Introduction

The "driving game" is a long-running staple of the console market. It's one of the slots that must be filled when a system launches along with "fighting game", "shooter", and "sports game". I feel comfortable breaking down driving games into three categories; arcade, simulation, and kart racer. The arcade category includes games like MotorStorm and to some extent Project Gotham. These games eschew a level of realism and opt for accessibility whereas simulation games like the Gran Turismo series model realistic physics and licensed cars with painstaking detail. The kart games like ExciteTruck and the Mario Kart series are just mindless fun without the constraints of real-world physics or precision car modeling. All the categories are valid gaming experiences and my preference really just depends on my mood. Forza Motorsport 2 finds itself deeply entrenched in the simulation category, but still offers enough casual game play and extra features to satisfy the arcade race fan. It's a complete driving game package with just a few minor problems.

View Forza 2 Slide Show (33 images)

If you consider yourself a car-and-engine aficionado as well as a gamer you need this game. Forza 2 showcases exquisitely detailed models for over 300 cars from around the world and each one drives and feels different. Powerful rear-wheel drive cars will come around on you if you stomp the gas in a turn and the high-end race cars will stay flat through a turn at over 150 m.p.h. There's bound to be a car in the game that will please everyone from the tweaked out rice burners to the bulky American muscle cars of the 60s and 70s. With such a high number of cars available you may expect a great deal of them to be kept behind locked doors for most of the game's duration only made available after months of game play. Thankfully this isn't the case. Only about 70 of the 300 are locked when you start the game and you unlock a good portion of them by completing arcade races. If you win the race on any difficulty level you'll unlock three cars and the next arcade track. There are plenty of awesome cars available right out of the box which makes the unlockable cars more akin to frosting than necessities. Cars are categorized by a class decided by their horsepower and component parts. Within each class the cars are also given a performance index; a score based on its overall quality. Higher numbers sometimes equal the better, faster car but so much of the performance depends on the driver and the individual tuning for the track that you shouldn't count on the "faster" car winning you the race. Forza 2 also has an impressive damage modeling system. I can remember hitting the wall particularly hard in a race and then about a lap later while going down a straightaway something that was loose flew off the car. Not only will your car take damage on the initial crash, apparently it can loosen other pieces that will come off later on through the normal rigors of racing. The cars will take realistic damage (to an extent), and with the option turned on, will suffer the adverse affects of it as well. You can't flip a car or get one to completely come apart, but you can beat them up real nice.

A bumper comes off a car in a collision. Pieces of the car will stay on the track for the duration of the race.

If your car sports upgrades that allow tuning you'll find that you can change the performance of the car a great deal from track to track. Subtle changes like lowering the tire pressure a few p.s.i, tightening the suspension, and changing the spoiler to create more downforce can get your car to stick through turns better. For those whose eyes glaze over at terms like "differential torque distribution" and "camber", worry not. You can still play through the entire game successfully and not tune a car once. You may find that you have to ratchet the AI down eventually and engage the assists, but you can still win races in the single-player. The game doesn't have an overall difficulty level, but rather allows the player to make changes on a race-to-race level. The options available are turning on the traction control system, stability management, antilock brakes, and the optimum driving line. The driving line is handy for learning when to break going into turns and when to accelerate going out. You can also set the AI driver difficulty which determines how aggressive your opponents are and how fast they drive. For the first couple of runs I'd recommend turning them all on until you can stay on the track for several laps in a row and learn the ins-and-outs. There are those gamers that play racing games by going as fast as they can all the time and bouncing off the walls in turns, however they may not find a home here. This is a driving simulation, and even with all the considerable driving assistance turned on it takes a careful touch to navigate the tracks. You may find yourself sliding off the track into the gravel on your first chicane, but just think about driving a real car and you'll get the hang of it.

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