Forza Horizon 2 vs The Crew (XBOX One)

Miscellaneous Xbox & Games Industry
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A lot of people are always wanting a comparison, so after release, here are my thoughts. I will taking a category and talking about each, and which one gets it.

Once again, my thoughts. Fanboys of each game can click off right now.

Graphics:
Forza Horizon 2. Not even a comparison. While TC’s don’t look horrible, it is definanty not comparable to H2, which in some shots looks like a real life photo!.

Map:
The Crew. Horizon 2’s is even smaller than the first (with more drivable area), while TC has a map that takes 90+ minutes to cross, and not a lot of borders, unlike H2, which still has a good amount, when you think of it. TC has a bunch of cities and landmarks of the USA, and Forza just has a sort-of replica of each city that stereotypes it.

Progression System:
For me, I personally don’t like either one! FH2 gives you a Ferrari in the first hour (with WAY more free cars to come), and TC makes you crawl on your hands and knees and beg to get a car!

Car list:
Forza Horizon 2. It has a very diverse 200+ car list from JDM classics, to Hypercars, to SUVs, to much more.

DLC:
NONE (but FH2). Personally, I HATE DLC and think games should stop doing it. Well not nessicarily that, but making up cars PRE launch and making us pay for it?! Why? Are you that desperate? GIVE US THE FULL GAME! RS does it right and makes it free, and they develop it after launch! Link to someone stating my EXACT thoughts: Why DLC is Ruining Gaming (Rant) - YouTube. But after looking at the DLC PGG has released and looking at the DLC IT will be offering, Forza’s is much better.

AI:
Forza Horizon 2. Forza has drivatars which sometimes wreck you, but are much better than the rubber banding AI in TC.

Content:
The Crew. It has SO many things to do, while FH2 has you stuck doing road trips and bucket lists. After you finish all that…

Intro:
Forza Horizon 2. Singlehandedly the best intro in a racing game. Has the festival feel (yet doesn’t overpower you like in H1), has the cars, and gets you ready to drive. TC’s police chase intro is cool, but not as cool as FH2 to me.

Story:
None. TC’s is SO cliche, and FH2 doesn’t really have one… just race to the top and not kill Ben and Ashely.
Lasting longer:
The Crew. It will, with it’s almost endless things to do in it.
Overall winner:
Forza Horizon 2. For me, it’s more of a game I like. I like having a lot of cars, weather, getting cars more easily, good AI, non-cliche characters, and I don’t mind great graphics!
What game do you guys prefer? And for what reasons?

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You forgot to put Online in the content section. (for FH2) The fact that you can go on roadtrips without waiting in lobbies and even choose a roadtrip which is in your location. For me at least its FH2. Handling/graphics/progression in The Crew would make me feel bored, the rewards arent even big, microtransactions also play a big part, cheat codes used to do that now it’s like charging for them. I mean spending real money for cars alright games do that but for individual parts?! Nah.

EDIT: Also this is a category for just discussing Forza Horizon 2. Comparisons may belong in the General Xbox Gaming section (ive seen fm5 vs Project CARS there)

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Online is the worst part of Horizon 2 for me :frowning: Thought it was going to be super as well

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Yea I dont particularly like that theres no lobbies. Since I only do racing seeing that the next event was a King/Infected wasnt my cup of tea, I had an A Class Audi Rs6 Avant and surprisingly I won LOL, I guess ill just have to get used to it, it isnt too bad I suppose, the wider roads mean I dont get hit alot though :slight_smile: also I miss the fact you cant have specific cars for each track, I mean it shows what the 4 events will be at the start but thats it, no idea if its a Str race track with long straights or anything, so as a result ill just pick a random car :stuck_out_tongue:

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OP I agree with a fair bit of what you say but will add some more items.

Graphics - The Crew shocked me when I first played it with how bad it is. I am used to it now but yeh it is pretty poor.

Map - in the main I agree but there are still imovable, solid obstacles in the way.

Progression system - personal preference. Firstly you can find the hidden cars in The Crew which helps. I prefer FH2. I like owning all cars in Forza games. In my opinion FH2 nearly has the balance right as I still am saving for my last car.

Car list - FH2 wins.

DLC - many gamers do not understand the business reality here. Remove dlc and you get less content, it will not be added to the disc version. The extra content simply will not exist. “Oh but it was made before launch”. Maybe, mayube not. It matters not though because the costs to create it are still incurred by the developer and if they have the need to spread the costs over a higher revenue base then it needs to be paid for or sacrificed. You get what you pay for and Forza games have a few to many hindred cars in each game because of their approach to dlc. Remove that and you get a lower car count in the games. Which game wins? FH2 due to the number oif cars but neither unless it adds to the game.

AI - FH2 wins

Content - volume The Crew wins. Quality of content FH2 wins. The Crew turns into a tedious, what were the devs thinking grind.

A few I have added.

Physics - whils at the basic level FH2 destroys The Crews handling model there is an element The Crew does better. The difference between surfaces. You can not do well in the dirt in a circuit racer in The Crew. Also for some cars you can have a build for each surface type that the game auto uses based on the event’s surface type.

Stability, security of stats - FH2 wins hands down. The Crew crashes way more than FH2. The stats vanish. And I need to start the game multiple times to actually get in.

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I have not played The Crew nor do I intend to buy it. Based on reviews I’ve read and the videos I’ve seen on Twitch IMO The Crew has nothing on Horizon. Biggest deal breaker for me is that The Crew’s physics and graphics basically look like garbage compared to Horizon. The Crew to me just looks like a glorified NFS game which is fine if you’re into that. At least with Horizon you get elements of its Motorsport brother which make it great. Forza physics and graphics are still top notch for console gaming.

NOTE: this is just my opinion, I do not intend to make anyone angry with my statements.

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The Crew,physics suck-end of story!!!

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To an extent, I think asking this on the official Forza Horizon 2 forums you are going to get biased answers, I know over at “The Crew” forums the consensus of what fans of that game think of FH2 goes along the lines of “it isn’t that bad, but it’s overrated or a let down”. This would be a better question to ask at a community that isn’t based on either game if you want the most unbiased opinions, IMO.

  • As arcade-ish as The Crew can get, I think the off-road handling with regards to certain vehicle types is better then FH2, low slung street cars get caught up in grass and can’t go as fast. FH2 seems to allow even hyper cars hit top speed on grass as if it was asphalt, the only difference being you get bounced around because of the uneven surface.

-The biggest thing I think the Crew has going for it is sheer map size, it takes about 40 minutes to drive from the east coast to the west coast (or vice-versa) of their rendition of the US, and that is at full throttle.

  • It might be flawed, but I do like how the Crew has tried to implement police, I know T10 and PG has stated having police isn’t in the spirit of Horizon or something along those lines, but there is something about an open world racer that takes place with traffic that encourages vandalism (look at all those “Landscaping” bonuses) without police that IMO, comes off as a bit of a stretch. I try to rationalize in my head that the Horizon organizers are very rich and have paid off the local authorities, but whatevers. . .

  • In terms of body part customization, for the most part “The Crew” has more variety even if most of the parts such as the bumpers are merely variants of the stock ones with parts attached such as splitters, fog lights, etc. One of my biggest beefs with the Forza franchise is seeing how the vast majority of the cars in the game only have the generic “Forza Racing” wings, I almost count those vehicles as having no visual body part modifications at all. That being said, the cars that do have actual body kit parts use real-life body kits, but they are so few and far between, and even at times they seem stingy (why does the AE86 Corolla only have one type of body kit given how much of an aftermarket the car has?). Wheel selection though Forza wins as they are all real-life wheels, sadly half of the Crew’s wheel choices are factory stock wheels from other vehicles in the game, which just look weird on other vehicles (Corvette ZR1 wheels on a Mustang?)

  • Graphics definitely go to FH2, I am basing this against an Xbox One version of the Crew. It almost seems like the Crew was meant to come out on last-gen initially, especially given so many of the newer cars in the game are from the 2010-2011 model year.

  • I think physics has been discussed already, though I believe there will be some who don’t care about the Crew being more arcade, it could be a personal preference thing.

I think the edge goes to FH2, the driving experience is more pure and the game is more polished in terms of features (not necessary being bug free, but being thought out well). However, there is something about the Crew were even though it is not an 8 out of 10 game that I cannot put it down at the moment, there is just something charming about driving on a miniaturized version of the US that is arguably currently the largest open-world in any video game.

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Surprised to see people have missed out probably one of the most important things to compare between the two games:

ENGINE AUDIO QUALITY.

In The Crew…IT SUCKS SO HARD. I think there is maybe about 90% of the cars sound utterly dreadful! Only, in my experience of the game, does the Hot Rod car, the Buggy, the HUMMER and 1 or two of the vintage V8 muscles sound anywhere near as good as some of the worsed from FH2, also the “srt” sound in the crew you have copied over 5 different vehicles lol, sounds pretty good too, IMO, i’d say the Buggy and the Hummer and the Hotrod are the only 3 really distinctive, and nice sounding vehicles, but in terms of surround audio, it’s way off par.

Where as with FH2 you have about the opposite, 90% of the cars sound incredible, and even if maybe 70% of the mare from “real life” versions of the cars, I’ve not found a SINGLE vehicles in FH2 that I personally own (The P1, veneno, F1, and all the ferraris apart from the V8 versions and classics all sound rather average though with is a shame) that i’ve gone “ewww, that’s HORRIBLE”, even the very worst in FH2 are better than the best of The Crew, I feel it’s that bad. Sometimes in FH2 I just sit in car meets, checking out cars and revving them on my 5.1 surround sound system and enjoying the bliss of fantastic level of detail and quality in the engines, some of my favourites being very surprising vehicles like the SLS, the Monte Carlo, The Legacy RS, the GNX and Judge, the Hurracan, pretty much ALL barn find cars, the Abarth 500, The Alpha 4C, pretty much all classic hatches, 60’s/70’s sport cars, modern muscles and well my list goes on forever, I couldn’t pick a single car.

It guys me playing The Crew, because the gameplay is really good, but it just looks poor, sounds poor, “feels” poor in terms of driving physics, aweful car selection, scaled back customization, “empty” world in terms of other players, slowwwwww PVP, and just not enough “action” related events.

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I think FH2 is the better game. The Crew pulled me in with it’s huge world, but you pay for that else where. Very limited car list, the graphic quality of the world, but especially the cars themselves, they are no where near as detailed as FH2. The modification system doesn’t make much sense to me either, with only certain cars available for certain race types- and the fact you can mod a Hummer to out perform a Pagani Huayra (not just in straight line speed terms either). Sure, some nice gimmicks like the way the engine/drivetrain is exposed when modding. But that kind of thing is balanced out by daft mistakes like the rear wheels of my Golf doing a burnout in the pre race cut scenes. The sounds in The Crew are also pretty poor. Plus, the cliche ridden derp mesiter story line is utter nonsense and one of the things that really irritates me about previous open world driving games.

On top of that, the paint/vinyl system in The Crew is probably somewhere around the level of the original NFSU. FH2 and the Forza franchise has that locked down and it’s the best you’ll get on a console game IMO. Another thing is the way The Crew forces visual customisation on you, whether you want it or not…

I could go on, but to sum it up The Crew feels and plays like a game made by a bunch of video game developers. FH2 plays like it was made by people who really love cars, and happen to develop video games.

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I just need to point out one fact: Using the GPS on a straight road in both games, I was able to get fairly close map measurements. The FH1 map was just under 40 square miles, and the FH2 (X1) map is just over 70. Any claim it is smaller than the FH1 map is pure falsehood, unless the 360 version of FH2 has a smaller map.

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I think the solo part of fh 2 is much better than the crew, driving around the beautiful map in fh2 is a real pleasure but driving solo in the crew is a bit boring, most of the place and road look like copy past of others, the challenges are boring etc…, The problem with fh2 is that the online experience is kinda average, you go to the parking, wait for the race option to appear and launch, if you are lucky there will be 3 or 4 guys with you and even then it still feels a bit like time attack as most of the time you wont be in the same class as the other car or if you are a better pilot you will put everyone behind and you wont see anyone during the whole race.

I found the online part of the crew more fun its easier to get full race, they launch faster, all the cars are thrown together and we still often see lower class car or lower ranked pilot win the races due to the exaggerated drafting system that keeps those behind in the game (that’s not realist but I think that keeps the race interesting) etc…

If you find the progression system in the crew being slow just do online races, you get 17-18k per race that takes only a few mins, you dont even have to play the race, you can get the 17k just by spectating as well. If you have a bit of time during a weekend you can easily afford the most expensive car just playing online.

About the ai, I dont find anything specially great about drivatars but they are still much less absurd than the cheap cheating ai found in the crew that get boosted artificially if you go fast and make mistake on purpose if you are slow. So since I m not particularly a competitive player I would choose fh2 over tc, if I played online mostly then I would probably take tc over fh2 though.

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The Crew, for sure.

As a good online game, content gets released regularly -more should I say WILL get released regularly.

For me, the Crew wins by much, for the reason that… I only play the weekend, and as a weekend only player, I really hate to always take the same roads on and on and on and on… Horizon 2 mini-map is even worst than 1960’s racing games, meanwhile in The Crew, not only you have the whole United States (in Horizon 2, only a fraction of two countries), but you also have roads that have all the time a different style (instead of being two lanes, it has one).

Even better, you have the feeling of speed, which is clearly not the case of Horizon 2, where when you ride at 200 mp/h, you have the impression of going at 10 mp/h; that’s what I felt, at least.

By the way, the challenges of The Crew represent much more as a challenge, where no one has pitty on you; Horizon 2 will make you win even though you’re 10 minutes behind.

As a week-end player, it’s The Crew for sure, even though I like quite a bit King & Infected…

Anyone who is recreative should give a chance to The Crew; and I can live with the physics, as they get better when you level up.

That was my opinion. Goodbye!