The one game that I played more than any other on my Xbox was Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport. As soon as I played it, I knew, this was the best racing simulator that I had ever played.  As soon as the Xbox 360 came out, there was only one game that I knew I would wait for, a sequel for Forza Motorsport. Sure you have games like Halo 3 and Fable 2 on the horizon, but my favorite genre is racing, so my most anticipated title has been Forza Motorsport 2, even since before it was announced, just knowing that the game had to make a return on the Xbox 360. The game has been completely revamped, and begins to take advantage of the Xbox 360. Coming into this game after having played Forza quite a bit on my Xbox then on my 360 using backwards compatibility, I had high expectations, and after the short delay, the game was still well worth the wait.

Gameplay
To start this off I will have to discuss the career mode of the game, as that is the biggest part of this title. You start off by choosing a region, Europe, Asia or America. This will change the variety of cars available to you and their pricing. For example, I started in Europe mainly because I love European cars. Starting here, different vehicles were available to me from the start, along with the pricing differing, as European cars would be cheaper for me, but American and Asian cars would be more expensive. When you level up, the rewards are also different, as you will win different cars in each region and some cars will actually only be available in certain regions, and it will force you to get them from Xbox Live or use your hard earned credits to change the region you are in. The car selection is completely massive this time with over 300 vehicles from manufacturers ranging all the way from Porsche, Lamborghini and Ferrari all the way to Scion and Subaru. The car line up this time is much more diverse and expansive than the first Forza, which is one of the key features of this game. You have your production vehicles as well as custom tuned vehicles aka tuner cars, along with a multitude of race cars. The car selection is very diverse with almost every kind of car you can think of from American muscle to entry level econoboxes to all out Italian supercars.  There are prominent new manufacturers in the game including Lamborghini and Maserati, as well as the inclusion of some well deserved cars that were not in the first title including the BMW E36 and E46 M3s. By leveling up through the game, you are able to get up to a 50% discount on modern production vehicles from your region, which makes choosing your ideal region all the more important.

The tuning in this game is also more in depth with the inclusion of more parts for customization of vehicles. The parts are broken down more now into different components opposed to larger kits of components and new parts are included to increase the performance potential of the vehicles. Each car also has available aero kits to increase down force as many cars in the first title had none available, for example allowing me to put an aero kit on the Ferrari Enzo to keep all that power under control.  The parts are priced according to each vehicle, with the higher end vehicles having much more expensive parts. One big addition added is the number of wheels available for the vehicles. Now there is a much larger quantity of wheels from many more manufacturers including new brands such as Work and many more wheels from companies like BBS. This was one feature that I felt was kind of neglected in the first game, so it is great o see the huge addition of wheels along with the added weight reduction associated with each type of wheel.  It is quite interesting to see how much more in-depth the parts have gotten this time though in relation to weight especially. Each single part has its effect on the car, allowing you to tune to a much higher level this time. This is due in a large part to the P.I, performance index ranking of each vehicle. Instead of just having classes of cars, such as D and C, each car is given a performance number to rank it, and once you hit a certain P.I. you are bumped up to the next level, allowing you to tune your car to an exact number, seeing how each part affects the ranking.  It makes it a lot easier to tune a vehicle for a certain level, such as the different class based races as you can see exactly how much a certain part say an exhaust upgrade will affect the P.I. so you can get the vehicle as close to the next level as possible.  I was very impressed with the additions to the car upgrades along with the new P.I. system. The cars are also able to level up to unlock discounted parts from certain manufacturers, with the cars attaining a maximum level of 5 based on the amount of money you have won while racing with that specific vehicle.

Now with all the vehicles out of the way, it is onto the career. The career mode is broken down into various groups of races sorted out by items like power, car class, region or even drive train. At the beginning, the races are more open to what vehicles you can use, as the cars you race against are always stock. As you progress higher, the restrictions get tighter with the class races and even car specific races where the car must be stock. These bring out the skill level of the game, and make you pay closer attention to what you are doing as the AI will be on your tail for the entire race.  There are a ton of races to compete in and make you tune and buy different variations of cars to compete, which is always good, but you are also able to use single car to compete in many races utilizing upgrades to raise power, handling, and even power train swaps to allow you to race in different races with required drive train configurations.

Xbox Live brings a whole new level to this game compared to Forza 1. Sure you have the usual online career races for money, the regular exhibition races just for fun along with the new tournaments and competitions, but the auction house is the new unique features to set this game apart. The auction house is one of my favorite areas of the game because it just adds so much depth to this game.  You are able to purchase vehicles not normally accessible to you or even very rare cars. You can use the auction house to sell your own cars, maybe you have a custom paintjob that you think will bring in a lot of credits, or have a rare car and want to make a bit of money on it. A good plan is to take cars that you can get a discount on and sell them for a profit on the auction house to make money. The setup is pretty simple for this, and you have features like a buyout price for the vehicles much like on eBay. The auction house is a great source for rarer vehicles and many include extra parts or even very artistic paintjobs to compliment the vehicle. This is a huge addition to the game, and I have been very impressed with it compared to the car selling incorporated in the first game.

Along with the auction house there of course are online races and tournaments for you to participate in. The tournaments are run by Turn 10 as of now, but hopefully car clubs and user created tournaments will come soon. The races can be completed in exhibition or even career mode much like the original title. This allows you to win money by racing online, and even leads to a massive achievement of one million earned online credits. The online racing is great yet again, and allows the host to narrow down the racing to certain cars for example, including forcing racers to use certain assists or views. The online mode completes the package here creating an amazing racing simulator. The involving single player mode, which is quite more in-depth than the first title, along with a more complete multiplayer mode make Forza one of the best examples of what a racing game should be.  The astounding physics models for the vehicles give you a racing experience like no other, along with the damage comes a new challenge in races, creating an ultra realistic experience on your Xbox 360.

Graphics and Sound
I have heard countless complaints about the visuals in Forza 2. Yah, they are not as impressive as other people were hoping, but this being a sim, Turn 10 opted to tone down the visuals a tad in order to achieve 60fps.  Combine this with the physics engine running at 360fps, and you have a perfect combination of visuals and simulation. The tracks look great, and the vehicles, especially the reflections on them looks excellent. Sure this game doesn’t look as photorealistic as some were hoping, but it looks levels above the first game, and sacrifices had to be made to get that frame rate.  The car models are excellent, and include a ton of detail. One small item left out is speed adaptive features of some vehicles such as certain Porsches where the spoiler will activate at a certain speed and raise up, but this features was not in the first title, and it does not really give or take away from the game as it is more about the racing experience.  Even though there are more vehicles on screen at a time now also at 8, the graphics look great throughout. I have noticed stutter occasionally at the beginning of a race, and am not really sure why it occurs, but it does, and can be annoying at times, but I can live with that.

The cars look great, but when they are damaged, they somehow look even better. This time around, your cars will leave parts strewn around the track like bumpers, mufflers and even spoilers. You see the bare metal bumpers and smashed windshields and appreciate the amount of work put into this game. What other racing title has over 300 fully damageable licensed vehicles to drive around in. No other game has that.  Also to be noted that Forza Motorsport 2 is playable in a multi-screen setup with support for up to 3 screens running on 3 Xbox 360s as utilized in Microsoft’s demos of the game.  Along with the great car models, the tracks also look excellent with a ton of detail right down to the markings on the track itself.  Tracks like Sebring are very interesting and have different elevation depressions in certain areas of the track and that is all represented in the game. The tracks look quite a bit better than the last game as they were totally recreated, not just rehashed for the game. The game has lost the P2P tracks and Road America this time around, but includes new tracks such as Sebring Raceway and Mugello.

The sound in the game is what really completed the package for me here. The engine sounds are incredible and extremely realistic compared to what you will hear in the streets. With upgrades come new sounds from the same vehicles, allowing you to hear what it would actually sound like. All the way from the whine of a supercharger to the mechanical click of the gearbox, you hear it all. The sounds effects, much like the vehicle sounds are also excellent including the sounds of the crowds cheering you on and even the crunch of the carnage from two cars colliding. Turn 10 did an astounding job in the audio department of this game creating a completely immersive experience. Sometimes I just find myself sitting there revving the engine of a favorite vehicle just to hear that mechanical growl. Complete this with a surround sound setup and you are ready to go. The soundtrack of the game has also been massively upgrade to include licensed tracks, while the soundtrack is turned off during races, something that some fans don’t appreciate, but if you are a diehard gear heads, the sound of those engines is music enough.

Overall
I had been waiting awhile for this game to arrive. It was really the one game that I was looking forwards to on the Xbox 360, and from what I have played, I am extremely impressed. While the game does have its minor imperfections, the overall game is amazing. From the graphics to the updated physics engine and massive selection of vehicles, this game has it all. The new auction house creates a much better online experience as many gamers were annoyed with the price fixed selling included in the first title. This game is really leaps and bounds above Forza Motorsport 1, and shows what Turn 10 has learned so far. Hopefully they will be creating a third title still on the Xbox 360 to keep all of the racing fanatics stuck to their 360s for years to come.