Forza 2 Shifts Racing into New Gear

Let's get this out of the way right off of the bat - I'm not a car guy. I can't even drive a manual transmission. The only money I've ever poured into my car has been in the monthly, cringe-worthy payment that I make to my creditors every month. That said, Forza Motorsport 2 offers something both for the crowd that doesn't know the different between a steering wheel and a wheel bearing, and the crowd that knows what a small torque adjustment can do to your car's bottom-level acceleration. It's the best racer on the Xbox 360 bar-none, and is quite possibly the best racer ever made.

Where most racing games fall into one of two niches - either arcade-like and unappealing to the hardcore fan, or hardcore and unappealing to the casual fan - Forza Motorsport 2 finds a way to indoctrinate both casual fans and hardcore tuners into it's unique brand of racing. Forgiving difficulty levels, countless customization options, and a collectible-heavy career mode combine into one of the best values $60 can buy.

Graphics and Sound
Now be honest - when you hear about a new racing game, you immediately want to know what the cars look like. At the end of the day, a well-tuned driver means nothing if it doesn't have the looks to go along with the muscle. In this area, Forza Motorsport shouldn't disappoint. Each of the cars that I've seen - and I haven't seen them all since there are a countless number to unlock - has been spot-on. I think I spent the first 20 minutes of my gameplay just fawning over the vehicles in the front-end, rotating them every which way and checking out the curves as if they were a leggy supermodel.

To be fair, once you get the cars in-game, Forza isn't the prettiest game on the 360. At high speeds, you will notice some jagged edges on the cars (though, when you're actually in a white-knuckle showdown, are you really going to notice?) The backgrounds are all nice and give each track its own sense of style, but none o them are particularly awe-inspiring. There are enough of them - 25 by my count - but none of them stand out as on-par with a level from, say, Dead Rising or Oblivion.