The Crew 2

The Crew 2 is an open world racing video game developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia. It is the sequel to 2014's The Crew, its predecessor. It features a persistent open world environment for free roaming across a full actual recreation of the United States. The game allows players to control a variety of vehicles including cars, motorcycles, boats, and airplanes. The game was released on June 29, 2018 (June 26, 2018, for people who pre-ordered Gold Edition) and March 25, 2020, on Google Stadia. Before the game launched, there was an open beta which was held from June 21-25, 2018.

Gameplay
Similar to its predecessor, The Crew 2 is a racing game. In the game, players assume control of a relatively unknown racer, who is trying to work his way to become successful in multiple disciplines. It features a persistent open world environment for racing and free-roaming across a scaled-down recreation of the contiguous United States. In addition to cars, players can also control other kinds of vehicles including airplanes, motorcycles, and powerboats. Each vehicle has its own control physics, meaning that gameplay is different when players control different types of vehicles. Players can switch between controlling air, land, and sea vehicles instantly. The game features four different hub worlds, with each having their own theme and playstyle. These themes include off-road, street racing, pro racing, and freestyle. Both vehicle and character customization are featured in the game. Similar to the first game, it places a huge emphasis on multiplayer. It also features a cooperative multiplayer mode, which allows players to join different rally raid events together. This mode can also be played solo with artificial intelligence. Again, like the first game, The Crew 2 requires a constant internet connection to play.

Bad Qualities
Note: Most of these problems are carried from the first game most of which were later patched out later on.
 * 1) The Crew 2 was released just four days (one if you count Gold Edition early access) after beta test ended. and the multiplayer mode (which is the main feature of the game) was initially unavailable till December 5, 2018 (five months and ten days after the game release). In other words, The Crew 2 was rushed.
 * 2) Just exactly like the first game, all of the cars' engine sounds are very annoying and sound nothing like their real-life counterparts whatsoever. There are completely no notable exceptions.
 * 3) *On that topic, also like the first game too, again you can't even hit the redline aside from force downshifting in manual.
 * 4) *In addition, all cars nearly have the same annoying tone of different RPM ranges.
 * 5) Similar to the first game and most of Ubisoft's recent games, The Crew 2 requires Ubisoft Connect to launch the game and save game progress.
 * 6) While the game is still a bit of an improvement, the graphics, while not bad, are somewhat downgraded from its predecessor.
 * 7) * To add insult to injury, the first game was cross-gen on the Xbox 360 (which was already a weaker console compared to the PS3), while the sequel is only available on PC, PS4 (+ Pro and PS5 through retro-compatibility), and Xbox One (+ X and Series X/S through retro-compatibility) without the Xbox 360 support and yet it still looks worse.
 * 8) **However, the final official game released on the Xbox 360 was Just Dance 2019, and Shakedown: Hawaii was for the PS3.
 * 9) Microtransactions and season pass abusing; similar to the first game, the progression system as well as the upgrade system relies on loot drops that you can get either after finishing events, through chronology or by doing well in TLE. Only the Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6 can only be obtained via a season pass.
 * 10) *In addition, vanity items (Tires, smokes, under glow, nitro effect, emotes, horns and rooftop decorations) can only be obtained with crew credits (which is obtained by completing daily contract which has phased out in favor of the Motorpass (the games' equivalent of the battle pass) as part of The Chase Update or bought with real money) or via the aforementioned time limited events.
 * 11) *The worst offender is the Mitsubishi Eclipse Star Edition which was only obtainable as part of a vanity bundle that can only be purchased with crew credits! Thankfully this version is inferior to the regular one.
 * 12) Vehicle physics and controls are still horrible. Cars drive like they're running on ice and also tend to flip a lot when driving off-road or come to a dead stop instead of crashing when you hit a wall.
 * 13) * In addition to this, several cars still have incorrect specs (e.g., using a car's real-life metric horsepower rating as its in-game brake horsepower rating, using dry weight instead of curb weight).
 * 14) In the earlier versions of the game, the speed reduction received from wall grinding was simply too low, making it the fastest cornering method in the game. This was fixed in the December 2018 patch.
 * 15) The gravity is also highly unrealistic in the earlier versions, when falling, your car can accelerate from 0 to more than 300 mph (483 km/h) in around four seconds.
 * 16) Poor car pricing not dissimilar to what Asphalt 8: Airborne (a mobile racing game developed and published by Gameloft, Ubisoft's mobile gaming counterpart) has.
 * 17) * For example, the Pagani Zonda F (which is in the Hypercar discipline) costs more than the far more advanced Pagani Zonda R (Touring Car Discipline).
 * 18) Hitbox Dissonance: Sometimes you can crash your car by hitting a rope fixing a tent to the ground.
 * 19) Despite it being a competitive online racing game, there are no leaderboard features (except the event leaderboards).
 * 20) False advertising: Ubisoft's E3 trailer featured various accurate recreations of famous landmarks in the United States. It also featured the Audi RS5 as well as police chases. None of these (except the Audi RS5, which was added in February 2019) were included in-game! The police vehicles were eventually added in The Chase Update but only for activities. All of this caused gamers to learn an important lesson about Ubisoft: Do not believe what they showed you earlier, or you'll be disappointed, very badly.
 * 21) The open world, while it is much larger than previous game, is much plainer and more lifeless. Many landmarks were either removed or replaced with inaccurate models, even the generic house models were reused throughout the whole map, and the city of Las Vegas and other hot climate-based location in the US such as Miami and New Orleans are depicted in-game as having snowfall all over the place. There's also a quick travel feature available by default, rendering exploration pointless, although the game still limits the number of maximum players in single session to only eight players.
 * 22) Confusing tutorials, leaving newcomers confused.
 * 23) Mediocre story mode that can be completed in six hours.
 * 24) Unreasonable default key mappings: for example, instead of using the Escape (Esc) key for pausing the game, the game set the F10 key as the pause button.
 * 25) *This was eventually corrected in the hotshot update where the player now uses Escape (Esc) key for pausing the game.
 * 26) Awkward character dialogue and poor voice acting; characters' facial animations are some of the most wooden in AAA titles. Thankfully, it's not outright creepy like in Mass Effect: Andromeda.
 * 27) Both the Red Bull RB13 and RB14 (including the disruption edition) lack DRS functionality. These are F1 cars. F1 has used DRS functionality since 2011. The cars also don't have battery functionalities, despite that the engines are hybrid V6 turbos. The cars are too fast. They can reach 400 kph (249 mph), while the real car can only do 350 kph (215 mph).

Good Qualities

 * 1) The game is not just about cars. You can also pilot planes and boats!
 * 2) Over 400+ vehicles to collect and race - exotic cars, motorcycles, speedboats, stunt planes, monster trucks, off-road vehicles, and even hovercrafts.
 * 3) * In fact, The Crew 2 actually marks the first playable PC/console game appearances of the following vehicles. For example:
 * 4) ** Audi RS 5 (Type F5) (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 5) ** Audi RS 3 LMS TCR (previously appeared in RaceRoom Racing Experience)
 * 6) ** GT By Citroën (last seen in Gran Turismo 5)
 * 7) ** TVR Griffith (2nd generation) (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 8) ** Bugatti Divo (last seen in CSR Racing 2)
 * 9) ** Ferrari 488 Pista (last seen in Asphalt 8: Airborne)
 * 10) ** Lamborghini Egoista (last seen in Asphalt 9: Legends)
 * 11) **Koenigsegg Jesko (last seen in Asphalt 8: Airborne)
 * 12) **Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 13) **Bugatti La Voiture Noire (Last seen in Need for Speed: No Limits)
 * 14) **Cadillac Cyclone XP 74 Concept (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 15) **Koenigsegg Gemera (last seen in CSR Racing 2)
 * 16) **Hummer HX (last seen in Asphalt Overdrive)
 * 17) **Renault Megane R.S. 280 (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 18) **Cadillac Escalade (GMT900, non-ESV) (last seen in Driver: San Francisco. However, the ESV model actually debuted in Forza Horizon first)
 * 19) **Mercedes-Benz X-Class (also made its video game debut in this game)
 * 20) **Renault Sport R.S. 0.1 (last seen in Need for Speed: No Limits)
 * 21) **Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (last seen in Need for Speed Payback)
 * 22) **BMW Z4 GT3 (E89) (last seen in Real Racing 3)
 * 23) **Chevrolet Corvette C6.R (last seen in Real Racing 3)
 * 24) **RAM 1500 Rebel TRX Concept (last seen in Forza Horizon 4)
 * 25) **Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8 (last seen in Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012), albeit being cut)
 * 26) **Nissan R390 GT1 Road Car (last seen in Gran Turismo 6 and in most Forza titles)
 * 27) **Peugeot 3008 DKR (last seen in Asphalt Xtreme)
 * 28) **BMW S1000RR (last seen in Ride 2)
 * 29) **Mazda RX-8 (R3) (last seen in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010))
 * 30) A new feature called Fast Fav is introduced - the player can instantly switch from one of the three vehicle types available - car, boat, or plane.
 * 31) Deep vehicle customization including bumpers, fenders, and rims, as well as a livery editor to create custom decal designs that can be shared.
 * 32) You can now customize your avatar.
 * 33) The Live Summit (the game's TLE which was added as part of the Hot Shot Update) is a significant improvement from The Summit of the first game. specially to get exclusive prizes such as the aforementioned vanity items and exclusive special cars like the Lamborghini Huracán Performante and even the hypercar-class-dominating Bugatti Divo Magma Edition.

Reception
The Crew 2 received "mixed or average reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic, with a score of 67 based on 24 critics for the PlayStation 4 version.