The Fast & Furious saga started on the NOS-fueled streets of Los Angeles
and has since gone on to become one of the biggest franchises on the planet.
Theme park rides, video games, toys, and nearly six billion dollars at the box office
have cemented its place in the pop culture pantheon.
While heists and criminal elements have always played a central role in the movies,
recent installments have more in common
with Mission Impossible than racing quarter-miles for pink slips.
Fast & Furious Crossroads aims closer to the vibes of these more recent films,
while attempting to throw back to the series’ roots.
The story takes place sometime after The Fate of the Furious.
Dominic Toretto and Letty Ortiz are investigating a lead from Mr. Nobody
about a possible attack on US soil which leads them to the Tadakhul,
an ancient organization considered to be the original highway robbers.
Elsewhere, newcomers Vienna Cole and Cam Stone get tangled up with the shadowy organization
through their friend Sebastian who owes them a considerable debt.
It’s only a matter of time before all the major players join forces and embark on a globetrotting adventure.
What ensues is nothing short of ridiculous.
The hope that the story would have added quality due to the participation from series stars
Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, and Vin Diesel immediately evaporates
when you realize they are clearly phoning it in.
Stilted, awkward dialogue is rampant throughout the four to five hour slog.
Vin Diesel saying “family” is a well known meme at this point, but
none of what’s here is even remotely funny in a good or bad way;
it’s just dull and lifeless.
The story is very serious, with little of the films’ playfulness except
for a few attempts at humor with Tyrese,
which leads to the whole affair feeling unnecessarily dreary.
In an effort to tie back to the franchise’s roots, Vienna talks a lot about her days in Miami
when she ran with Suki and Tej.
While the references to 2 Fast 2 Furious and other films add a sense of history and scope,
they also feel blatantly contrived.
The visuals don’t help matters, with dated character models and bland, repetitive environments,
making it even harder to connect to the story.
There’s an attempt to mix things up through a variety of mission objectives, but much of the time,
you need to endure stretches that are dreadfully boring.
Sometimes you just need to drive from point A to point B and listen to expository dialogue
about characters’ pasts or worries.
And in many instances, you’re moving at a snail’s pace,
either due to artificial limits on your max speed
or objectives that require you to hang back to tail a suspicious vehicle.
Missions are mostly linear, having you spend a lot of your time simply barreling forward,
but occasionally there a few branching routes.
There's never a point where you go out to just do what you want to do.
Someone's always yelling directions or there's a timer or a chase.
And before you know it, it’s done.
It plays like a greatest hits album from the franchise with street races,
a truck heist reminiscent of the original film,
and even dragging a giant wrecking ball like the safe in Fast Five.
The worst missions have you trying to take down generic enemies by slamming into them,
but in a series all about speed, you are usually forced to slow down to a crawl
and wait for them to get near you.
A few heists have you work with multiple characters
that you can switch to on the fly in an effort to take out a boss,
but you’re specifically told when to make the swap.
There’s no sense of strategy or figuring out what to do, so
the game might as well switch to the appropriate driver automatically.
There a few amusing moments like escaping an avalanche of sand and boulders, but
the lack of energy, low difficulty, and horrible voice acting
do their best to ruin the mood.
The biggest shame is that for a series so passionate about automobiles,
Crossroads doesn’t pay them any sort of reverence.
While you’re always behind the wheel, the game takes the focus off of driving and puts it on
what it wants you to do while you’re along for the ride.
Options players might expect like manual shifting, upgrades, customization,
or even different camera angles are all absent, and the game doesn’t even feature a speedometer.
Most egregious is that from big muscle cars like Dom’s Charger
to smaller imports, every car feels like a heavy bulldozer.
They slam around the environment destroying nearly everything in their path
failing to create any sense of unique identity.
There’s a handbrake to drift, but the controls are so poor,
it’s usually easier to just slam into the walls.
The only real distinction is that some cars come equipped with different gadgets
like a harpoon that can yank objects or slow an enemy down,
or a hacking device complete with a simple mini-game.
NOS can be used with some vehicles and works on a cooldown,
but the once mythical item under Vin Diesel’s passenger seat
just adds a little speed with no nuance or strategy for when to unleash it.
The audio design is also lacking, failing to convey the raw power of any vehicle.
There is online multiplayer in addition to the campaign.
A handful of modes chaotically pit three teams against each other.
Siege has teams fighting for a large device in an effort to carry it to their side,
while APB has rival teams trying to reach the final zone and hold onto it while evading the police.
Tank Takedown is the most interesting with a computer-controlled tank
trying to reach the finish line, blasting anyone that gets in its way.
One team is tasked to defend it, another team has to destroy it,
and the police team has to take down everyone.
Still, the horrible controls, dull environments, and lack of any strategy
result in each mode feeling disorderly.
Matches usually devolve into all the cars just slamming into each other,
and it quickly gets tiring.
As you play multiplayer matches you gain XP and level up,
which unlocks additional cars, upgrades, and icons.
In comparison to the campaign, it’s nice to actually be able to change the paint and wraps of your cars, but
the options are depressingly limited.
Plus there simply aren’t many people playing.
Actually getting enough players to start a game on launch weekend took upwards of ten minutes.
With weak unlocks and long queue times, there isn’t much incentive to stick around.
Fast & Furious Crossroads brings nothing meaningful to the franchise or racing games in general.
At full price, you should absolutely stay away
even if you are a diehard veteran of the series.
Horrible voice acting, dated visuals,
weak sound effects, no customization, and cumbersome controls
all contribute to a lifeless slog.
There are a few short-lived moments of success, but they aren’t worth putting up with a game
where you never feel like more than a co-pilot.
Hopefully in the future, Fast & Furious will know when to stay in its lane.
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