When it comes to open-world arcade racing thrills one series has stood atop the pile for over a decade. However, Forza Horizon may be about to lose its crown. A young contender has been finding its feet for a few years and now, Ubisoft Ivory Tower are back at the helm for The Crew Motorfest, a wisely motorsports-based effort.
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The Crew Motorfest blends all the lessons learned from the series’ past games with some new and fun twists. And it all adds up to create an adrenaline fuelled Hawaiian getaway that soars to a series peak.
New Horizon
Right away, there are strong vibes of Forza Horizon here. You find yourself at an open-world motorsport festival, which is all about celebrating car culture. Early on, you could believe it was a Horizon game in all but name. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a fine line between inspiration and imitation.
Motorfest starts with you being a hotshot driver arriving on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu – your petrol-powered sandbox. You also meet a too-cool-for-school crew, who have something to do with the event. They mostly end up being voices on the radio that you’ll barely hear over the screech of your tyres.
Open-World Variety
The Crew Motorfest serves up a number of different playlists for you to attack, which offers you a number of races and events based around the theme of each one; like import tuner rides or American muscle.
Also each playlist mixes things up a little by adding its own challenges; like the retro themed one taking away your GPS or the ‘Made in Japan’ one seeing you racing only at night. The only issue I have with the playlist system is some races do go on a little too long at times.
Completing these will often score you a new ride and a truck load of upgrade parts to slap onto your rides, to milk a few extra horsepower out of them.
Slow Starter
The Crew Motorfest is a bit of a slow burner. You’ll have to sink a few hours into the playlists system to start opening up things on the island. This can feel like a grind and may be a disappointment to those looking to screech off in a Lamborghini right out the box.
Outside of the playlists, there are tonnes of bite-sized challenges to tackle. Stuff like slalom runs and speed cams, as well as a few secrets and extra unlocks. The map is dense with things to grab your interest and keep you moving to see more of it.
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Ivory Tower have also said there will be a heathy number of post-launch additions as well. Going off The Crew 2, this will likely have content add for some time to come.
Oddly, the Motorfest playlists only sees you take to the clouds and the waves a few times, which feels like a real shame as it’s a hugely unique feature to the series. That said, if it has wheels, it gets plenty of service and the many types of wheeled machine each offer their own unique sense of fun.
Turning to Realism
However, the focus on driving has been matched with more engaging wheel-based mechanics and feel. The moment-to-moment gameplay feels weighty and tight as you boost your way around a highly diverse landscape.
The array of elevations, surfaces, lines of sights and general mechanical variety to contend with gives the act of driving a lot of life.
With this being a Crew title you’re also not just locked down to four wheels, as there are bikes, boats and planes to throw around the game, retaining the feature to swap between land, sea and air vehicles at the click of a stick when you’re just exploring. This is great fun and saves time having to drive everywhere when you can just fly.
Head-On Hawaiian Horizon Rival
Visually, the game serves up a picture perfect slice of Hawaii, from the golden sands to the lush forest and its lava top mountains. This also bleeds into the vehicles themselves which are highly detailed.
The audio of The Crew Motorfest is good overall. The core crew are a bit to whiney and brattish, but they do what they have to. The soundtrack, however, is a totally different kettle of fish, as it slaps hard. You’ll cruise Oʻahu to over 140 songs from the likes of Royal Blood, Dirty Two Club and Blondie.
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With such obvious artistic comparisons to be made with the Daddy of the genre, Motorfest seems confident they can stand in direct competition with Horizon. And that confidence was well-placed overall.
Not just because the giant’s shadow has shrank since its heyday but because Motorfest genuinely does more and even does some of the same stuff better
The Crew Motorfest aims at the king but just misses, though it’s a hell of a fun time. It also represents a real ‘coming of age’ for the series. Motorfest is the type of game that The Crew should have been all along.
And while it doesn’t reach the lofty highs of Forza Horizon, it gives gearheads a new option well worth their time. It’s also a fine substitute for Horizon those without an Xbox or a PC.