Car nuts have plenty to be excited about with Forza 2
Turn 10’s Dan Greenawalt showed us some of the new features in Forza Motorsport 2, including an overhauled car-classification system and a surprisingly complex paint system.
During the demo, Greenawalt pointed out that he wants players to walk away from the Forza 2 experience with some actual knowledge about real-world performance tuning. To that end, the game builds on the original game’s tuning system, giving players the option to swap out drivetrains and other components while showing detailed graphs that explain how individual tweaks affect the car’s overall performance. Cars are ranked according to overall performance, and would-be mechanics can nudge any of the game’s vehicles into becoming high-performance beasts. When you race online, Greenawalt said, you don’t know what you’re up against. You may know that your opponent has an A-rated car, but you don’t necessarily know what kinds of vehicle manipulations have been used to reach that rating.
The paint system has been given an extensive upgrade, too. While the first Forza allowed people to create custom paint jobs using up to 400 layers, the sequel increases that to 4,000. To make the task easier, you can now select multiple layers simultaneously and group and manipulate them in a sophisticated interface. When you’re satisfied with your work, you can save and stamp the image onto multiple vehicles. From there, your custom cars can be sold through an in-game auction house. You can even choose to lock your art, so people who purchase your custom cars can’t modify your spiffy paint jobs. The game also features an in-game camera that automatically uploads saved images onto the Forza 2 Web site, which you can retrieve later.
Car nuts have plenty to be excited about with Forza 2. The physics system plays a prominent role, letting drivers check a dizzying array of stats in real time. In one of the tire options, you can see the camber of each individual tire, the PSI, wear and temperature. Tire temps are even measured across three surfaces on every tire.
The car graphics are highly detailed and feature plenty of deformable and breakable surfaces. During the demo, the driver rammed into the side of the track a few time on purpose to show off the damage system. Later on, while demonstrating some of the available camera angles, I was stunned to see real-time reflections shown on the inside surface of the now-broken taillight housing. Those little touches show how dedicated the Forza 2 team is to getting the details right.
Forza 2 boasts more than 300 licensed cars, 45 tracks across 12 environments and more than three hours of licensed music. It’s set for a May release, and it looks as though racing buffs have plenty to be excited about.
