SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Review: Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360)

Console owners have long held the notion that their little boxes could easily handle the physics and graphics needed to produce a convincing simulation-grade title, be it air, tactical, or motorsport. In our forums, this opinion is usually subject to scorn, derision, and the occasional nuclear response from those who consider consoles a child’s toy. Specifically, children who can’t wear baseball caps with the visor facing forward or blue jeans with the proper waist size.

These, of course, are people who answer the door to the pizza guy still wearing the TrackIR sensor clipped to their hat.

This war of words has been a sim geek’s Antietam, and it’s rarely for good reason. Simulations on a console thus far have been victims of the Elle McPherson Syndrome. Attractive visually — if heavily made up- but containing very little substance. Of course, the PC gets its share of these as well, but it’s more of anomaly than the rule.

Forza Motorsport 2 (FM2) changes this. Console owners can now say with pride “we’ve got our sim”. Just don’t say it out loud.

Forza Motorsport 2

Honda CVCC

Under the Hood – Just Prop It Up First, They Hurt When They Fall On You

FM2 is an improvement over the original Forza in just about every way. I bought the original shortly after getting my Xbox 360 as it was one of the first original Xbox titles Microsoft made backwards-compatible for the 360.

FM2 is one of those titles that would cause even the staunchest PC-only simulation fan to consider purchase a console. For the money you’d spend on one of those top-of-the-line video cards, you could get the 360, the extended in-store warranty and still have some cash left over to put toward Microsoft’s Wireless Wheel for the 360 (I wouldn’t want to attempt this one with the stock gamepad), along with those bags of sunflower seeds they keep by the cash registers at my local Circuit City. Hint: don’t use those things as a substitute when you quit dipping Copenhagen. You’ll get an ulcer.

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