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Driving989 Archives flying, and (rarely) boating around the pseudo-United States of The Crew 2, it's hard to ignore the ever-present feeling of emptiness.

SEE ALSO: The top 10 video games of 2018 (so far)

The name of the game in The Crew 2is racing. Whether it's with cars, motorcycles, airplanes, speedboats, motorcycles, or monster trucks, The Crew 2is an endless stream of competitive events against AI that, while fun for a while, grows a bit tiresome as it becomes clear that this is the only thing there is to do aside from roam around aimlessly and do ill-advised things like this:

In many other racing games, this would be perfectly fine, because the racing is exciting and fun enough on its own – whether because it's thrilling and over the top (like Burnoutor Need for Speed) or engrossingly realistic (like Dirtor Forza). Unfortunately, The Crew 2seems to fit right between this two poles of racing games, making it feel lacking.

The "story"

In opposition to the first Crewgame from 2014, The Crew 2has almost no story. You pick your avatar right off the bat and begin on your journey as an anonymous multi-talented racer speeding your way through event after event to become a famous racer with lots of social media followers. Because that's what matters in 2018.

You start off only able to compete in a few events, quickly moving up from "anonymous" status to "rookie" status as you win events and gain more followers and money. The more followers you get, the more events you can do, and the more money you make and more followers you get and more events you can do and it just keeps going and going like that until the end of time.

As for a storyline, there is none. You meet a couple characters at various races but they're so forgettable and inconsequential that they might as well not even have names or voice actors.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

All of the events are placed within The Crew 2's impressive recreation of the United States, which takes most of the famous landmarks from the country (like big cities, mountains, lakes, and Mount Rushmore) and truncates all the space around them, creating a map that looks mostly like the U.S. we all know and love but can be traversed latitudinally in under a half hour. The only problem is that it feels so aimless and pretty pointless.

While traveling through, the occasional option to take a photo of something will pop up on screen, asking you to find a landmark or an animal and take a photo of it in the easily accessed photo mode (left on the D-pad). Those plus the occasional speed trap (markers that you race through at high speeds) and airplane route are the only this that break up the monotonous albeit beautiful countryside.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

If you want to unlock more events and buy new vehicles, though, it's much more worth your time to fast travel straight to the events. And if you're like me and specifically want to unlock things like airplane races, rally races, and motorcycle races, that's the only way to do it.

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Events, events, events

The events in The Crew 2are mostly enjoyable and there's no saying you absolutely need to do things like boat races if they don't tickle your fancy. If all you want to do is airplane aerobatics, you can just run those events to your heart's content. But having the option to mix it up every once in a while is nice.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

As mentioned earlier, The Crew 2doesn't really master what makes racing games so fun. The handling of many vehicles can be very frustrating at times, and the way collisions work is sometimes infuriating.

When doing an off road rally raid time trial through heavily wooded areas, the smallest tree can stop you right in your tracks in the most unnatural way. Vehicles are never damaged outside of some momentary scratches, and you'll sometimes find your stuff stuck in random obstacles, watching the AI race by you as you spend 20 seconds trying to maneuver out and ultimately give up and restart the race entirely.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The Crew 2does do a good job of keeping races fresh by having you speed through tons of unique courses all over the states. At least for land races.

The boat races are so boring. Sometimes there are jumps and things to avoid, but for the most part it's just you, your boat, and very navigable waters.

The airplane events aren't much better. You start only being able to compete in aerobatics events, where you repeat the same moves over and over to reach a certain number of points within a certain time limit. It's repetitive and only fun to do once or twice.

Oh, also, there was one street race event that was sponsored by Papa John's where you drive in the founder's signature yellow muscle car. I hated every minute of it.

The "multiplayer"

It seems like part of the draw of The Crew is that you can build up a crew of players to pal around with. If only that feature were actually good.

While driving and flying around The Crew 2, I ran into other players from time to time, which at first was exciting. Then I realized you really can't do anything with other players other than hit each other or race without any direction.

You can't race against other players in official races — at least not yet — which makes the barebones multiplayer component pretty pointless. The game might as well have AI "players" just traveling around.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

After a dozen or so hours in this game, I have no urge to go back in. The world isn't exciting enough to dive into, the races aren't fun enough to continue, and there is no story to push me forward. But it was a fun time for a few hours.

The Crew 2released June 29 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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Topics Gaming Reviews Ubisoft