If you're looking for a racing game on the 360 with realistic graphics, look no further. For that matter, if you're looking for a cool application for testing out various possible custom paint schemes and vinyl designs on a car, you may consider buying Forza 2 Motorsport for its paint and vinyl feature alone. The vinyl feature has a great number of more primitive designs, but you can combine up to one thousand of these per design area, allowing for an amazing level of customization. You can then sell vehicles with your designs and use the profit to buy more cars or upgrades. That means you can enjoy Forza 2 even if you don't like to race.

It is worth mentioning that most of the car designs seem to fall into a few categories: (im)mature graphics and blatant advertising. The (im)mature graphics are often drawn quite well, but feature topless women (often anime characters) or even full frontal nudity, although I only saw one design that was truly offensive to me. This must be what the games warn you about when the say "online play may vary in rating." The blatant advertising is just that - blatant advertising. The sad thing is, I am pretty sure that most of it is "fan" based... someone just wanted to make a car design that featured the M&M characters or just wanted to make a design themed around their favorite current or upcoming videogame. I can't really point any fingers, I suppose. The first design I made (and sold) was an Xbox 360 design, patterned after the concentric circles green and white logo. I do think it would be rather refreshing to see some really cool original artwork, rather than duplicating existing entertainment icons, but that's just my two-cents worth.

I found the way the soundtrack is handled in Forza 2 to be a bit strange, and yet, at the same time, to make sense. You see, the soundtrack has licensed music, but there is no music when you're racing, unlike most racing games. If you think about it, this is more realistic, as the first thing that you're going to toss out of a race car to reduce weight is going to be the massive speakers that would be required to hear anything over the roar of your engine and the wailing of the wind screaming past your windows. So, instead, the music is only featured outside of races, in the menus and the paint-shop.

The sound effects, on the other hand, are in full effect when racing, and do just exactly what they're supposed to do. They bring a largeness and a sense of reality to the racing experience, with roaring bass engine sounds and that annoying squeal from your tires that gently screams, "You've pushed us too hard and we can't hold the road anymore"... always to be followed by the expected sound of gravel rapidly slowing you down or that damned, dirty wall. (Dear God, how that wall tires me.) The sounds never seem out of place. On the contrary, they make you feel like you're there with them. If you can get away with it, try turning the volume up a bit... umMMMmm... Racy.

Forza 2 is not an arcade racer. If you're looking for a more of a simulation racer that has the ability to forgive your performance (even if it is at a cost in your rewards), then Forza 2 Motorsport may be the game you need in your garage.

At first, I got the impression that Forza 2 was very unforgiving. I found it impossible to come in first place. So, I kept restarting the races and I kept getting closer and closer to being first. Finally, I managed to come in first in a few of the races with this method. Eventually, however, I found myself on a race that I simply couldn't beat. I was doing really well up until the end of the race and then, with a couple of really bad miscalculations, I ended up at the back of the pack. I decided to just let the race finish. To my surprise, I actually earned something. Not only that, it was around ten percent... the same I would have taken home if I had paid the best driver to drive it for me. So, really, it wasn't the game that was unforgiving, I was being hard on myself.

In addition to rewarding players for simply crossing the finish line, you also will be awarded cars for winning circuits. Win certain races in certain vehicles and you'll earn discounts on certain types of cars and their upgrades. If you're horrible at racing but artistic, you can design something cool (for free) and then auction it off to get your spending money for those upgrades you've been needing. Forza 2 actually seems to give you every possible chance to get ahead.

If you're not a perfectionist and, instead of restarting a race fifty times, simply accept your performance, collect your winnings and then try again, you'll probably do better than I have. Regardless of whether you're a perfectionist, a slacker, an artist or just a racer, there's something for almost everyone in Forza 2. In addition to the single player Career mode, there's Arcade mode and Multiplayer mode, which allows versus play as well as online races. Unfortunately, I was never able to actually start an online game. I tried several times before my 360 died (while reviewing Forza 2), but the game kept being aborted by the other player or the network or something. Mind you, your mileage may vary. I hope to get my 360 repaired some day soon and will update this review with info on the Online races.

Forza 2 is an interesting game. It's not an "arcade" racer, so if that's what you're looking for, keep looking. However, Forza 2 handles difficulty in a unique way: your rewards from racing are adjusted by how you set a slew of adjustments that can increase or decrease the difficulty. In other words, you'll get "bonus points" for driving cars as Manual Transmission, rather than Automatic Transmission. Rewards are also adjusted for anti-lock brakes and Enhanced traction. The difficulty of the A.I. is just another one of these factors. Need a visual representation of the correct line to drive? No problem, but it's going to cost you. Lose the driving aids, gain higher rewards when you win.

If you simply can't win, don't get discouraged. You can hire a driver to drive for you. You get what you pay for, though, so that driver at the top of the list will almost assuredly win the race for you, but he's going to walk away with 90% of the take. That leaves you with only 10% for your trouble. Another thing to bear in mind is that you can walk away with something even if you come in last, unlike most games that only reward you if you come in one of the top three places... or worse yet, only if you come in first. The take is much smaller down at the end of the list, but it doesn't take much to win more cash on your own than that talented-as-he-is-greedy driver would leave you after his share.

The paint-shop feature is a major feature in Forza 2 Motorsport ... if you want it to be. You can make your way through the game and never so much as change the color of your cars. However, others are spending hours upon hours in the paint booths, creating one of a kind artwork and then auctioning it in the in-game auction system. If you're more of an artistic type of person, you may want to try your hand at it. It's time consuming, since the building blocks are fairly basic, but with some good planning, a bit of experimenting and a bit of work, you can create some unbelievable works of art. The good news is, you can "lock" your design when you sell a car in an auction, protecting your artwork; the new owner of the car can show it off all they want, but they can't reproduce or modify your design. They can sell the car, sure, but you'll retain the ability to create more copies of the design (if you copy it to your design book before selling it.) This allows for people to get a return on their sweat-equity and allows for the creation of limited editions. So, while it is a laborious task to create truly awesome works of art, you can sell these designs to other players for in-game cash, allowing you to purchase cars and upgrades that will help you advance through the game easier.

As an example, I made up an Xbox 360 VW New Beetle and sold it, design locked, for about an $8,000 profit. This New Beetle was modified, mind you, but when you consider that I can buy another stock one for the profit I made and I got all of my investment out of the car, rather than selling parts back to the store at a loss, this opens up a lot of possibilities for the artistically inclined.

Forza 2 Motorsport takes an interesting approach at the simulation racing genre. It offers a realistic ("read difficult") simulation racing experience, but then makes every effort to find ways to make the game more forgiving to less skilled players. Essentially, the gameplay is not really much more forgiving than other simulation racing games, but the game, itself, is.

There are a lot of adjustments available to tweak the difficulty to suit the player. You can choose whether you want your races to be easier to win or more rewarding by changing the adjustments. This is the basis of the difficulty levels in Forza 2. You simply adjust features of the simulation to find the balance point between your skill and your greed.

Forza 2 is not the first racing game that allows you to "Hire" a driver, but I find the way this game handles the dynamic to be creative. The skill of the driver you hire is directly tied to the cost of hiring him, which is a percentage of the rewards from racing. That means that the better the driver, the better the expected race result, but the smaller cut you'll actually receive. That also means that the more important the race (or, the larger the first place prize), the greater the driver's fee will be.

To counter the "Hire a Driver" feature and keep everyone from just hiring their way through the game when they eventually get frustrated, Forza 2 has the most generous reward system I've ever seen in a racing game. It has become my habit to retry races until I get at least third place. Forza 2 rewards you something no matter where you place, as long as you finish the race. This gives novice racers a hope of eventually progressing.

One of the most popular features of Forza 2, however, has got to be the customization of the vehicles. And while, yes, you can upgrade the cars and add various parts and whatnot, the particular aspect I'm referring to here is the look of the cars. Forza 2 allows for very detailed vinyls to be created, allowing players to make cars that look exactly how they want them and then offers an auction feature that allows players to exchange their designs for in-game money. To see how popular this is, all you have to do is visit the auction feature and see how many artistically decorated cars are up for sale. For that matter, you can visit the auction feature online at the Forza Website to see what I'm talking about - even before you pick up the game.

All-in-all, Forza 2 is a fun game, with something for everyone. I think the rumor going around that Forza 2 is killing people's 360's is probably an urban legend. And so, as soon as my 360 gets repaired and returned to me (it died while I was reviewing Forza 2), I will try the online races again and will update this review accordingly.