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The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better

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The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better | Top Gear

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An all-new island is the latest headline act in Ubisoft’s Hawaiian festival of speed

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The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
An all-new island is the latest headline act in Ubisoft’s Hawaiian festival of speed

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
An all-new island is the latest headline act in Ubisoft’s Hawaiian festival of speed

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The Crew Motorfest season 5 review: the fest gets better

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
An all-new island is the latest headline act in Ubisoft’s Hawaiian festival of speed

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There’s something different about the roads on Maui, a vast new island whose appearance heralds year two of The Crew Motorfest’s live service content. After a sufficiently epic drive over a suspension bridge that any sane structural engineer would be throwing the book at, you notice something about the corners.

There are positive cambers all over the place here. The same kind of satisfying undulations that long ago the motoring minds near Donington Park and Spa-Francorchamps imagined would suit a race track rather well. This being a videogame, though, there’s no need for tecpro barriers or complicated insurance agreements in order to enjoy the twisties and hills. It’s a motoring paradise, devised by creative director Julien Hummer and his team to right the wrongs of Motorfest’s original island, Oahu.

It’s served the game well, of course, during year one. But it’s also true that it’s not uniformly satisfying to send it down Oahu’s roads, particularly in the flatter downtown areas. Maui will never face such criticism.

After ample opportunity to hit your limiter and test your top speed on the bridge between islands – yep, you travel between the two in real-time, so Grand Races set on both are on the cards – you notice roller coaster-like rolls along the jungle lanes, and banked corners that jut their jaws out and dare you to brake later into them.

You’re still in Hawaii of course, but there are distinctive changes to the geography on this island. Namely a massive volcanic peak to drive up and then shimmy down the switchbacks on the return journey, an all-new urban zone and forest highways flanked by spectacular vistas.

Oahu pops up on all players’ maps, for free. Players who choose to opt for the Year 2 Pass, though, also get the Chase Squad experience and a vehicle pass with 28 new cars to be added throughout the season.

Our early favourite is the Liberty Walk NSX, a blacked-out, ultra-widebody custom version of Honda’s 1992 supercar that gives a meteorological rumble when you so much as tickle the throttle. It’s just loose enough at the back to drift around corners without losing too much speed, and there’s enough feel at the front to take it through sharper turns without the back stepping out at all if that’s your style.

It’s a reward vehicle for ticking off Made in Japan 2, sequel to one of Motorfest’s most popular playlists and an exemplar of what the game does so well: transform itself wholly according to a particular theme, for the duration of a few races. Part two of MIJ makes fine use of those newly laid roads for some proper Touge racing, and when you beat all the events the NSX is yours, along with a new Rival to hunt down in the game world, challenge, and eventually unlock their car.

These ‘Rivals Edition’ vehicles feature unique liveries and serve as driveable trophies for having toppled another racer, Motorfest’s version of racing for pink slips. Among the automotive treats here are a gorgeously gaudy DeLorean DMC12 restomod, and an Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm in shocking lightning bolt finery.

There’s something about having a moving target on the game map, like Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System, that makes Motorfest feel fresh again, and it also tells you how thoughtfully Ubisoft Ivory Tower has gone about keeping its game alive into its second year. Adding the new map would probably have sufficed for a while. Adding new playlist content - the community would have probably stuck around for a while longer if that was all year two added. But to do both, then add a Rivals system, plus some cops and robbers action in the returning Chase Squad content, really says a lot about the studio’s commitment.

The police content was an occasionally satisfying diversion in The Crew 2, a chance to break from the long, epic drives to indulge in some Hollywood-style chases and stunt driving. Chase Squad isn’t taking too many of its cues from TC2, though. The training missions feel more like gymkhana runs, cavalcades of tyre smoke and handbrake turns as you knock down cardboard cutouts of bad guys.

And the chases themselves are procedural, multi-stage affairs that commit to the bit. You’re a cop, so you need clearance to engage the perp. That means tailing them for long enough to get a positive ID, then waiting for the order from HQ to ram them into oblivion.

We might have expected it to be frustrating, not to be let loose on the crims straight away, but in fact it actually builds up tension well and deepens the sense that you’re playing a completely different experience, truly role-playing as a traffic cop. Albeit one whose sole method of enforcement is violent vehicular takedowns.

It’s not easy to make games in a live service environment, and even harder to maintain them. Ubisoft could have called this Motorfest 2 and slapped a full-price paywall on it. They could have just added some new cars. What they did instead is worthy of attention and some additional Hawaiian mileage, whether you’ve been away from the Motorfest so long that you’ve lost your holiday tan, or you never left its sun-kissed highways in the first place.

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There’s something different about the roads on Maui, a vast new island whose appearance heralds year two of The Crew Motorfest’s live service content. After a sufficiently epic drive over a suspension bridge that any sane structural engineer would be throwing the book at, you notice something about the corners.

There are positive cambers all over the place here. The same kind of satisfying undulations that long ago the motoring minds near Donington Park and Spa-Francorchamps imagined would suit a race track rather well. This being a videogame, though, there’s no need for tecpro barriers or complicated insurance agreements in order to enjoy the twisties and hills. It’s a motoring paradise, devised by creative director Julien Hummer and his team to right the wrongs of Motorfest’s original island, Oahu.

It’s served the game well, of course, during year one. But it’s also true that it’s not uniformly satisfying to send it down Oahu’s roads, particularly in the flatter downtown areas. Maui will never face such criticism.

After ample opportunity to hit your limiter and test your top speed on the bridge between islands – yep, you travel between the two in real-time, so Grand Races set on both are on the cards – you notice roller coaster-like rolls along the jungle lanes, and banked corners that jut their jaws out and dare you to brake later into them.

You’re still in Hawaii of course, but there are distinctive changes to the geography on this island. Namely a massive volcanic peak to drive up and then shimmy down the switchbacks on the return journey, an all-new urban zone and forest highways flanked by spectacular vistas.

Oahu pops up on all players’ maps, for free. Players who choose to opt for the Year 2 Pass, though, also get the Chase Squad experience and a vehicle pass with 28 new cars to be added throughout the season.

Our early favourite is the Liberty Walk NSX, a blacked-out, ultra-widebody custom version of Honda’s 1992 supercar that gives a meteorological rumble when you so much as tickle the throttle. It’s just loose enough at the back to drift around corners without losing too much speed, and there’s enough feel at the front to take it through sharper turns without the back stepping out at all if that’s your style.

It’s a reward vehicle for ticking off Made in Japan 2, sequel to one of Motorfest’s most popular playlists and an exemplar of what the game does so well: transform itself wholly according to a particular theme, for the duration of a few races. Part two of MIJ makes fine use of those newly laid roads for some proper Touge racing, and when you beat all the events the NSX is yours, along with a new Rival to hunt down in the game world, challenge, and eventually unlock their car.

These ‘Rivals Edition’ vehicles feature unique liveries and serve as driveable trophies for having toppled another racer, Motorfest’s version of racing for pink slips. Among the automotive treats here are a gorgeously gaudy DeLorean DMC12 restomod, and an Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm in shocking lightning bolt finery.

There’s something about having a moving target on the game map, like Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System, that makes Motorfest feel fresh again, and it also tells you how thoughtfully Ubisoft Ivory Tower has gone about keeping its game alive into its second year. Adding the new map would probably have sufficed for a while. Adding new playlist content - the community would have probably stuck around for a while longer if that was all year two added. But to do both, then add a Rivals system, plus some cops and robbers action in the returning Chase Squad content, really says a lot about the studio’s commitment.

The police content was an occasionally satisfying diversion in The Crew 2, a chance to break from the long, epic drives to indulge in some Hollywood-style chases and stunt driving. Chase Squad isn’t taking too many of its cues from TC2, though. The training missions feel more like gymkhana runs, cavalcades of tyre smoke and handbrake turns as you knock down cardboard cutouts of bad guys.

And the chases themselves are procedural, multi-stage affairs that commit to the bit. You’re a cop, so you need clearance to engage the perp. That means tailing them for long enough to get a positive ID, then waiting for the order from HQ to ram them into oblivion.

We might have expected it to be frustrating, not to be let loose on the crims straight away, but in fact it actually builds up tension well and deepens the sense that you’re playing a completely different experience, truly role-playing as a traffic cop. Albeit one whose sole method of enforcement is violent vehicular takedowns.

It’s not easy to make games in a live service environment, and even harder to maintain them. Ubisoft could have called this Motorfest 2 and slapped a full-price paywall on it. They could have just added some new cars. What they did instead is worthy of attention and some additional Hawaiian mileage, whether you’ve been away from the Motorfest so long that you’ve lost your holiday tan, or you never left its sun-kissed highways in the first place.

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An all-new island is the latest headline act in Ubisoft’s Hawaiian festival of speed

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Crew Motorfest season 5 review Top Gear 2024