretty limited toolset of options. Regardless of anything I tried to mix and match, I couldn’t produce a driver that I was happy with. This is largely due to a very limited set of faces and hair options that certainly didn’t impress. While I understand that your racer is the least important part of a racing game, this is an avatar that you’ll be seeing upon your victories around the island at least a hundred times over.
After you have created your driver, you’ll select a car to take out onto the island of O’ahu. At first, your main ride will feel like nothing more than a taxi, given that each event, or rather playlist as they are called, will loan you out the car you’ll need, largely due to each race detailing that car’s history and legacy. While you’ll eventually get to take your own cars into these events, there didn’t initially feel like there was a point in purchasing any cars whatsoever. That changes once you have beaten the playlist, but it’s an odd thing regardless and results in a ton of gameplay before you can really take advantage of your growing garage.
The Crew: Motorfest features 15 playlists that vary from the modding scene to Japanese street racing, to drifting culture and the legacies of both the Porsche and Lamborghini. These playlists dig into the culture of their cars and more, giving you a solid history lesson should you be into it. These playlists come with their own aesthetics, music, and hosts that will guide you through them. While I really enjoyed the whole Made in Japan series and their group of hosts, especially with Hinata coming back for the drifting series, I found the collective of personalities elsewhere to be overwritten and poorly performed.
One playlist that I really enjoyed was a trip down memory lane in a series of vintage cars, which has you taking directions from a series of photographs given that those models are not equipped with a GPS. Otherwise, you have playlists that feature American muscle cars, offroading, to a series hosted by Donut Media that pits a series of rivals against one another. I will say that the latter playlist as well as the drifting series largely abandon the original concept of their playlist about halfway through, turning them into nothing but specific cars in standard races.
Where I feel The Crew: Motorfest stumbles is largely found within the Bike Lovers and Ocean N’ Sky playlists. While the boats, planes, and bikes are fine editions, I don’t feel these playlists play to their strengths. Boats and planes share a playlist together but taking to the skies is simply through a series of objective rings instead of against any opposition. Boats are fine but vastly underused, and its playlist has the most disappointing hosts across each playlist. Considering the playlist is half boats and half planes, it’s a shame the courses are not a bit more exciting and often come across as pretty by the numbers. That said, one of the boat events featured harsh winds that rocked the boat from time to time. It’s a shame the other events for the boats didn’t feature something else to make it unique.
When it comes to bikes, They were the only vehicles I simply didn’t like driving. You’ll take to them in other playlists briefly, but the Bikes Lovers playlist didn’t feel unique enough for me, especially given the strengths and themes of the other playlists. I did enjoy having Malu, the Motorfest PR host you met at the start of the game alongside me, but the courses didn’t feel well suited to some of the poor handling I experienced with a few of the bikes.
When you begin your journey to complete these playlists, only a few will be open to you. While you can essentially take them on in any order, some playlists require that you purchase the starting car in order to approach them. Given that you’ll be loaned the remainder of the rides you need, it feels like a needless cost when nearly every other playlist will just offer up that loaner without the cost upfront.
Upon completing a playlist, you’ll be free to bring any car to any race as well as open up a series of challenges. The challenges that open up across each playlist vary from hitting a certain speed on the highway at night, maintaining a set speed for a period of time, to deeply exploring the area around the event’s location for collectibles and photo opportunities. Each playlist rewards you with cash and various clothing items and cars as you complete more of the challenges set before you. While I appreciate the inclusion of these challenges, I feel only completionists will likely explore them to their fullest as the rewards are not altogether that impressive.
The island of O’ahu is certainly a smaller experience than in the previous games but visually provides a much better experience because of the larger focus on ensuring its smaller map is more detailed and designed around providing engaging events and courses. While the whole of the United States took around an hour to drive across in The Crew, O’ahu here takes about 18-20 minutes to lap the entire island, a feat performed in the Liberty Walk playlist, actually. Where the island gains some personality is that each playlist decks out O’ahu in decorations based on that event. From streamers to balloons to flags, banners, and more, each playlist has a unique style that transforms the island to suit the tone and feel of the playlist.
O’ahu looks fantastic, largely due to some spectacular lighting and great representation of the island. If you were a fan of Forza Horizon’s take on Great Britain and Mexico, that same level of love and care is present here across the island. However, taking to the skies at night as well as via a boat on the water, is far too dark and isn’t nearly as visually pleasing as driving around O’ahu’s streets at night. While fans of the festival show up at the start of the race, cheering in the crowds, as well as at the finish line, the residential and business sectors of O’ahu are empty and lifeless, despite the decorative flair each event provides. It’s a shame since the island is a visually pleasing location that deserves so much better.
Driving around the festival as well as towards your next race can often be an inconsistent experience. Not because of your car’s handling or anything visually, but because the cars that you’ll drive alongside are a mixture of real physical cars and ghost cars of other racers. This mixture is fine, but real cars provide collision whereas the ghost cars drive right through you. Given that you are often driving incredibly fast, it can be tough to determine which is which when you are pushing over 200km/hr. It’s a small nitpick, but one that resulted in several unfortunate crashes.
One of the biggest improvements in Motorfest from The Crew 2 is how great the cars feel to drive. While I still prefer the handling within Forza Horizon 4 and 5, I am still pleasantly surprised at how great this game feels to control. Cars have a better sense of weight and grip than The Crew 2 and corner especially well regardless of the upgrades you have equipped. Even the more novelty cars within the Vintage playlist, like the Volkswagen Kombi was a delight to drive.
While the handling and feel of the game’s cars are impressive, the way you unlock upgrades is notably less so. The Crew: Motorsport has a randomness to its unlocks, making it loot-based and unpredictable in what you are earning. As you win races or track down parts in the loot crates you’ll find all around the island, the only way to secure specific high-tier upgrades is by spending real money in the shop, something that just doesn’t feel great whatsoever. You’ll also need to scrap parts to make room in your inventory for more, or they will end up in your mailbox, which also has a considerably small limit. Why there is a stock limit is beyond me as it simply makes no sense. It’s a bizarre system that certainly needs a complete overall in a future sequel.
Motorfest states that it boasts over 600 vehicles at launch, but that is a bit of an exaggeration. While the collection is fairly impressive, even if it is missing a few heavy hitters like Hyundai, the 600 number is representative of counting multiple versions of exact same car due to different models having a few slight differences. Many of the cars are also rewards from The Crew 2 should you import them, making it the only way you can actually drive them. Still, the list of cars, boats, bikes, planes, and more, is still nothing to scoff at.
As you drive around in your car, you’ll be joined by Cara, the AI that is present in your ride, regardless of whatever you are driving. Cara will talk about events, hype you up for the next playlist and constantly mispronounce words, and even talk as if she is reading from a series of typos. Much of her dialogue, and this is shared with many of your hosts, feels stilted and conversations will have long gaps between them. While I don’t know if that is fixed by racing to your goal quicker, She would start talking and mention something and then not continue that conversation for another 15-20 seconds, almost as if she was meant to keep talking. This happened so frequently that I knew it wasn’t some sort of glitch.
Multiplayer within The Crew Motorfest can have you taking on events with your own crew, but it is the 28-player Grand Races that I was totally on board for. Even placing 10th in my first event was thrilling, largely because I didn’t quite have the upgrades or ride needed to keep up with the top players. I would alternate anywhere between 5th and 10th, with slamming into a tree near the end of my race to be my downfall. Regardless, the variety of events is pretty fine, such as the destruction battle royal, but lacks some truly unique reasons to keep up with playing with other players.
The Crew: Motorfest may be a slight step behind Forza Horizon 5 in both visuals and its overall package, but Motorfest is the first time that I have wrapped a game in its series from top to bottom. There is certainly an uneven sense of quality in its playlists and choice of rides, but from a total package angle, its choice to wear its Forza Horizon influences on its sleeves is one I am certainly there for. Its attempt to push into the festival genre is a solid one with plenty of room to grow as it also falls into some of the same issues I have with Forza Horizon itself. I think if developer Ivory Tower returned with a sequel that put a bigger importance on the variety of experiences and made the festival and its world feel more alive, then Forza Horizon could have a serious contender instead of its runaway first-place lead.
Developer - Ivory Tower. Publisher - Ubisoft. Released - September 14th, 2023. Available On - Xbox One/Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC. Amazon Luna. Rated - (T) - Lyrics, Mild Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the PR/publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.