Buy it Now

Forza Motorsport 2 is perhaps one of the prettiest racing games to date, but is pretty enough to get a “non-racing” gamer to play it? Probably not. I would never proclaim that I am a racing god, but in some instances I can hold my own (I.E. vs Dr. Jones and especially vs Prof. Venatus). But the truth of the matter is, I would never go out and rent a racing game with the idea of it holding my attention for more than a day maybe two, let alone buying one (unless it was in the super discount bin…).

Then along comes Forza Motorsport 2, and I’m hooked. No, not on the racing aspect of the game, which is cool especially when I’m pwning Dr. Jones in multiplayer mode. Instead it is the aspect of the game that appeals to my a: long history of online MMORPG gaming, b: my artistic side, and c: my love of being in control.

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

FM2 (Forza Motorsport 2) has a certain appeal to the online MMO gamer by adding driver levels to the game. Sure, I’m sure there are other racing games that have done exactly the same thing, but like my bio says, I’m a computer gamer by trade so the console gaming is all new to me. There is something about having levels in a game that drives you forward to “just do one more race to level”. Sure it’s probably one of the lowest aspects to many, but leveling makes you feel like you are accomplishing something…and then there are the free cars ever 10 levels or so…

The second aspect is the artistic appeal. FM2 has one of the most incredible art programs that I have seen (including for the computer). The game allows you to add layers of icons, shapes, numbers, letters, and images. All of which are provided by the game and ONLY by the game…no importing your images and applying them to the car, nope you have to layer everything to achieve the image/look you want. While this system has a bit of a learning curve, you can often buy cars that other people have created via the online auction house and then see how they built the images up layer by layer. Here are a few examples of the cars in my garage:

Insert photos

The final aspect that appeals to me is that of Team Owner. While other games have ventured out to handle team management (usually found in football, baseball, and hockey games), FM2 allows you to play the career mode by hiring drivers to run your races for you. By hiring a driver, you are basically giving up a portion of your winnings to the driver (just like real life!!). The better the driver, the more he will demand of the winnings. Each driver has a skill rating ranging from 1 to 10, with skill 10 being the best there is, and thus taking a full share of the winnings (100%). For me, S. Ito from Japan is my driver of choice. At the moment of writing this, he has been on the podium 287 times driving for me and has according to his stats (using the RB to view) has won just shy of $7 million CR driving for me. You see, S. Ito is a skill 1 driver and only takes 55% of the winnings. As the team owner, I provide him with the best car in the field (if possible) and let him go…

“But Mr. Johnson, how are you making any money by only winning 45% of the winnings?” you ask. Simple, I supplement my income by selling Lamborghini’s on the Auction House with a few of the custom paint jobs shown above. Again, as of the posting this review, I have just over $7.1 million CR of which $5.8 million CR’s are from my winnings.

While Team management isn’t really a full feature of the game (there aren’t any dealings with sponsors or hiring pit crews etc etc) but with the basics of hiring a driver for each race, it allows me to enjoy the game, gain gamerscore points (yes the game does not differentiate between you driving or the hired driver driving), as well as complete those LONG LONG endurance races…I just don’t have the physical stamina (yet!) to keep my death grip driving technique for an hour or more at a time.

So what don’t I like about Forza Motorsport 2? Even with the game set to simulation damage, it still isn’t really true to real world vehicular damage. An example would be when Dr. Jones and I were racing R1 cars (basically Formula 1 cars) around the Nissan Speedway. The Nissan Speedway is your basic oval ish race track that allows you to go full speed for the entire race. So here we are both speeding around the track at around 200 mph each, but racing in opposite directions…well you can guess what we did…Head to HEAD! While we both were stopped for about 5 minutes from continuing the race since we were both laughing so hard, we were able to drive away and finish the race… Yeah, put that one together…we basically hit head on at 400mph and then drove away…in Formula 1 racing cars. Yeah, I would like to see that happen in the real world.

Another draw back, in my opinion, is that the environment is pretty much static. Firstly, on some tracks there are stacks of tires for barriers, much like in the real world. Well, when you smash into them, they would fly apart! But they don’t, and to me that’s a pitfall…I would prefer that more of the environment was interactive (just like the little orange cones!) The second part that is missing in the environment is the lack of weather. Every race is a beautiful day…let’s do some racing in the rain or snow!

In conclusion, Forza Motorsport 2 is a great game that can appeal to anyone who enjoys racing, team mangement, and/or is artistic. While there are some pitfalls in the environment and with the realism of car damage (which is important when you play with the mantra “If you can’t beat’em, take’em out of the game!”), the game still has a lot to offer and is a lot of fun.

My rating: 93%

Mr. Johnson