With The Crew, I found the world to be too massive and there too little to do within it, then with The Crew 2 it was the same location, so a lot of what I was doing felt too familiar, but the expanded modes of transport shook things up. Now here we are with The Crew Motorfest, the third entry in the unique racing series, but is the third time really the charm?

The original concept of The Crew and The Crew 2 was intriguing, a playable United States of America, where you could drive almost everywhere. So coming into The Crew Motorfest, you might think that the smaller location would be a downgrade, but Hawaii is anything but. While The Crew 2 was all about you building up a reputation as the best driver in the world, or at least the USA, Motorfest drops that in favour of just enjoying a car festival. I will say this now, there is a heck of a lot of comparisons that can be made to the Forza Horizon series, from the general setting vibe, to the way events play out. The common elements between them are driving around a slightly stylised version of a location, multiple race types per event and a lot of cars. You might think that those elements mean it’s a Pepsi to Coke situation, but Motorfest is its own flavour entirely.

In past games events were littered all around the map and to an extent the same is true here, but in order to activate them, you must begin a playlist. Playlists are themed and unlock a bunch of races, in-world challenges and photo spots. The themes vary from all electric to off roading fun and even some car specific ones like Porsche. Once you select a playlist, the events will be added to the map and while the average is around 7 races, the number can vary from playlist to playlist. As you complete a playlist, you will be rewarded with a vehicle themed to it, clearing the Porsche one nets you a shiny yellow Porsche, but you also unlock challenges. These challenges take place in the same tracks, but add in extra things to deal with, meaning that even though a Playlist might only offer 7 events, it’s really 14. The one odd thing with playlists is that the events within them are listed on the map when you activate it for the first time, but you have to then do them in order, rather than any order you want. Outside of the racing, you can undertake in-world challenges by driving through the gates that dot the land, from speed challenges where you have to blast through at a set speed, to slaloming down a long road.

The in-world challenges are made even more.. challenging, by the number of cars on the road from those people who call digital Hawaii home. Slalom is the most infuriating as the gap between gates can be filled with cars, making it hard to keep your speed up and dodge them all at once. The most enjoyable one is the escape, as you just need to drive as fast as you can for as long as you can, its just pure speed. The other thing to do in the world are the photo challenges, these are themed to the playlists you unlock, so if you unlock the Electric Odyssey playlist, then you will need to visit the locations with the right car and time of day, to snap the required shot. Outside of those events though there isn’t a lot to do, there is the mainstage where your character can walk around, but that is not really worth doing, if you love driving then you are set, but if you wanted a little more, you might be let down here.

Cars are just one method of getting around, they are the primary method of course, but there are also quads, bikes, boats and planes to enjoy. Much like in The Crew 2, you can swap between land, sea and air at any time, though selecting a boat whilst speeding down a highway, may not work out for you. While boats in The Crew 2 were mostly used in rivers, here you have to deal with the Pacific Ocean more often and sometimes the waves can be a real pain to deal with, if your boat is on the small side. Planes are good alternatives, especially when you just want to get to your next racing destination, but with the extreme elevation changes, flying too low to the ground, can be dangerous. Cars are of course going to be the most common way of getting around, but there are bikes to enjoy as well and while they can zip around far easier than the four-wheeled options, their larger turning circle at speeds, may turn people away. No matter your preferred method of getting around, each of them is fun and being able to swap at will, without any menus, is still delightful.

Sadly though, we must now address the things that are not so delightful and there are a few. First up are the cars of Hawaii, those AI controlled that act as if they are driving around the world, I mentioned before how slalom is a pain with them, but it is more than that. Almost every single time one of those cars come to a turn, they treat it like a Melbourne hook turn and if you are not paying attention you can plough into them. There was a time when I saw the road had a slip lane, perfect for a turn without the 90 degree requirement, but the AI car did not use that, instead they did another hook turn. I wish I could say that it was just turns, but I had cars change lanes without warning, cars crashing into each other and the ever popular, randomly spawning in on me. The last point is perhaps the most infuriating, as it was something that happened in the first game, now first time making something of that scale, you might give them a pass. But it happened in the second game and now with a smaller play space, the fact that it is still happening, is just down right pathetic.

While annoying, there is something else that is far more enraging than randomly appearing cars and that is the world of fake player cars that live in the world. When you see other players in the map, their names are above their heads and the distance to them, however the game has dozens more fake players in the world. You can tell which are fake player cars as they drive around without any preset path, they drive through other traffic and if you get to close, they become transparent so you can drive through them. The most annoying aspect of them is the wave of cars that almost always come at you and without warning and if you are not paying attention, then its quite a start. I honestly question the decision to include fake players, it doesn’t add to the experience, in fact it became routine that when I approached an event, a fake player would also drive up just before me, even if I was alone on the road leading up to it. There are other issues I have, the fact that you can’t access the camera mode when in a race, or the map for that matter, and the game always requiring you to be online, even if you never play with others, but those are just weird and not really painful.

That seems like a good time to talk about the presentation, of which the fake players contribute a lot to it. The island of Hawaii has been recreated quite nicely, of course this is not the first time Hawaii has appeared in a game and its not even the first time it was recreated for a racing game. What The Crew Motorfest does for Hawaii is take the familiar landmarks and roads, and provide a very stylised version of what would be around it. This means there are moments of familiarity, but its never enough to make you stop and stare, which helps keep the pace going. All of the vehicles in the game look amazing and while there is no Forzavista style mode present, you can get up close to some really impressive community creations. Each of the playlists have their themes, but the world also celebrates them, selecting the Porsche 911 playlist will see giant inflatable Porsche balloons take to the sky. When you choose Electric Odyssey, giant purple lightening-esq sculptures light up the world, with all the others having them as well.

I wish I could say that things look great all the time, but I would be lying. The most egregious is the LOD, there is a finite ring of detail around your vehicle at all times, everything outside of that gets draw in when you get closer to it. Normally in games this means replacing a low resolution tree or shadow, with a higher resolution option, and games do that smoothly. Here though, its not just extra detail but entire objects that appear, from windows in buildings, to trees, signs and even those previously mentioned balloons. The problem is that as you are speeding along almost all of the time, seeing the world continuously populate things in becomes quite the irritant, if only because again the much smaller landmass, should have removed that problem. The same lack of draw distance applies to the cars that are just driving about, which means that sometimes when speeding through a challenge, the game will draw a car ahead of you at the last minute, which messes you up. I tried the game in both Performance and Quality modes and neither fixed the issues, so it is clearly something at a more fundamental level. The other thing that annoyed me was the way events ended and the presentation of your prize, it’s the same thing over and over and over again. Seeing a car get revealed in the jungle was nice the first time, ok the second, but the 12th time, it was just annoying, plus there is the fact that you can’t skip them.

On the games audio side the cars are the stars as they sound great, be they petrol powered or electric, there is a lot to enjoy. Planes sound good on the ground or low to it, but in the air, the mix of wind and engine noise feels a little unbalanced, which makes it hard to enjoy and sadly the boats have the same issue, but with waves instead of wind. I did discover that if you enter photo mode and exit right away, the game doesn’t engage the cars engine noise, so you can drive around and hear everything but, which was always funny. The biggest problem I had with the audio was twofold, first the music selection, it is all over the place in terms of quality, in that I disliked almost everything. The second issue with it, was that even though the game states it has radio stations, the songs play randomly, like your character keeps changing the station once a song is done playing. That means that if you do like a particular theme of music, you won’t just get that, you still get everything and if you turn it off via the in-game screen, it still turns back on randomly.

The second issue is Cara, the games version of an AI assistant, who never actually assists but rather never shuts the hell up. If you are doing nothing and looking for something to do, you can bring up Cara and she will give you an option or two of events you can undertake. The issue is that once you select something, she has to give you an essay about the event and the background of the car involved, ok not really that, but she provides a lot of information. It was so annoying, I ended up turning off the voice, to try and get some quiet while driving, but I discovered that doing that also turns off all voices for the game, which means any description of events from those connected and also any voices within the playlist cinematics.

There is a lot to enjoy with The Crew Motorfest, the playlists are fun and the challenges you unlock once you complete them, will test your driving skill in new ways. The world is a delight to explore, with some pretty incredible vistas to discover as you do, just be prepared for some weird and consistant pop in. The game lets you discover playlists at your own pace, but keeping you locked onto a progression path once you are in one, seems counterintuitive. The games audio is a mess, with a weird music selection and an assistant who always gets in the way and there is no way to turn it off on its own. The Crew Motorfest is finally the game I was after with the first entry, but due to it suffering from some of the same weird issues the other games have had, delaying your flight to Hawaii for a bit, might be a good idea.