Forza Motorsport 2 is an outstanding successor to Forza on the XBOX that not only does everything that its predecessor did better, but also adds a host of new features that would appeal to casual and hardcore racers while making other racing games look pale by comparison.

Forza 2 is less a racing game and more a racing simulator in line with Gran Turismo. The main aspect of these games which net them this title is realistic driving physics. Each car in Forza 2 has 9000 parameters to it so that the virtual cars drive as close to their real life counter-parts as possible and as expected, each car feels and drives significantly differently. This changes further if the player decides to apply one of many modifications available to the cars. New exhausts, cams, valves, engine blocks all increase the vehicles performance (horsepower) and usually make audible changes to the cars, as well as changing the way the vehicle handles somewhat. Increases in the vehicles power usually increase its ranking within the various car classes in the game. Class restriction races however need careful balancing of upgrades as performance upgrades usually increase your cars ranking and therefore its class. This creates an interesting mini-game as you modify your cars down to meet certain restrictions while still trying to be powerful and as close to the rank limit as possible. All these upgrades are fairly straight forward and easy for beginners to utilize to maximize their cars effectiveness. For those with advanced knowledge about the interior workings of a car, there is the tuning option: customize your cars performance without effecting its rank or class.

Further customization options are available to the creative side of you, as you apply up to 4000 layers of vinyls on your car creating possibly the Mona Lisa of cars. The auction house you can sell your work of art/finely tuned street monster to Forza 2 players throughout the world and is integrated into the Forza 2 website so you may view your auctions and other people's auctions from any PC. This same website allows you to upload up to 5 of your in-game photos at a time so you can share that photo finish with the World Wide Web.

The actual racing in the game is phenomenal.When you have a challenge you will have to fight tooth and nail to get the victory. Even a minor crash will likely result in you missing out on being in the top three or even the top five. However, not all races offer this challenge. Many a race can be won simply through having a higher performance car than the other racers. This does not last forever, as past level 20 the other cars and the AI driving them will make you work for your wins. If you chose to drive that is; there is always the option of hiring AI drivers to do the race for you in exchange for a significant portion of the winnings.

On the subject of damage, Forza 2 has something almost no racing games have these days: Gloriously Full Damage Modeling. Drive like a maniac and your cars performance suffers as well as your work of art getting extremely tarnished. Bumpers fall of, windows get smashed, the cars simply put, get demolished if you drive like that. Thankfully the game has settings in the options which let you change the damage to only be cosmetic.

The cars in Forza 2 look incredible, very near real when intact or smashed up. The tracks however are considerably and noticeably more bland. On some tracks (especially the earlier tracks), it maybe said that apart from the lighting effect, that this could possibly even be done on the original XBOX. That is until you start hitting speeds of over 200km/h. The game maintains a constant 60fps (and very near that when playing split-screen co-op) and as a result, very few other games will give you such atremendous sense of speed and exhilaration.

The soundtrack is a delight to anyone that enjoys electronic/house music and the sound of the engine changes with the car, thus giving aural satisfaction as cars are upgraded or damaged.

Forza Motorsport 2 is an incredible game that is more than worth its asking price with the sheer amount of content it delivers. It is accessible to both casual gamers and the ultra-devoted simulation racers. If you must own one racing game for the XBOX360, make Forza 2 that one.