Xboxist

Forza Motorsport 2: A Casual Review

After putting a solid 15-20 hours into Forza Motorsport 2, it's time to post some thoughts about it. Forza Motorsport 2 is a well-crafted racing title that just barely misses the mark in a few places.

First, it's gorgeous. The cars really look great and the replays are fun to watch and to pause for cool photos. All of the production values are top-notch. Great sound and music, easy menus.

As expected, the actual driving part of it is stellar, even when just using the Xbox360 control. You can definitely tell you're playing on a control instead of a wheel, though. The selection of cars is solid as well, with over 300 vehicles. Everything you expect is there, plus some of the incredible Italian supercars.

The community aspect of the game is really great. Just casual browsing online has pulled up some absolutely amazing car mods. People are bringing all their favorite images to Forza with just vector shapes. I tried to do the tofu shop logo from Initial D, a relatively simple mod, and failed miserably. There are some truly talented people out there playing this game. I love that you can lock the paintjob on the car, allowing you to sell a signature vehicle in the online community and you can know it'll stay yours even after it's out of your garage.

One complaint I do have though is regarding the tracks.

First off, there just aren't enough! What is there has solid variety in terms of different corner types and technique variety, but the number of tracks almost fit on two hands.

This leads me into another major complaint regarding the tracks. When I reviewed the original Forza Motorsport, one thing I gushed about was the point to point tracks. I wrote that those tracks, especially the mountain pass, were my favorite. I had hoped that Forza 2 would include more. Instead, they're gone completely.

I'm going to go somewhat off-topic here on a bit of a rant about racing games. Laps are boring. Laps are really, really boring. They're certainly necessary, and I certainly don't think they should be done away with. I just want some variety. The mountain pass of the first game provided that variety. None of the corners there were anything like the rest of the game. it was great!

Something I hate even more are the endurance races. As a fan of street and hill racing, endurance races have an incredibly mind numbing effect on me. I never bother with them. Instead, I just call the game done when I get to them.

The upside to all this is that this is an Xbox360 game. There could be downloadable content - a downhill track-pack, "The Mountain Passes of Japan!" Here's to hoping. This is also an occasion for Gran Turismo 5 to step up and take back its commanding hold of the Racing King title.

Another complaint, though more minor, is the lack of any environmental variety. As reports of Project Gotham 4's focus on the environment and the visuals of DiRT's rally cars sliding around in the dirt fill my mind, I begin to realize that not only does Forza skip the weather effects altogether, different times of day are almost skipped over as well.

Despite this lack of track variety, Forza Motorsport 2 really is a solid game. The decision to concentrate hard on the simulation aspect pays off well in the graphics and gameplay, but leaves me wanting in some other categories.

If you're going to make me give it a score, I suppose I'll say 8/10.