Forza Motorsport 2 Preview

Forza Motorsport 2 is being developed and published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360. Planned release date is May 2nd, 2007. I expect this to be pushed back.


My first experience with Forza Motorsports series was with the XBox version of it. Of course, it was the only version to have ever existed, so its pointless to delineate which version it was. Anyway, my friend had come over, and he was addicted to Grand Turismo for the PS2.

We went to Blockbuster to look for Grand Turismo, assuming they would have one of the most popular racing games of all time... No, apparently not. I saw Forza Motorsports there, and was like, "Hmm, I've heard good things about this one, wanna give it a try?"

We took it home, and I loved it immediately. The controls were quick to learn, and hard to master (accelerator and brake on the rear pressure-sensitive triggers). To my friend, this was a complete departure from the accelerator and brake buttons of X and O. To me, it was <3.

On to the Preview!
You may hear me say how much Forza was love for me. I loved the non-linear layout and the way you could accomplish and complete races in the way you chose, with the car you chose, at the time you chose, and no sooner. I loved the pressure-sensitivity of the triggers, and how accurate they were. How does this carry over to Forza Motorsports 2?

This game was designed physics up, creating a more realistic racing game than ever before. They've included damage, layers upon layers of customization, beautiful graphics, and a unique money system.

First off, they took the original layout of non-linear play, and just built on top of the already successful formula, which is gold to me. Looking to race the heavyweights, and don't really care about the lightweights? Well, you don't HAVE to finish the lightweights, you can play heavyweights whenever you want.

Next, they increased the damage modeling of the cars, INCLUDING persistent pieces of your car on the track after they are knocked off. You can see this at minute 1:30.

Gamevideo.com

The layers upon layers of customization (minute 5:35 in the video) include thousands of layers on each side of the car. If I wanted to put a body vinyl, and then a decal, and then a decal on top of that, with a nice blue color highlighting it, you can do that.

Also, the player interaction is phenomenal. Everything from AMAZING force feedback (I suggest Microsoft's wheel, it has received GREAT reviews, and is wireless) to the console's networking ability to output to three monitors a surround view of the game (minute 4:10 in the video). I highly suggest you check it out.

Anyway, as I said before, the game is THE racing game. Grand Turismo comes nowhere close in terms of horsepower, capability, sustainability, and replayability.