Australian Gamer Review :: Forza Motorsport 2

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Forza Motorsport 2

Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Available on: Xbox 360

So the bar for Forza Motorsport 2 has been set immeasurably high. The amazing thing is, in many cases Forza 2 more than clears it. The unfortunate thing is, in many cases it tends to simply step under the bar and have a snooze.

Players: 1-2 Players (8 Online)
Genre:
Release: 2007-06-14

Developer: Turn 10
Distributor: Microsoft

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I was playing Monopoly the other day, funny thing I know, stepping back all those years to a day before the world of games discovered electricity. More by blind luck than good management, I somehow managed to set myself up with a Monopoly on Mayfair and Park Lane. You know, the two blue properties right at the end of the board. As I proceeded to expand my burgeoning property empire I reflected upon monopolisation and my small player token which was, of course, the car.

Tip: Never fight Samo over the car monopoly piece, HE WILL CRUSH YOU!

See my little car piece got me thinking about my pre-order on Forza 2 Motorsport which I’d just recently placed at the time and seeing as I was playing Monopoly, it seemed like a perfect link to reflect on Gran Turismo’s dominance of the racing sim genre. Because really, Sony’s GT has had the genre to itself for what is really a very long, long time. There have been attempts, Microsoft has made two challengers to date on the original XBOX, there was SEGA GT 2002 which failed miserably backed by the sound of Brett’s uncontrollable weeping and the first iteration of Forza, which was a valiant effort and won many hearts but couldn’t lift its frame rate past ‘Pong was a faster game than this’. There have been hardcore simulations like the excellent GTR series, but it’s really much too hardcore to capture any sort of mainstream audience. Every other racing game has been far too arcadey. Not that this is a bad thing, Project Gotham Racing, Need For Speed and Burnout are all excellent fun but they are what they are and they’re definitely not simulations.

See what I mean? GT’s monopoly on the accessible racing sim has been very firm for such a long time. Now though, Turn 10 studios and Microsoft have released Forza Motorsport 2 which for all intents and purposes is solely designed to combat the GT juggernaut in the current gen which is no longer the next gen, the next gen is now the next gen, so I hereby christen the current gen previously known as the next gen the WiiSixtyThree gen, because no one knows what bloody gen anyone is talking about any more.

So the bar for Forza Motorsport 2 has been set immeasurably high. The amazing thing is, in many cases Forza 2 more than clears it. The unfortunate thing is, in many cases it tends to simply step under the bar and have a snooze.

Most of your time in Forza is going to be spent in the career mode. You start with a modest budget and access to a simple low class series set on the tight, technical test tracks. You’re also asked to nominate a home region, either the US, Europe or Asia. This entitles you to prizes and discounts from your chosen region. It is possible to change your region later in the game, but it’ll cost 100,000CR. Ouch. Therefore it makes sense to choose wisely. From there the premise is pretty classical in terms of the career mode. Win races, earn money, buy more cars unlock more races. As you earn money there is an RPG style levelling system which, as you level up, unlocks discounts from manufacturers, more cars and as you hit major milestones, you may even be awarded with a prize car. This means it takes absolutely no time to get a very diverse and varied garage. That’s one of the beautiful things about Forza 2, it really only takes a couple of races to get into the faster cars and the region type discounts also enable you to get into your dream cars quicker. This minimises the lower class tedium that you usually find at the start of a racing game and lets you get right into the meat and potatoes.

The car roster is pretty darn good too. Sure it might pale in comparison to Gran Turismo, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. Unlike Polyphony, Turn 10 has not bothered with rubbish and boring cars that no one would ever bother to take to a racetrack. You also get Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, which makes the game feel much more complete. They’re absolutely stunning too. All the cars are modelled down to the finest details, you want to watch the replays just to appreciate the effort that has gone into making them look so good. As races progress, they also tend to pick up dirt, debris and brake dust, so your shiny pristine car from the start of the race actually looks like it’s been racing for an hour when you finally cross the line in the endurance races.

Another ace Forza 2 holds over GT is the damage modelling, which when turned to simulation adds another dimension to the game. Not only does the damage modelling affect how the car looks and drives in crashes to an almost realistic degree, it also simulates wear and tear on the car. In one instance I was competing in one of the endurance races and to eke out that little bit more from my Porsche I was over-revving the engine on the straights (shifting when the tacho needle is past redline). About two thirds of the way into the race as I was flying down the long straight I lost power and couldn’t figure out why. Turns out I’d over revved my engine once too many times and blown it up. It was a pain in the arse at the time but I couldn’t bring myself to be mad, mass respect to Turn 10 for paying so much attention to detail. I’ve also seen tyre blowouts when you leave them on too long, and if you run your car out of fuel, you’re stuck and that’s it.

GT’s main party piece is that it has not only looked fantastic every time, but it was accessible to everyone and it satisfied the purists who wanted a great racing sim. Forza 2 has managed to emulate GT’s success really very well indeed. There is a wide array of options from Traction control and Stability control to the ability to paint a racing line on the track, showing you where to turn, brake, lift off and accelerate. ABS is also an option that is available, which means that if you do turn it off it’s possible to lock up your brakes making braking a challenge. That’s something GT has never been able to do. The physics model in Forza 2 feels fantastic, the cars feel and behave just like they do in real life. I can’t speak for every car in the game but I do actually drive a couple of cars from the game day to day in my everyday life, the feeling and behaviour of them in Forza 2 is almost uncanny.

The AI in the game is the best I’ve played against in a racing game yet. Set to easy and you’d have to be a complete clot to lose but set it to hard and the game becomes a fantastic challenge. The AI forces you to drive well, pick the best lines and braking points to beat it and it very, very rarely makes a mistake. It also races cleanly, giving you racing room if you’re coming up the inside. This allows for some good, proper overtaking battles that are incredibly satisfying when you win and they’re even satisfying when you lose because you feel like you’ve been beaten by a worthy adversary. Because the AI is so good, traditional passing techniques and variations on racing line actually work and the AI will also see your move coming and counter it. If you do get a bit over zealous and give a car a touch, it’ll come back and bite you. The AI drivers don’t forget a misdemeanour and next time they’re making an effort to overtake you, they might just be a little less careful about giving you a knock.

The track list unfortunately leaves something to be desired. The tracks in the game are fantastic, even the big and most important track in the world, the Nurburgring Nordeschliefe is included, but the list just feels far too short. Up against almost any racing game. There are variations on the tracks available, there are the 3 real-life variations of Sliverstone and Sebring, Mugello and Road Atlanta in both their two formats but you always want for something more. The racing environments become too repetitive, one or two more real world tracks would have made Forza 2 really stand up. Unfortunately, this looks like an area where Microsoft plans to have another crack at your hip pocket by releasing update packs. Apparently the Blue Mountains track from the original has been confirmed for update pack one. XBLM is a great concept for distributing demos and updates, it’s just a shame it’s a double edged sword in terms of its ability to allow publishers to fleece us gamers. My biggest disappointment with the tracks was that while they look nice enough, the environments are just too sterile. There’s no deformable walls, no making tyre tracks on the grass. There’s no active weather. The crowd at the track is 3D and moves and waves, but you have to stop the car and then look very closely to even notice. This is the WiiSixtyThree generation and I expect more now. I expect innovation, I expect developers to push the boundaries. Forza 2 sticks with convention and does what it does very, very well but there’s nothing about it that really feels properly new. Such a shame. Such an opportunity lost.

Car modification in Forza has been taken to a whole new level in Forza 2, with an utterly brilliant system for creating your own designs and decals for your cars. I’m a hack when it comes to artistry, but in no time I’d made up a nice livery for my Nissan GT-Rs so that when you race me online, you know my car by sight. Some of the more artistic people or players with far too much time on their hands have gone truly berserk, coming up with intricate and honestly amazing anime pictures and other designs. Once you’ve done your design, you can sell it through XBOX LIVE in the auction house. The auction house works as a very similar system to ebay, where you put your car online and other Forza players from around the world can bid and buy it. The auction system can be a touch annoying though, instead of simply entering a max bid, you have to enter single bids and the built in messaging system notifies you when your bid has been beaten. So it’s a bit more involved than ebay. This is where being able to do your own car designs can be quite a profitable enterprise because if you make a nice design there might be someone out there willing to pay quite a pretty amount of CR for it. It’s also possible that it’ll be rubbish and someone will buy your beautifully painted Ferrari Enzo for stuff all but that’s the risk you take in the auction house.

While I’m going on about the online features, now would be a good time to mention the online play. Most online players are playing the online career mode, where you actually earn CR for your single player career bank. The amount of CR up for grabs per race is calculated based on the amount of people in the race and the length of the race. In my time playing online, the racing was very fair too. It seems the people who are playing Forza 2 online are much more level headed and mature than the asshats who just try to wipe everyone out in PGR3 . This also speaks to the quality feel of the game. Forza 2 makes you feel compelled to race properly, and the win is so much more satisfying when you do.

What Forza 2 does well, it does exceptionally well. The physics and AI, the bread and butter of any racing game is the best to date, as is the car modification and customisation systems. Forza 2 covers all the conventional expectations perfectly but there’s almost nothing in the way of innovation. Because of this I feel like I want more. There is something missing from Forza 2 that makes it feel like it isn’t complete. Even something as small as an animated pit crew would make it feel a little less sanitised. So instead of being truly great Forza 2 is, for now, just the best racing game available on any platform mainly because it’s the first sports car racing sim released in the WiiSixtyThree gen. It’s a more than solid racing game and if you love racing games I strongly recommend you go out and buy it. I just can’t stop thinking that if Turn 10 had just spent a bit more time expanding the track list and breathing a bit of joie de vivre in to the environments, it really could have taken the fight to Gran Turismo 5. Maybe I’m expecting too much. Microsoft and Turn 10 do need to learn to walk before they can run but when the competitor wears the Gran Turismo moniker, only running will do.

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Oracle's Comments

Forza 2 is a huge step up from the original which hit the Xbox console back in 2005. If you've played the original you'll notice straight away that Turn 10 have improved the menus, the cars, the customisation, expansive custom paint options, extensive detail to the tracks, the online mode and finally making the game run at very steady 60 frames per second (beautiful!).

While they improved a lot of aspects of the game they also left a lot untouched which made me a sad panda. Pretty much everything Samo said I concur.. except him winning a race against my Evo .9 GT biatch!

Final Verdict

Forza 2 is the best racing game on the market at the moment on any platform with beautiful cars, fantastic physics and awesome AI. It just feels like it both could and should have been more.

Pros
Best AI in a racing game ever, physics model is brilliant, the car models are absolutely stunning. Online play is well executed, with good matchmaking and a vast array of options and limitations for the host. The car painting system is limited only by your imagination and the amount of time on your hands.
Cons
Track roster is far, far too short, environments feel sterile, lack of anything active from weather to deformable environments or animated pit crew, no in-car view.