Forza Motorsport 2

Forza Motorsport 2 is the latest addition in the realistic but fun Forza driving series. Unless you are a serious collector, i recommend buying the standard edition because the limited edition that i bought only gives you three extra cars (which are pretty bad) and a booklet which contains some information on the game, which i don't think is worth an extra 10 pounds.
The game is very good in the way that it is very realistic (although sometimes cornering at such high speeds seems a bit dodgy) and I can't imagine the game without complete simulation damage on, anti-locking braking system off, traction control off, Manual transmission (it may seem hard at first but once you get the hang of it, it is so rewarding and I now cannot imagine playing the game on automatic at all), I am still on medium purely because i am not good enough to do hard and i can't be bothered to redo every race like forty times.
The game length is very impressive, it seems like a daunting task to be able to reach level 50 because i have been playing for so long and i am only on level 32, but i still haven't reached the half way point in the game.
I like it how the races slowly get harder and are very hard by the time you get to the professional series, they also get longer which is frustrating when you crash on the last lap but is very rewarding when you finally do one that has been bugging you for ages.
In the game you get to choose which continent's cars you start with, i chose European but there is also American and Asian aswell. This adds new content if you want to restart the whole game again.
You also have to be very tactical about some of your decisions during the first stages of the game, because you don't have much money and sometimes you might have to save your money so you can buy a car so you can enter a certain race which might mean you have to do a few races starting at the back of the grid. One peice of advice i would give to anyone who has recently started playing or are about to, as soon as you reach level 20 do as many endurance races as you can, even if you have to put the difficulty down to easy to do it because you get so much money for doing them and you get lots of driver points for doing them so you will be able to enter more races in certain series.
I think i have said enough about the gameplay, so now for some of the other features it has to offer.
The auction house, this is a relatively good idea because sometimes you can end up with some really good bargains but to be brutally honest there are too many cars for sale that people have painted so they are way more expensive than normal (but they're designs are sometimes ridiculously good so take a look now and again and you might find something you like).
They have really pushed the boat out on customising your car in this game, you can buy pretty much any upgrades which will affect the performance of the car in any way including spoilers and superchargers :P. Painting and customising your car could not have been made any better in this game and if want proof of that go on to the auction house that I have just mentioned and take a look at some of the crazy designs other people have made. Or if you don't have the game yet, go to http://forzamotorsport.net/default.htm and check out the forums for some of people's designs.
Multiplayer is awesome on Forza 2, especially if you have at least 3 other friends on Xbox Live because then you play Cat and Mouse, where there are two teams, on both teams you have a mouse who is in a mini, and a cat who is in a very fast car and the aim is for the mouse from your team to cross the line before the other mouse (no other rules). - Highly Recommended.

Overall a great game if you like realistic games and if you don't mind having to do races over and over again. (Not for fans of burnout :P)