Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360, 2007)

This is going to be one of those hard to write reviews. Mainly because I think Forza is not really a fun game, it’s more tedious and frustrating. But at the same time it’s not one of those games where your going the publisher should have played this game for 5 seconds and realized not only is the game unfit to release but he should have fired his development staff. No Forza had a lot of loved pour onto it by it’s creators but that may have been part of it’s problem. Why do I own a game that I obviously should have known I wouldn’t like, well it came bundled with my xbox 360 and after a year of having it collect dust on my shelf I decided I might has well play the dang thing.

Point of the game.
Pretty much the point of the game is to win races so you can win money to buy cars, has well has win better cars. You will also level up on an RPG type system in order to get into the harder levels and challenges.

Graphics.
The graphics are probably the games biggest feature. Every car render in HD you can see reflections off the hood and when you move the whole car looks like it would move in real life. Add on to that but the damage you take to car is pretty realistic. From the cracked windows to dents in the driver seat, to your rear fender falling off the damage looks pretty real. On the bad side the courses look meh and there is also no sense of speed. The background looks like it’s moving at 45 miles an hour even when your speedometer says 125 mph.

Sound.
You get a few really forgettable pop songs when your scrolling the menus but once on the track all you hear is the cheer of the crowds and the roar of the engines.

Gameplay.
All right I will talk about what is good about Forza. First off this puppies got a lot of modes. First is the arcade and time trail modes for those who just want to have a casual racing experience. Pick a course and ride and you will collect cars based on what place you were in. It’s simple enough but it’s shallow and won’t last long. The main single player game will be spent on carrier campaign.

In career you raise through different cups each with it’s own entry cups. Some will only allow cars with a certain engine, while another will have to be a certain class and be made in Europe. You will also start by picking between 1 of 3 contents to start on. This will give you discounts has you level up and unlock certain cars. There is a bit of a Pokemon feeling to it because you can trade cars by xbox live and there are achievements for catching…or um collecting them all.

The catalog on the cars are huge and you can pretty much purchase cars from pretty much any automaker in existence. After buying them you can paint, doodle on them, upgrade them, and tune them up. You can also auction them on xbox live for in game credits (sorry no real money can be used). Also every race you win will level up your car giving you more discounts on upgrades. Basically the game lets you feel like you’re a Jay Leno car collector without having to host the Tonight show.

To the creators credit there is also every option to adjust the difficulty. From the AI to having arrows show the best place to be on the road, to anti lock breaks, to controlling how much damage you can get when you get hit by a car. You can get bonus money or get money taking away based on how easy you set the game.

Now on to the bad thing. The creators wanted this to be has realistic has possible. And let me tell you folks realism in video games is highly over rated. Think about it what if Mario could only jump has well has a person in real life, would it have been fun. Now other plat formers have tried more realistic jumping patterns on there game only to fail miserably (Ghosts and Goblins). And this is Forza’s problem.

The game can be frustrating when you think your ahead and then manage just to pull a little bit to far to left or right in a turn not realizing that at speed your going (again it’s hard to tell how fast your going because the game itself doesn’t look fast) your going to spin out. You spin out and leave the field on dirt, and anybody who’s seen the Pixar movie Cars should know how fun it is to race on dirt. While your desperately trying to go forward the car is instead doing figure 8’s while you throw the remote at the TV screen. Add on top of that there is a real lack of courses in order to do all the races you’ll probably hit a lot of the courses 20 to 30 times. Sure different cars will make some parts tougher or easier but the race here and done this will definitely set in by half way through this game.

And if you don’t believe me that the creators knew that this game would get boring and frustrating then I have to ask then why did they throw in of all things an AI driver. Find yourself just fed up with a game and course restart the course and then put in an AI driver. The driver will take more then half of your winnings but you can go do something far more entertaining like reorganizing your sock drawer or watching paint dry.

Achievements and online.
Most of the achievements won in career can be won using any difficulty and even with the AI driver so while there are a few tricky ones (like racing on hard with no assists) most of the big ones can be gotten easily with some patience. Online has the auction but you can also race for credits to use on career mode and race in tournaments. Other then it takes a while to get a race started the online plays just has good has the offline for better or for worse.

Final Recommendation.
A lot of hard work went into Forza and if you like to think of yourself has a virtual car collector go for it. But me I think there are a lot more fun racers out there, even if they don’t come close to being half has realistic.

Recommend this product? No