The Crew (2014) / YMMV

Awesome Music:
- Many agree that the soundtrack is good, but one song that stands out is Lorde's mega-popular Signature Song "Roy als", played in 8-Radio, the indie-rock station of the game.
- Arctic Monkeys' "Do I Wanna Know?", which is considered to be one of the best rock songs of the decade.
- The Heavy's well-known "How You Like Me Now?" returns from Driver: San Francisco to rock out across the United States.
- Koda Boom features magnificent EDM songs such as A-Trak's trap anthem "Landline (feat. GTA)", Autoerotique's big-room bomber "Asphyxiation", Carpenter Brut's noisy, 80s-style "Le Perv" (which also appeared in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number), and best of the best, "Animus Vox" by already legendary IDM outfit The Glitch Mob. There is also Power Glove, back from creating the score for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.
- In 11 FM, the game's no-holds-barred hardcore rock & roll radio station, alongside "Do I Wanna Know?" and "How You Like Me Now?", there is also Hanni El Khatib with his severely underrated tune "I Got A Thing", and The Dead Weather with their aggressive "Treat Me Like Your Mother".
- K-Beef, the hip hop station, features artists of the likes of Nas, TechN9ne, Mos Def, M.O.P., J Dilla, Danny Brown, and influential hip-hop act Public Enemy. That's all you need to know.
- It gets better with Brokemogul, which features some of the better tunes from the other four stations and four exclusive tunes. All of them are real bangers: "Angst: Two" by The Toxic Avenger, "Lol & Pop" by Buraka Som Sistema, "Remanence" by Mr. Magnetik, and "Digital Versicolor" by Glass Candy.
- "I Like It" by We Cry Diamonds. A completely unknown gem in the soundtrack that is widely considered to be one of the best songs in the game.
- If you prefer more soothing tracks, there's ambient music station Sine Wave Digital and classical music station Symphony Digital. Some recognizable scores can be found in the latter, such as Richard Wagner's iconic Ride of the Valkyries and Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- Many players prefer using the Performance and Circuit specs, as they are the two fastest specs available in the game. However, it is Averted for the three specs introduced in Wild Run — Monster Truck, Drift, and Dragster — which all have a fair share of popularity.
- Jump Skills were by far the most used Skills in the game to farm Platinum-level car parts, partly because they are much easier and quicker than the other Skill types available on the map. This practice stopped when Wild Run was released and introduced the "Smart Loot" system, but then Calling All Units improved the "Smart Loot" system so that way players were always getting better parts for their cars, and soon players were grinding through the Jump Skills again.
- Many players tend to remain with the Wolves faction despite other factions being made available to join as regions are visited in the plot. As a result, the Wolves tend to win the monthly Faction Wars,^Explanation making joining other factions pointless if you want access to the Faction Wars rewards, save for earning a higher daily faction spoils reward.^Explanation
- Among the major cities, fans prefer to roam around either Miami (which is surprisingly huge compared to all the other major cities in the game) or Los Angeles.
Fandom Rivalry: With Forza Horizon 2 fans due to being an open world racing game released in the same year.
Fridge Brilliance:
- There's a Faction Mission called "The Longest Course". However, several other missions were longer. It turns out that the starting line is in Port Isabel while the finish line is in Dallas. The race takes a few minutes short of an hour to go somewhere less than twenty miles away.
- Three of the trucks in the Utility category (the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, Ford F-150 Raptor, and Dodge Ram SRT-10) are what would be called a pickup truck in the United States. Each truck in stock form represents one of the first three specs the player encounters. The Silverado was your everyday truck, so it represents Street spec. The Raptor is built for off-road performance, so it represents Dirt spec. The Ram is built to be a performance vehicle, so it represents Perf spec.
- Why do the four longest Faction Mission Races ^note have only three opponents instead of seven like the others? Not that many drivers have that kind of endurance.
Friendly Fandoms: The Crew fans tend to get along with (mostly tuner-era) Need for Speed fans due to the former game's Underground-like car customization.^note
First Installment Wins: Several players of The Crew series prefer this game over its two sequels due to its grittier feel compared to the sequels' Forza Horizon-esque tone, its singular focus on land vehicles, its driving physics—although not great—being relatively more realistic, it having an actual story mode, its sense of progression, its encouragement of exploration by forcing players to explore the United States before they can fast travel anywhere, and for having game modes that the sequels lack (especially the pursuit-related modes from the Calling All Units expansion). In fact, the first game's fans were so displeased by the game's shutdown (and, more disturbingly, Ubisoft's decision to revoke licenses to play the game) that one person is attempting to sue Ubisoft to restore it.
Funny Moments:
- After Alex recruits Roxanne, Zoe calls him up on the radio and tears into him, questioning why he would contact someone who knows all about them and their operation through her hacking skills. Alex points out that Roxanne is most likely listening in at that moment and Roxanne confirms it.
- After Alex wins the race in "Mismatch", Eric gets arrested while Alex leaves him to his fate. Eric swears to kill everyone that Alex knows...and everyone he doesn't know in the off chance they might meet someday.
- Not a moment exactly, but the mere fact that certain specs are available on certain vehicles:
  - The Cadillac Escalade has all the normal specs available for it. Only Street spec seems normal for it.
  - Perf spec is available on the Hummer H1. Yes, you're essentially turning the Trope Namer for Hummer Dinger into a sports car.
  - On the other hand, Monster spec is available for the Abarth 500. This is a performance version of a Fiat compact that's been turned into a monster truck. It's also the only Monster spec for the police in Calling All Units!
Game-Breaker:
- The game for the most part is rather balanced, but there are some cars in each spec that subvert this fashion rather egregiously.^notePlease note that this list is subject to change due to the developers revamping most vehicles' behaviors in each game update.
  - Street: The Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 is dominant in this spec thanks to it fully taking advantage of its balance - and also for being AWD. As for the bikes, the KTM 450 EXC is hands down the best in this spec.
  - Dirt: The aforementioned Skyline R34 and KTM 450 also qualify as the two strongest vehicles in this spec.
  - Performance: The Pagani Huayra has it all: fast, agile, and with strong Nitrous. The LaFerrari^note, the Lotus Exige S, and the BMW S1000RR count as well.
  - Raid: The '67 Camaro and the RUF 3400K are extremely stable and very well-planted to the ground, something that is very necessary for Raid spec. The Buggy, obtainable by finding all twenty of its wrecks in the Mountain States, qualifies as well.
  - Circuit: The Ferrari 458 and the Kawasaki Ninja H2 can both handle almost any corner flat-out and are definitely no slouch when it comes to acceleration and top speed either - the H2 in particular can reach speeds upwards 250 mph/400 kph with extreme ease when fully tuned. The Ford GT and the Nissan 370Z are quite overpowered too.
- The 3 new specs that came with Wild Run do have their god-tier vehicles too.
  - Drift: The Shelby GT500, which doesn't seem too far-fetched considering it's been used by Sean Boswell in the final race of Tokyo Drift.
  - Monster Truck: The Abarth 500, despite looking incredibly silly, can rack up extremely high scores in Monster Arena events thanks to its featherweight chassis, at least for the spec's own standards. Just watch out for oversteering at lower speeds! Ivory Tower even seems to be aware of this as they made it the only Monster Truck spec car available for police units in the Calling All Units expansion.
  - Drag: The RUF CTR3, equipped with all Level 60 Platinum parts, is by far the fastest car in the drag strip.
- The railroad stations and airports allow players to visit nearly all the cities in the game before Alex actually gets to them in the story, and for only a relatively small fee. Combine this with a Fast Travel feature that allows players to go to anywhere in the country they've already visited, and players can return to those cities at any time without paying any further transportation fees or driving through long stretches of road to reach them in the story.
- The Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34), in terms of overall usefulness. It's strong on the Street, Dirt, and Perf specs, whilst being good for Circuit, and Raid whilst still being usable in Drag, Drift, and Monster. That's right, folks, a car worth less than 100K is usable on ALL specs (meaning it can carry you until you get the REAL Game-Breaker cars). Hell, as mentioned on this page, it's a straight-up Game-Breaker on Dirt and Street.
Goddamned Bats: The traffic in this game can get annoying if you're trying to get gold or platinum medals on the slalom, speed, scramble, precision or even some race line or escape skills.
Good Bad Bugs: The game occasionally spawns NPC cars in cutscenes inverted. Despite that, they tend to move as if nothing is out of the normal, resulting in one or more cars trailing sparks as they travel on their roofs in the background of a cutscene.
Memetic Mutation: The Crew predicts Donald Trump's wall.
Overshadowed by Controversy: The game was alright, if unremarkable, and while it had a fair share of players (particularly after the base game was given away for free, and those that preferred it over the sequels), The Crew remained under the radar and got very little attention, especially after The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest were released. That changed nine years later, by the end of 2023, when Ubisoft announced it would shut down the servers, rendering the game unplayable by any means. This united people who still played it, people who had played it and had long abandoned it, and even people who hadn't played the game at all into the increasing problems of games becoming permanently unusable, with The Crew being a paid game with plenty of content that does not warrant having to be always online (and with a Dummied Out offline mode to boot) being some of the reasons it sparked such attention. Ubisoft outright revoking the license of players who had obtained the game (meaning you can't even download it legally anymore) ignited the flame further. All of that has turned The Crew from an old racing game with a still-active fanbase into the final nail in the coffin for video game players' tolerance towards such practices.
Porting Disaster: The Xbox 360 port. While it is impressive that they managed to fit such a big world on a dated console, it didn't look or run as good as the other versions (and this is before the graphical overhaul came around). In addition, the 360 version never received either of the expansions, making it even more dated by comparison.
So Okay, It's Average: The overall reaction appears to be that while the large world is an incredible accomplishment, the various issues this game has (lackluster driving physics, a forgettable story, online issues, complicated user interface, dated graphics, etc.) prevent it from being a great game. Wild Run and Calling All Units have made some improvements, but it didn't stop the game from being given away a couple years after release.
Spiritual Licensee:
- For a while, this game was essentially the closest to a third Test Drive Unlimited gamers would get until the official one, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, was announced. Amusingly, this game series's third game, The Crew Motorfest, is set on Oʻahu, the setting of the first TDU and one of the two settings of TDU2, and was set for release in the same year as TDUSC (until the Test Drive game got delayed to 2024).
- It's also this to the Driver series, specifically Driver: San Francisco. Fittingly, The Crew has Ubisoft Reflections as a co-developer.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The non-exposition CGI cutscenes, which originated in Driver: San Francisco. They still look as impressive as ever.

YMMV / The Crew (2014)

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