Parents' Guide to The Crew 2

Let's get one thing out of the way right from the starting line: What you get out of your time with this racer is absolutely dependent on how you choose to play it. For starters, The Crew 2 is big. In fact, it's almost too big, at least geographically speaking. Even using a compacted version of the United States, it still can feel like it takes forever to get from Point A to Point B. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. It can actually be quite relaxing to enjoy the view and take in the sights as you fly, drive, or boat your way across the country, stopping occasionally to take advantage of virtual photo ops along the way. Occasionally, you'll see a few other gamers traversing the countryside, but unless you're riding with friends as part of a party, it can be a lonely trip. Of course, if you want to just jump into the action, The Crew 2 allows fast travel to most events scattered around the map, too.

With so many different types of vehicles in one place, it's no surprise that the controls take some getting used to. Flight controls feel completely different than the cars, and the boats have their own little tricks and nuances to get use to as well. In fact, the actual street racing component is probably the weakest of The Crew 2's offerings. Oddly enough, though, the individual vehicles don't feel dramatically different from each other. Instead, any major performance differences come from equipping parts, which can be earned or found throughout the game and come in color-coded rarities. In some ways, this adds a certain level of loot grinding to the racer, forcing you to keep racing to get better parts for your machines. This might seem out of place in most racing games, but in The Crew 2, a game where you can instantly swap vehicle types on the fly and the United States map looks like a post-baked Shrinky Dink, "out of place" feels right at home.