The Crew 1 Torrent
The Crew 1 Torrent is a huge and special online-only racing game that, most importantly, boasts an ambitious open world of such ridiculous proportions it should be considered among some of the year’s most remarkable technical achievements. However, its size has affected the visuals and effects of The Crew, and its issues don’t stop there. The sound lacks impact, the economy is tight, the multiplayer community is only loosely connected, and the missions are too often ruined by some very frustrating AI that shamelessly cheats in an attempt to increase the tension.
What The Crew does well is its stylized and scaled-down version of the entire continental USA. Cities are small representations, but the vast stretches of land between them mean traveling captures the spirit of a cross-country road trip better than any other driving game before it. Many racing games offer various backdrops in their track selections, from urban races in major American cities to races across snowy mountains, desert sprints, or muddy expeditions through forests. The Crew admirably combines all of this in a single game world you can drive across in one long session.
However, this size has come at a cost. It’s a world that looks fine when speeding through it, but it prioritizes sheer size over the detailed features we expect in modern open-world racers. Cities have recognizable landmarks but don’t hold up to close inspection. Combined with low-detail NPC cars, forgettable effects, no weather, and less detailed car models compared to contemporaries like Forza Horizon 2 or Driveclub, The Crew struggles to match the visual quality of newer games.
The Crew 1 Torrent Magnet is an arcade racing experience through and through, and it improves as you progress and your cars’ stats are buoyed by earning vague performance components via completed missions and driving challenges. These challenges, which test your speed, control, and off-road abilities, are dotted all over the map and can be triggered on the fly, and the process of picking one up is seamless… until you succeed, at which point the barrage of overlays beaming numbers into your brain concludes with a short loading screen, after which you’ll find your car stopped dead in its tracks.
The Crew 1 Torrent deserves credit for the frankly staggering size of its open world, and the fact that it’s filled to the brim with racing, challenges, a substantial multiplayer offering, and exploration potential. This scope, however, has resulted in some noticeable visual concessions, the racing itself is too often hamstrung by AI prone to unfair bursts of speed that do nothing but frustrate, and I was surprised at how unwilling the community currently seems to join cooperative missions and just how difficult the game’s often miserly winnings makes collecting the cars.
The Crew 1 Torrent System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7/8/10/11
- Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q9300 2.5 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 30 GB available space
