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 There was once a French company called Infogrames, and it once had a development team in Lyon, France. That team created a game called V-Rally, a relatively realistic rally racer that came out on Playstation 1-era consoles in 1997. The team kept developing sequels for the next few years, but in that time Infogrames renamed itself Atari and the team got the name Eden Games. Incidentally, Eden Games would also develop Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, a rather European NFS title that focused exclusively on Porsche cars, and the terrible 2008 Alone in the Dark remake. Turns out the developers are better at making racing games. In 2006, Eden Games created Test Drive Unlimited, an open world racing game featuring well over 100 licensed cars and motorcycles which you can drive around on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. In 2011 they created its sequel, which features a more detailed map of Oahu and the new island Ibiza, a new off-road vehicles category, and more available property and clothing purchasing options. In 2007, just after the first Test Drive Unlimited came out, three Eden Games employees struck out on their own and founded Ivory Tower, which is based in a suburb of Lyon. They then spent the next seven years developing The Crew, an ambitious open world title that features the entire contiguous United States. They've obviously scaled things down significantly and the map is far from being perfectly accurate, but it still takes around 40 minutes to drive from New York City to Los Angeles. Ambitions aside, The Crew had some significant issues. It was an always-online title, which is nice when you want to form "crews" with other players but means you need an internet connection even if you stick with single player stuff and it might die one day when the servers go offline. Also, night is way too dark, microtransactions are omnipresent, country roads are all rather uniform in size and dull in appearance, and the plot is a melodramatic story about a man who wants to infiltrate and take down the street-racing gang that killed his brother. Still, The Crew was good enough to get attention and get Ivory Tower bought out by their publisher, Ubisoft. So after creating a few expansions for the game, they got right to work on the sequel and released it in 2018. The Crew 2 addresses many of the complaints the first game got while expanding its ambitions. The general shape of the map is the same as it was in the first game, but there are more details in every area and the country roads feel much more windy and cramped. Nighttime is less dark and also more colorful thanks to plenty of streetlights and a bright moon. The story is a simple "the main character is an up-and-coming racer who wants to be the best" plot, and that's really all you need for a racing game. You can still buy stuff by spending real money, but everything is affordable if you stick with in-game currency and the only way to get good performance parts is by winning races. Also, the racing activities have gone way off the road and now include multiple events each for cars, motorcycles, boats, and airplanes. However, the game still uses an always-online structure. I'm not going to argue that The Crew 2 is the best racing game you can play today. That honor would probably go to Forza 7 or Forza Horizon 4, which is also an open world title and features well over 400 licensed cars from every era. However, there aren't many titles with an open world as vast as this game, and I would be hard pressed to find one that combined street cars with monster trucks, rally raids, jet-sprint boats, and airplane racing. The Crew 2 is fun and I have a lot of fun playing it, and hopefully you'll have fun watching me play. As usual, I'm going the extra mile with this LP and covering a series of motorized movies, with extra time at the end spent talking about real-life cars and car parts. Joining me for the racing (but not the reviews) is Great Joe, who also knows a thing or two about cars and racing. We may come off as a bit awkward in the first video as I explain everything and Joe takes it all in, but we'll get to some real discussions starting in part 2.
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Feb 18, 2019 19:00
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Bobbin Threadbare fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Sep 30, 2019 |
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Feb 18, 2019 19:00
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:and the plot is a melodramatic story about a man who wants to infiltrate and take down the street-racing gang that killed his brother. You forgot to mention the main character looks extremely punchable and is completely insufferable. 
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Feb 18, 2019 20:51
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Cooked Auto posted:You forgot to mention the main character looks extremely punchable and is completely insufferable. Honestly, Crew 1 should have been set to the 1970's or 60's since that was the golden era of the road movie.
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Feb 18, 2019 22:38
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Alex does dress a bit like he's in a 70's road movie yeah, even if the hipster beard does him zero favours.
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Feb 18, 2019 22:44
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woo, ground floor on a Bobbin Threadbare LP. I know pretty much nothing about cars, so I'm really looking forward to learning anything at all!
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Feb 19, 2019 04:27
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If you want to play a racing game with a plot it took seriously but wasn't insufferable and was also stuffed of car movie references that game was Driver San Francisco. I say was because it has been delisted from sale everywhere so you can only play it secondhand or if you already owned it. The plot was actually nuts though because the main gameplay conceit is that main character is able to jump between the bodies of people driving on the street, taking over whatever car they happen to be driving so you can get a better car or avoid crashes. You can do this because for most of the game the main character is actually in a coma, though he doesn't quite know it, and is kind of solving the case in his head. It of course had a mission referencing Bullitt, given the location and the material. You can also find an homage in Need for Speed: The Run, though that suffers from being very much like The Crew in plot. Any plans on doing just a road trip across not-quite America?
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Feb 24, 2019 02:53
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I wish bobbin and Joe well on this, the ground floor to their thread.
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Feb 24, 2019 03:15
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Really excited for this one! Looking forward to more of Bobbin's excellent video series!
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Mar 4, 2019 18:53
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...have to say Bobbin, this is the last thing I'd expect you to LP. Definitely following this.
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Mar 4, 2019 18:57
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i dunno, his LA Noire and Sleeping Dogs lps showed he had some level of appreciation for a nice car. What's more unexpected is the lack of a 2nd update after 1.X weeks hurr hurr*. *its fine take your time updates are out when theyre out
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Mar 4, 2019 19:37
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Very interested to see where it goes, since I know next to nothing about cars myself.
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Mar 4, 2019 20:12
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PhazonLink posted:i dunno, his LA Noire and Sleeping Dogs lps showed he had some level of appreciation for a nice car. What's more unexpected is the lack of a 2nd update after 1.X weeks hurr hurr*. Sorry I'm late; all I can say is that Crusader Kings 2 can eat up your life if you let it.
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Mar 4, 2019 20:57
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Knew it'd be Death Race from your description. The next one sounds like Mad Max of some sort? Also woo more Bobbin.
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Mar 5, 2019 05:42
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I'm sure there's a game somewhere that could really dive into the details of drag racing and make something compelling but I don't think The Crew 2 is it So what happens if you fail? the timer to get to the starting point? Do you just have to do it again? Do you fail the race entirely? What a weird thing.
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Mar 5, 2019 18:01
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Kibayasu posted:I'm sure there's a game somewhere that could really dive into the details of drag racing and make something compelling but I don't think The Crew 2 is it I explain this in the fourth video, but nothing happens when you're playing solo. You can join a race with up to three other players, and from what I can figure your position in the starting grid depends on who gets to it first. If you fail to reach the grid before the timer runs out, you get dumped into the back. But it's about time we start exploring what this game really allows for.
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Mar 11, 2019 17:48
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It's odd that I keep getting slight vibes of Deja vu at places I vaguely recognize from playing the first game. Especially during the last race.
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Mar 11, 2019 18:54
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Hey Bobbin, have you submitted Sleeping Dogs for LP archiving? It was a blast and surely deserves to get preserved for posterity....
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Mar 12, 2019 22:34
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The Dragula music video must have been the strangest thing to film. More open ended races seem like they're right up this game's alley - start somewhere, mark the end point, and go - but I imagine there's a lot of game barriers like the steel barriers that would get too much in the way.
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Mar 13, 2019 20:10
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double nine posted:Hey Bobbin, have you submitted Sleeping Dogs for LP archiving? It was a blast and surely deserves to get preserved for posterity.... Seconding this. We must preserve the majesty of Wei Shen, Best Cop.
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Mar 13, 2019 21:08
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AceOfFlames posted:Seconding this. We must preserve the majesty of Jesus Christ, Wei
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Mar 14, 2019 04:12
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The rest of the LP needs paint jobs equally capable of nauseating Joe 
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Mar 15, 2019 04:19
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double nine posted:Hey Bobbin, have you submitted Sleeping Dogs for LP archiving? It was a blast and surely deserves to get preserved for posterity.... Unfortunately, something like half the videos have been blocked on YouTube at this point and a few are down on DailyMotion. They may have been fine at the time, but apparently the video search algorithm is catching up to each one in turn. That's why I haven't even tried presenting clips with this LP. oldskool posted:The rest of the LP needs paint jobs equally capable of nauseating Joe As it turns out, I will find other ways to nauseate Joe. Look forward to episode 5. But until then...
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Mar 20, 2019 01:04
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The Crew 2 is currently less than $20 on Steam!
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Mar 21, 2019 18:10
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Look Crew 2, you can't half rear end Hydro Thunder. Jumping off a dam into the Grand Canyon is great and all but you need to do a lot more. I'm half and half on Redline, which gets me yelled at a lot by my anime friends. But if you ask me it was their fault for hyping it up so much. Yes, of course its gorgeous. Yes, of course its not meant to be some amazing character piece. Yes, of course I think its better than Transformers. But it's still just kind of an extremely well made excuse for various kinds of explosions and filled to the brim with the kinds of anime stereotypes that annoy me just as much as anything Michael Bay does.
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Mar 25, 2019 03:18
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An open-world driving game that really focuses on the driving? Looks really interesting! Looking forward to following along.
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Mar 25, 2019 05:07
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Kibayasu posted:I'm half and half on Redline, which gets me yelled at a lot by my anime friends. But if you ask me it was their fault for hyping it up so much. Yes, of course its gorgeous. Yes, of course its not meant to be some amazing character piece. Yes, of course I think its better than Transformers. But it's still just kind of an extremely well made excuse for various kinds of explosions and filled to the brim with the kinds of anime stereotypes that annoy me just as much as anything Michael Bay does. And a surprising amount of smoking for a 2010 movie.
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Mar 25, 2019 17:05
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Thx for letting us know in the latest video that speed holes which make the car go faster aren’t just a Simpsons car salesman’s cover story for bullet holes.  I had no idea they were a real thing.Looking forward to the next review. I’m not really into racing games but your commentary is worth listening. achtungnight fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 00:32
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So that little bonus footage. Jesus Christ
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Mar 26, 2019 04:01
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You can blame this latest delay on Crusader Kings, too. I've uninstalled it now. Had enough obsessive fun to last me a while.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:07
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The current record holder for Pike's Peak is a custom built electric car made by VW.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:58
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Discussion of Pike's Peak, and there's no mention of Climb Dance? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuZG37gFdM
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Apr 14, 2019 11:08
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Apr 15, 2019 22:52
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I wanted to see that Maine jet sprint event instead of more Colorado River area, but that LA port race was one of the highlights of the game for me. And since I know nothing about how cars work, I should have thanked you earlier for always being a great teacher in the lecture half of your videos.
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Apr 21, 2019 06:25
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Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:I wanted to see that Maine jet sprint event instead of more Colorado River area, but that LA port race was one of the highlights of the game for me. And since I know nothing about how cars work, I should have thanked you earlier for always being a great teacher in the lecture half of your videos. That's really half the fun of the videos. More than half, sometimes!
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Apr 21, 2019 06:36
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Apr 23, 2019 16:59
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Something worth pointing out is that the music video for Audioslave's Show me how to live uses the car footage from Vanishing Point but with the band themselves inside the car instead of Kowalski. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXIK1xCRpY Not to mention the lyrics are a massive Blade Runner reference as well. Edit: https://store.steampowered.com/app/646910/The_Crew_2/ The Crew 2 has a Free Weekend on Steam. Cooked Auto fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 18:44
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Apr 30, 2019 18:10
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Ah yes, drifting, that thing I always try to do and always can never do.
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May 5, 2019 17:34
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Kibayasu posted:Ah yes, drifting, that thing I always try to do and always can never do. Same. I figure it requires either a wheel or a gamepad. Of which I have neither really.
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May 5, 2019 17:57
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