Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360)

Another fantasy game about going from zero to 60.
1/29/2008 12:00 AM | 1 Comments | Page 2 of 3

But for the most part, Forza 2 is as difficult as you want it to be. You can enable driving assists or tone down the artificial intelligence, which will apply a penalty to your winnings. Most of the races, particularly early in the game, give you plenty of leeway to bring in a powerful car so you can clobber the competition with sheer horsepower. This is also a great way to grind for money and experience, as compelling and/or pointless as any MMO.

My car. Let me show it to you.

Even more than the previous game, Forza 2 is about customizing your car. Each car is rated according to a Performance Index, which divides cars into different classes. So, for instance, you can upgrade a Mini Cooper to the point where it's in the same class as a Mitsubishi Evo. These ratings determine your opponents in many of the races. There's a fine art to rigging your car with just enough upgrades to bump it into the upper limit of a given class without going over. You can track the practical effects of your changes with a handy indicator for the car's acceleration, speed, braking and handling. This is a big part of the gameplay, so it's a bit disappointing that kitting your car with custom parts is such a hassle, spread out over several screens and sub-screens, with no easy overview. It would have been nice if this was as convenient as the finer art of tuning your car for a race, where you can easily adjust settings like gear ratios, downforce and suspension.

There's enough detailed gearhead stuff in here to satisfy the most hardcore driving sim fans, and not just in terms of the tuning. The physics model fully supports all the minor adjustments you can make, and driving without any assists can be a delicate matter. You can study detailed telemetry while you're racing or watching a replay. Most of this stuff is beyond the ken of the average player, and the little manual is no help explaining it. However, the great in-game documentation will guide you through the tuning if you want to learn it. It's entirely optional, given the variable difficulty level of the game, but it can be rewarding. At the very least, it's easy enough to figure out how to shorten or lengthen your gears based on whether the track is mostly straight-aways.

Just as important in Forza 2 is the ability to visually customize your car. In addition to painting cars and adding custom doodads, you can create detailed designs from scratch. This may very well be the most powerful paint program to ever ship with a game, as you'll be able to see from people's cars online. The artistry that's gone into Forza 2 is a joy to see, and there are options for online gifting and an auction house so people can share and show off their designs. If you feel like admiring your custom design -- and who wouldn't? -- you can pause a race or replay, freely reposition the camera, and save a screenshot. You can even upload screenshots to the community Web site. Forza 2 is pure unadulterated car porn.

Unfortunately, it's not just car porn. There are no moderators for online artwork, so even a cursory browse of the auction house is likely to turn up naked anime characters with their legs splayed open across the hood of a car. The online experience may change, indeed.