I played a little bit of The Crew 2 last week, simply because I thought it was worth it for the unique map and the nice looking car interiors. I thought it was relatively good enough if it's stretching itself thin in every direction by featuring such a large map and cluttering it with way too many diverse vehicles. If it it stripped itself it down to solely cars, I thought it had the makings of a world class driving game (albeit maybe not a world class racing game) in the mold of its spiritual predecessor, Rest Drive Unlimited.

Motorfest is closer to that game. It's mostly cars. It's a smaller map. It's kind of a more direct Forza Horizon (FH5) clone but that's okay because again, Test Drive Unlimited walked so Horizon could run. I think the driving and car handling is way imporved. The map is stunning. The destructible environments make race events less of a curse than in The Crew 2. And this game just has a sense of fun and frivolity that Horizon is missing. All the little unique playlist touches are gorgeous and nice to play through. The festival environment in this game spreads itself much broader. The whole map feels closer to the tone of the Hot Wheels DLCs and the game is better off for it. I'm sure I'll get bored at some point but this is the antidote to the modern racer right here. A better Need for Speed than Unbound. A better festival racer than Horizon 5. Just stunning.