Ahhh Ubisoft, so much potential, so little talent. Even with well-established studios like Ivory Tower (comprised of folk who once upon a time put together the work of twisted insane genius that is Driver: San Francisco, a title that's well overdue for a reboot) they seem to be incapable of nailing the perfect balance between great looks and compelling gameplay.
With Ubi taking aim at the Xbox / PC Only "Forza Horizon" and fancying a bit of that festival atmosphere with an open-world driving title, the result has been bolted onto "The Crew" franchise, taking what was once a half decent street racing title (before the hideous updates, the dreadful sequel and the eventual 'worthless disk' of the original game) resulting in something that does indeed take some of the better elements of the FH series, but does so in the same way that Lidl and Aldi 'ape' popular supermarket products. "It's OK, but it's not quite right" is the flavour of what's presented.
Thankfully there's an extensive demo to dig your teeth into, and you might do that and never progress to the full game. I only did so because it had finally sunk below the ridiculous 'new title' price for PS5 games and as I'd actually got some gameplay enjoyment from the demo, I figured the full version couldn't be that bad, could it?
Controller Drift
The presentation of TCM is fairly polished, but it has one of the worst UIs imaginable with some really daft decisions around how you actually get into races and start picking up vehicles. For starters it's not at all intuitive to figure out how you DO actually line up your next 'playlist' - a series of racing events based around a single theme. The game is half divided between a stack of online challenges (which you need to be a PSN member to access) and a bunch of in-game content that you can access only once you've bought the required vehicle. I found this completely counter-intuitive compared to stuff like Forza Horizon or Need for Speed where the normal progression was to take part in events to win money to buy new rides, rather than buying the ride, competing in the set event and actually being presented with a fairly linear path through the game.
There's also the lack of fast travel options. You can fast travel to an event 'container' only when you've completed that event, which means initially you're forced into often driving 17km across the gorgeous island of Oahu to get to the next event. Fine that the game is pretty but you'll run the gamut of 'ghost' online cars (that thankfully just drive straight through you) and NPC vehicles (that definitely don't - and always seem to appear just as you're getting into a nice little between-race slalom or target event).
Car handling is a long way from Driver: San Francisco with the old favourite of cars pivoting through a central point when steering, like someone's stuck a thumbtack through them. Cars feel light and floaty, and seem to have a tendency not to grip around corners until you start wheeling in the upgrades. It's frustrating to be in a race and feel like your vehicle is chronically understeering at every turn, which I guess does at least mean you are a bit more careful in the way you drive but other titles manage to nail the risk / reward bit of grip / slide without error.
I love games where there's a bit of drifting concerned, and again TCM disappoints - purely because the drift mechanic is susceptible to the same issue outlined above. Again this shouldn't be a problem for a team like Ivory Tower who nailed that perfectly in Driver: San Francisco but seem to have forgotten all those skills with the Crew franchise. What a damned shame!
There is a great selection of vehicles, but at all times it feels like you're narrowly funneled into buying the cars the events demand rather than being able to earn enough cash to buy what you want to try out. I guess it might be different at the end of the game once you've cleared all the playlist events but by then you'll probably be thoroughly bored of the game, and will want to move on.
Dirty Beggars
Some of the things I did like is that there is quite a variety of different events to choose from once you've got the cash to pick up the required vehicles. On-road and off-road, Hoonigan stuff, drift events and plenty of mud but again it all feels a bit safe, a bit sterile - even when you indulge in the shouty dudebro antics of the Donut events. The AI voice that's a constant presence when you're driving around is also horrible and though you can reduce the volume on it, you still need to know some of the things it's talking about so end up having to read subtitles - often distracting you from your driving. Ivory Tower has obviously tried its level best to make this as close to Forza Horizon as possible without making it a direct and absolute outright clone, but as other reviews have said, this really isn't on the same level of finesse and polish. It really does just feel like every other Ubisoft title, fine and dandy but nothing that will blow your eyes out.
I'll keep chipping away at it now I've paid for the durned thing but for my money I still keep thinking it would have been better to just fire up the old Xbox One for the first time in years and just replay all the FH greats instead.
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