Forza Motorsport 2

"Where did all the tracks go? Forza 2 is a shadow of the original Forza"

Forza is essentially Microsoft's answer to the Gran Turismo series of racing games. That is, a racing game that is realistic, without being painfully so, and containing a large number of cars the player can "buy", upgrade and race on a variety of tracks.

The original Forza for the Xbox beat Gran Turismo on the PS2 in just about every category except graphics (oddly enough, given that was the Xbox's advantage over the PS2). But Forza 2 for the 360 is a step backwards from the original Forza in a lot of areas except graphics, and while it's still a very good racing game, it's missing a lot of content and features from the original.

Gameplay

Gameplay follows the standard formula in games like this - you start with a little bit of cash, buy a car and upgrade it, then race, win more money (and occasionally) cars, and repeat until you win all the races (and own all the cars). Some races are one shots, others are championships, where you compete in several races and whoever wins the points wins the championship.

The driving model is quite realistic for the most part. The only thing I really found lacking was the motion of the car itself when you drive. Cars are not bricks, sitting flat, they rock back and forth - the front rises when you accelerate (at least in a rear wheel drive car), the front dips when you brake. There's almost none of that in the game. You do get a little when turning (the car should rock to either side), but it's not too noticeable. This is a major drawback - it really adds a lot to the immersion. I know in some games, I find myself leaning as I drive in the game. Not here, it feels somewhat detached.

Forza 2 has a full featured damage system. However, while fairly comprehensive in scope, it doesn't provide feedback. While sometimes what caused the damage is obvious, like if you hit a wall or another car, sometimes you have no idea. For instance, I've had a problem where some of my cars, mostly Porsches like the 959 and new 911 suffer engine damage while braking. The game tells me I'm suffering damage, but I have no idea why it is. Is the engine redlining? Or is the car somehow bottoming out?

The AI of the other drivers is generally pretty good. Rather than slavishly following the racing line, they will react to how you drive. So usually as long as you don't make any sudden moves, the AI cars won't slam into you. And some AI drivers are better than others.

The car selection seems pretty much the same as the original Forza (though not quite), which is pretty nice, but has something of an emphasis on race cars. Exotics are also well represented, with many Ferraris and Porsches, including my favorites, the Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40.

There's a decent selection of muscle cars, though not overwhelming, including the 1970 Boss Mustang, another favorite. But there aren't a lot of races to use them in.

I personally would have liked to have seen more Fords, there's only 9 in the game, though you do have some Mustang variants from other companies, like Saleen and Shelby. Also lacking are Australian cars, which is a bit odd given their strong love of car racing, though you do find the Monaro popping up in England.

The real weakness of Forza 2 is the amount of tracks. There really aren't that many, maybe half as many (maybe less, depending how you count) as in the original Forza. There's also not as much variety in the tracks. Most are real world race tracks. Which would be fine, except they all seem to be the same sort of racing, which gets boring. I miss the variety of the tracks in the original. Especially no more point to point tracks.

The original Forza also split up the larger tracks into smaller segments. In Forza 2, you never get to race on the Nurburgring until almost the end of the game; in the original, you would race on it almost immediately, but just smaller segments of it.


Graphics

Forza 2's graphics won't wow you, nor are they photorealistic, but there is a lot of detail to them. The cars especially look nice. But the tracks are well done as well, with lots of animated spectators that don't look blocky, well detailed trees. But at the same time, things on the track look a bit bland and washed out. I guess it's the lighting they use, it's like everything is under spotlights.

On the downside though, cars do not have a cockpit view, and while there is an option for a hood view, if you pick that option, there is no rear view mirror. That can be a major loss in tight races, as there is no other indicator of where the other cars are. And not all cars have hood views, the camera seems to be placed at a fixed point regardless of the car, not the drivers seat, so on some cars you won't see anything, or just a little bit of the hood.


Sound/Music

The game sounds fairly good, but the engine sounds can be a bit weak and depend too much on the view you use.

There's a soundtrack, mostly "electronica", that is commercial/MTV style electronic dance music, but also some "alternative" (ie, MTV stuff from the early 90s). Most of it is quite bad (exception being the classic Insomnia from Faithless). It only plays in the menus, though.

Loading Times

I usually only do this section for PSP games, but they are hard to ignore in Forza 2. Expect to wait 30 seconds or so to start a race, and long pauses when going through your car list as it has to load the car model from the disc. It's especially worse for cars with complex paint jobs, like many race cars. Even during some of the car modding do you have to wait for the part to load (brakes most notably).


Final Thoughts

Although at its core an excellent game, Forza 2 is basically just half (or maybe a third) of the original Forza, with better graphics. So it's something of a shadow of its former self. A pretty shadow, but in the end, like all shadows, not very filling. While I guess some of it can't be helped, as next-gen graphics are much more costlier to produce, the track variety is bad. Many of the better tracks of the original were left out in favor of the duller ones (especially the New York track, which is basically just 2 long straightaways and a lot of shadows). That said, there is a lot of gameplay in here, at least month's worth if you do every career race, but you'll be sick of the tracks by then. And although you can download new tracks for money from Xbox Live, these tracks can only be raced online, not in career.

They also failed to address the issues of the original, like the arbitrary nature of the "Performance Index", which is how cars are classified. Despite the name, it has little to do with the actual performance of the car (which gets rated on a scale of 1 to 10 in 4 categories).

And some new features are more needlessly complicated than they should be. For instance, you can take a photo of your car. But if you want it on your computer, you have to connect to Xbox Live, then have it send the picture to the Forza website, where you can download it. Why not just let you stick in a USB memory stick (like how GT4 for the PS2 did)? Or customizing the appearance of cars - it's nice they let you customize them so much, but why not just let you plug in a USB mouse to draw (like Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 did for the PS2)?

The loading times will also drive you crazy. It's not that big a deal later on in the game, when you do longer races (for 15 minutes or more at a time), but early on, you'll spend a good chunk of your time looking at loading scenes.

So while still probably the best racer on the 360, it's a very lacking game, at least if you played the original.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/08

Game Release: Forza Motorsport 2 (US, 05/29/07)