Hands-On With The Crew Motorfest Season 2

Season 2 has arrived in The Crew Motorfest, and with it comes the chaos of Hoonigan. Famous for their loud drift machines, Hoonigan is the focus of the Motorfest for the entirety of Season 2.

Hoonigan is a big brand, so it needs a big area to test its vehicles' aggressiveness. This brings a brand new area to the island of Oahu, where the smoke clouds can roam free.

So how do Hoonigan fit into the overall feel of The Crew Motorfest? Let’s find out!

Playing Hoonigan

The arrival of Hoonigan sees an all-new playlist added to The Crew Motorfest. Presented by Hoonigan, Gymkhana Grid Masters celebrates everything about the burnout car brand.

The playlist features ten new events, including a brand-new game mode. Stunt Races task you with scoring points during three laps of a track. With points awarded for drifting, grinding on rails, and any other stunts possible in a Hoonigan, the goal is to beat a target score by the time you cross the line.

You’re also racing against the clock, so you can’t just keep doing doughnuts around the same obstacle repeatedly to rack up the points. Reach the finish line with time to spare and you’ll score bonus points, vital to boosting your score.

Each chapter is introduced by Hoonigan’s very own Brian Scotto, who challenges you to become a full-on Hoonigan driver by taking your drifting skills to the max. Events range from racing against Scotto through Honolulu in a bespoke Hoonigan-ised Chevrolet, charging both up and down the volcano of O’ahu, and even blasting around the docks in a full grid race.

There's even a delivery mission where you're tasked with getting a car to its destination as fast as possible without causing too much damage. This is straight out of Test Drive Unlimited, which is no surprise considering the developer's history with the Test Drive series.

The playlist culminates in one final Hoonigan test. Set in the new Gymkhana Grid Park, you’re challenged to put everything you’ve learned about Hoonigan to good use to rack up one final point total.

The stunt races feel a bit repetitive, and the events are all placed too close together, even on the small map of The Crew Motorfest. Overall though, the Gymkhana Grid Masters playlist adds some much-needed variety to the playlist offerings.

The Gymkhana Grid Masters playlist isn’t the only new arrival to the Motorfest however, as the Hoonigan takeover also brings a new area of the map to explore.

Gymkhana Island

The Gymkhana Grid Masters playlist is hosted on the custom-built Gymkhana Grid Park. Built out in the Pacific Ocean, the new island is accessed via a bridge from the mainland just off Barbers Point.

The Gymkhana Grid Park showcases all things Hoonigan. Stunt ramps, drift zones, grind rails, and half pipes are everywhere, allowing you to practise your stunts ahead of each event. All these areas are situated in a multilevel park, with multiple ways to head up to the grind rails or down to the halfpipes.

Both main stunt races take place in the Grid Park, with the final Gymkhana Motorfest event also featuring the new area. Overall the Gymkhana Grid Park is a decent-sized addition, offering a new area to explore and new ways to test your cars.

Having more ways to get to and from the Grid Park would have made the island feel more like a part of the main map, but considering this is a game where a car becomes a plane in a split-second, this isn’t a major issue.

It would have also been nice to see the Grid Park theming incorporated more into the rest of O’ahu, especially considering Season 2 is a Hoonigan takeover. Again, this would be a bonus rather than a necessity.

Outside of the Grid Masters playlist and Grid Park area, Season 2 offers one last treat for players of The Crew Motorfest.

Hot new wheels

The Hoonigan-themed playlist needs Hoonigan vehicles in order to compete in them, and Season 2 delivers. Season 2 introduces 24 new vehicles to The Crew Motorfest, with the Hoonigan Mustang, Audi Hoonitron, and Mitsubishi Evo IX taking centre stage. These are perfect for drifting around the Grid Park and jumping stunt ramps without compromising speed for the occasional Hoonigan race.

New vehicle customisation options are also included in Season 2. Part switching allows you to move parts between vehicles of the same category. This means if you have the perfect setup for your drift mobile, you can easily replicate it on the rest of your Hoonigan garage.

Outside of Hoonigan, this is a great addition to the game. Switching parts from car to car reduces the time spent in the garage, maximising the player experience out on the road.

So that’s everything new The Crew Motorfest Season 2, but how does it all stack up?

Bringing the beater

The Crew Motorfest may not be the first time Hoonigan has appeared in a racing game, but it’s arguably the best. Unlike the Need for Speed or Forza Horizon series, The Crew Motorfest focuses on the whole Hoonigan experience rather than just the cars.

Having Scotto introduce the playlist and each event within it brings that extra personality that other racing games have excluded while racing against him brings the player into the Gymkhana group in a clever way.

Yes, the playlist is padded with repeated events, and the Gymkhana Grid Park could have been integrated into the main game better, maybe even being located at the main Motorfest site rather than several miles away. But these are minor gripes in an otherwise solid update.

For a free update, this is a great addition to the game. The Crew Motorfest has had an impressive start already, but if this is just a glimpse of what The Crew Motorfest has to offer moving forward, then we cannot wait to see what’s coming next to O’ahu.

Season 2 will launch with a series of bug fixes and other changes to the game. We’ll report on those when the update launches including the Season 2 patch notes.

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