Forza Motorsport 2 - Hands On Preview

Billed by many as Xbox's answer to Polyphonic's Gran Turismo series, Forza Motorsport arrived in May 2005 to both critical and commercial response, despite the fact that it was one of the last first-party titles on the now obsolete platform. Developed by Microsoft's Turn 10 Studio, Forza delivered highly customisable options for the 250-plus cars in the game from the regular run-of-the-mill production cars right through to custom-built race demons - though it wasn't without its flaws. Unveiled at E3 2006, the follow-up (aptly named Forza Motorsport 2) has already been delayed on several occasions, much like previous instalments of its PlayStation rival, though it will finally get its delayed debut on store shelves on June 8th.

Turn 10 has been hard at work in recent months whipping up the Forza fanbase into a frenzy with detailed 'Pitpass Reports' on the development process and a staggered reveal of the game's car list, but now that we can finally get our hands on a preview build of the game, how is it revving up?

But first, an apology

Speaking with Forza 2's producer Dan Greenawalt recently, it's clear that the team at Turn 10 are certifiable petrolheads with high-grade fuel running through their veins, and igniting that passion within anybody that goes near their title is arguably the prime goal - well, at least one of them. But despite going into tremendous detail about analysing tyre temperatures at three different points in order to reproduce accurate performances, and producing a physics engine that runs six times faster than the game itself, it's worth noting that even Turn 10 acknowledge their first effort was far from perfect.

It's not something that you'd expect to hear, but Greenawalt himself admitted that one of the key failures of Forza 1 - the linear Performance Index car upgrade system - was his own fault. Following a million hours worth of gameplay from the Xbox owners who'd bought the game, Greenwalt described his thoughts on the Performance Index: "Woah, that's totally FUBAR; we've gotta cut that out start again from scratch." So for Forza 2, a new non-linear and more robust system was developed by one of Turn 10's AI programmers, which aims to create a more organic development process this time around.

The structure of the game is very much following the patterns of its predecessor, with the Career mode broken down into three geographical regions (North America, Europe, and Asia) that affect the price and availability of the various cars available. Choosing your first car from a small selection of production cars including the Golf Gti or Audi TT is merely the first step into the wider world of Forza, and we're not even talking about racing it around a track just yet. As well as expanding the number of vehicles beyond the 300 mark, the class breakdown has also been reworked, with the addition of the U "Ultra-Performance" class of cars set aside to include the likes of souped up TVR Cerbera Speed 12s and uber-upgraded cars that are just as likely to self-implode as win a race. Being able to upgrade and customise a car so that it performs to its optimal levels is the ultimate desire for any petrolhead...like the members of Turn 10.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do....

Sounding like something from a geek-heavy sci-fi movie, it comes as a surprise to hear that Forza 2 will feature 'neural-net' technology, but this won't be utilised in controlling the AI drivers. The result of Greenawalt's decision to hand over the responsibility of the new Performance Index system to an AI Programmer, the neural net looks at the millions of combinations of possible, the upgrades that have been used, and how they affect the car's performance in more accurate terms.

How it works is a tad complicated, but here's the basic idea: each class of car is broken up, and each car is given a number between 100 and 999. For instance, a Honda Civic Type R begins life in the game in Class D with a Performance Index number of 388. Add a certain air filter to the set up and it now becomes a Class C vehicle with a Performance Index of 407; upgrade the Honda's cams and valves, and it then becomes Class B with a 'PI' of 573 - the Class B upgraded car is much more powerful than the stock Civic Type-R.

But it's not even as linear as it sounds since the AI looks at the Performance Index of a car before an upgrade is applied, and works out the overall performance benefit that the new part offers. Upgrading the car with a 10bhp boost won't be as much of a benefit to the overall performance if a car has 600bhp, therefore the index won't increase as much (the PI isn't linked directly to the amount of power a car has). It won't be until Forza 2 is released to the anticipating fan base that we'll get an indication on the neural net's success, but at the very least we can hope that it will end the two-horse race that dominated the upgraded car lists of the original game two years ago.

Besides the HAL 9000-esque neural net, Turn 10 has also continued to develop the AI of competitors in an attempt to add 'personality' to single-player races. Whilst other racers in the past (including Forza's rival, Gran Turismo) have enjoyed less than convincing AI controlling opponents, the studio has tried to create a selection of drivers with a mix of skills, from the perfect 10 of Italian "M. Rossi" to the less than impressive driving of "J. White". As well as featuring their own versions of the Drivatar system that featured in its predecessor, enabling them to learn advanced techniques such as check-breaking by themselves and become more skilled opponents, the AI drivers can also be 'hired' by players to race in a competition - though each driver will take a certain percentage of the cut earned.

Could history repeat itself?

So that's the Performance Index AI, the opponent AI, and the expansion of cars dealt with; how about the development of the most important part of Forza 2 - the racing itself? The original Forza didn't have a shortage of event types, and it's certainly looking the same can be said of the sequel, with hundreds of races spread across over ten sections. Each of these categories are then broken up further, with various restrictions and tournaments from the Mid-Engine Challenge through to the American Iron Runoff races that only use pre-1975 US cars. A sure fire hit with boy-racers will be the Rivalry Face-Offs, which pit the likes of Civics against Golfs, and Skylines with Supra, and this is barely scratching the surface. There seems to be a great deal of depth to the tournaments on offer, with Turn 10's Greenawalt describing how QA testers have been putting in excess of 70 hours worth of gameplay to 100% the Career.

Despite all of this, there's a serious concern over the sense of challenge in the Career mode. Buying and upgrading a car is one of the core mechanics of the game, so it's only natural that gamers will, increase the power of their car as soon as they have the credits (which are dished out quite liberally through the game.) The issue is how the cars driven by the AI opponents aren't themselves upgraded, leaving your A Class 722 PI hotrod blaze a trail through the competition with ease. If Turn 10 has been working out personalities for each of the AI, then perhaps it would be more realistic to have the drivers upgrade their own vehicles too.