Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- the_crew [2024/05/30 17:27] – ultracomfy
+++ the_crew [2026/01/13 10:36] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 {{page>Templates:video_games}}
 </WRAP>
+~~Title:The Crew~~
+<WRAP centeralign>Video Games/Racing/\\
+<fs xx-large>The Crew</fs></WRAP>
 <WRAP box>
 <WRAP centeralign group>
@@ Line 54: / Line 59: @@
 </WRAP>
-<fs xx-large>The Crew</fs> is a mediocre at best 2014 racer developed by Ivory Tower and published by [[Ubisoft]]. It's up there on the list of jankiest racing games that I have played (and that list includes [[Moorhuhn Kart 2]]) - and it's really fun. I always loved cruising around in the 1:36 recreation of the [[United States of America]] jam packed with long straights to speed through, evading cars, then curvy sections that require braking accuracy, and dealing with the whacky geometry issues and general physics jank that produce the funniest interactions, at times [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-TvR4RBW8|randomly flinging you across the map]] as you reconsider your life choices. The physics of The Crew are very "bumpy", which means lots bouncing off objects and taking airtime. For example, if one wants to take the racing line around corners in The Crew's urban environments then one will be cutting over sidewalks. Sidewalks in The Crew are slightly elevated and will add upward momentum to the vehicle. Most low hanging cars will actually briefly lose contact with the ground because of this, which means the player will have pre-empt some of the turning so that once the car regains contact to the surface it steers and brakes more. Braking early and drifting into the sidewalk to fly past the corner into the perfect race line around it is extremely satisfying, and the game is littered with these things. Even the off road cars that handle surface height differences more easily will gain that upward momentum, which reduces their grip slightly, briefly.\\
+The Crew is a mediocre at best 2014 racer developed by Ivory Tower and published by [[Ubisoft]]. It's up there on the list of jankiest racing games that I have played (and that list includes [[Moorhuhn Kart 2]]) - and it's really fun. I always loved cruising around in the 1:36 recreation of the [[United States of America]] jam packed with long straights to speed through, evading cars, then curvy sections that require braking accuracy, and dealing with the whacky geometry issues and general physics jank that produce the funniest interactions, at times [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-TvR4RBW8|randomly flinging you across the map]] as you reconsider your life choices. The physics of The Crew are very "bumpy", which means lots bouncing off objects and taking airtime. For example, if one wants to take the racing line around corners in The Crew's urban environments then one will be cutting over sidewalks. Sidewalks in The Crew are slightly elevated and will add upward momentum to the vehicle. Most low hanging cars will actually briefly lose contact with the ground because of this, which means the player will have pre-empt some of the turning so that once the car regains contact to the surface it steers and brakes more. Braking early and drifting into the sidewalk to fly past the corner into the perfect race line around it is extremely satisfying, and the game is littered with these things. Even the off road cars that handle surface height differences more easily will gain that upward momentum, which reduces their grip slightly, briefly.\\
 When not going around corners, the player will be going fast, and given the right car they will be going 400km/h fast. Every car, even the slower ones, seem to have //just// the right amount of handleability, the cars always feel responsive but always not so good that avoiding traffic becomes easy. Collision physics in the game are quite janky in general, but one actually gets used to it as some point and plans around it/uses it to ones advantage. It's an engaging experience in its own right.\\
@@ Line 62: / Line 67: @@
 So, you've got your most average racer ever, perhaps even below average because of how boring the cars handle. Crappy story, mediocre progression system, acceptable multiplayer. It's why I say in the lead and [[https://steamcommunity.com/id/ultracomfy/recommended/241560|my own review of the game on Steam]] that it is "mediocre" and should be avoided. I believe that the average person probably will not appreciate the //specific facets// of the game that I like. Because, I like the game mostly for very specific, hard-to-put-into-words things. I guess the best way to put it is "I like it because of it's sandboxy feel". //I// like the game because the world and the physics are built in a way that encourage experimentation. The game encourages you to take skips over a grass field or even entire mountains.
-{{ youtube>HXXAUEXxla4 |Live Improv by ULTRACOMFY}}
+{{youtube>HXXAUEXxla4? | Live Improv by ULTRACOMFY}}
@@ Line 76: / Line 82: @@
 ====== The Crew Unlimited ======
-I care about The Crew, so occasionally I try to check in on the progress of a potential community patch or tool to make the game playable again. This involves mostly googling "The Crew offline patch" and seeing if any new results come up, anything I have not seen. Usually it returns mostly cheap online press coverages of The Crew's shutdown, but it also includes this [[https://steamcommunity.com/app/241560/discussions/0/3879346999810591752/|Steam forum post]] in Dutch((I changed the link for you so it displays in English or your local language.)) which I like to check in every once in a while. I did not read the original post and, well, I should have. So, inside one of the responses to the post I found a link to a community that allegedly is working on such a thing (the original post didn't originally say that, did it??). The community mentioned here is [[The Crew Unlimited|https://discord.com/invite/gUczTkphGE]] and seems to be today's best shot at getting The Crew up and running again. A online server emulator, this tool does not crack the game to force it to allow online play, it merely emulates an online server without touching the game's files at all (or mostly, anyway, probably). They even say that this emulator would most likely even be able to facilitate real online play due to how the game is structured. Progress is slow, but predictable and steady and they((The people working on it.)) are making vague pointers pointing towards a potential working tool by '24 or '25.((Vague of course because they don't want to promise and then not deliver.)) This is much faster than anything I would have hoped for. Since then, I am keeping a keen eye on the progress of that tool and I am happy to see that there seems to be a very significant interest in keeping the game alive. You see, for as much shit as I talk about The Crew, maybe it wasn't as dead as I thought.\\
+I care about The Crew, so occasionally I try to check in on the progress of a potential community patch or tool to make the game playable again. This involves mostly googling "The Crew offline patch" and seeing if any new results come up, anything I have not seen. Usually it returns mostly cheap online press coverages of The Crew's shutdown, but it also includes this [[https://steamcommunity.com/app/241560/discussions/0/3879346999810591752/|Steam forum post]] in Dutch((I changed the link for you so it displays in English or your local language.)) which I like to check in every once in a while. I did not read the original post and, well, I should have. So, inside one of the responses to the post I found a link to a community that allegedly is working on such a thing (the original post didn't originally say that, did it??). The community mentioned here is [[https://discord.com/invite/gUczTkphGE|The Crew Unlimited]] and seems to be today's best shot at getting The Crew up and running again. An online server emulator, this tool does not crack the game to force it to allow online play, it merely emulates an online server without touching the game's files at all (or mostly, anyway, probably). They even say that this emulator would most likely even be able to facilitate real online play due to how the game is structured. Progress is slow, but predictable and steady and they((The people working on it.)) are making vague pointers pointing towards a potential working tool by '24 or '25.((Vague of course because they don't want to promise and then not deliver.)) This is much faster than anything I would have hoped for. Since then, I am keeping a keen eye on the progress of that tool and I am happy to see that there seems to be a very significant interest in keeping the game alive. You see, for as much shit as I talk about The Crew, maybe it wasn't as dead as I thought.\\
 Interestingly, the community is largely unknown about and very hard to find. The link in that Steam post is the only way I know about to find that Discord server, and I have linked an invite to its Discord server up there and will [[https://discord.com/invite/gUczTkphGE|link it here again]]. I have also responded to [[https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Crew/comments/18mpgb8/comment/l0bisf4/|some poor souls on Reddit]] who I'm sure wish they had known about this earlier.