Welcome back to the best(as in most drawn out) Game of the Year blog series on Giantbomb.com. If you've missed any of the other entries in this series, click on the links below:

#5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10 and HM

Forza Horizon 2

The top 4 of my list begins with Forza Horizon 2. Do you like racing games? Do you like arcadey racers that are just enough of a sim to make you work for it? Do you like easily spinning brodies and not doing anything else? If you answered any, if not all, of these questions yes then you will love this game. Let's dive into it.

Let's start off talking about how this game looks. I'm not someone who really cares about how a game looks. For me, its all about how it plays and if it looks great that is just an added bonus. This game and it's look are truly amazing. When it first booted up this game, I went "Now this is a truly next-gen looking game." The way the sun shines and looks like it really is shining. The way the rain looks on your windshield as you drive in first person mode. The cars look almost realistic as you are driving around the countryside. The work that Playground and Turn 10 did to make this game look as amazing as it does is truly wonderful. I can't wait to see if there is another FH, and if so, how it improves the look of this game because I'm not sure that it can be done.

However, any racing game is only as good as how well the cars drive. Fortunately, this one is maybe one of the best handling games I have ever played. The only game that is on the same level as this one is Burnout Paradise, my favorite racing game of all time. One of the things in games that have cars of all types is that the cars all seem to handle the same which really brings you out of the fantasy of driving in a game. FH2 does an amazing job of making each car and class feel different. When you are driving an SUV like a Cadillac Escalade, it really sucks because it handles just like you would think it would feel. As you move up and through the various classes, the changes are very different and make you have to learn how to drive that class perfectly, just as you did for the various classes before. Having to learn how to drive a certain class and car for the first time is both frustrating and rewarding. It's frustrating because you have to find out what exactly you can do and get away with versus what you will always fail to do if you try it. It's rewarding because once you learn how to drive each car, the game truly opens up and you always can push the car to the limit without going over that limit.

Now, lets talk about how the game is set up. As you go from championship to championship, you are always being brought through the idea of four races and then I get to road trip to a new location. After three of these championships I then get to return to the main hub and then leave from there to start the road trip all over again. This is a wonderful way to set up the game because you can do an entire championship in about 20-30 minutes, depending on what races you have to do in the championship. Once you finish it, you can set it down and come back later. As you play through the game and know what each championship has in it in terms of events, you can further hone your play time to make sure you can play as much of it as you are able to. I feel this is super smart and something that other racers should probably take a look at and consider putting into their game.

Now, lets talk about the music in the game. This is the biggest disappointment for me. Of the 6 radio stations in the game, I only listened to one(the classical music station). It wasn't a huge deal since this became my podcast/music game after I finished Diablo 3. That, however, was the only problem as I was playing this game.

With this entry coming to a close, thanks for reading. Come back tomorrow to see the #3 game and learn about how the Titan falls.

HT101