Burning Rubber

Posted by Stropp on July 15, 2007

I didn’t spend a lot of time in World of Warcraft this weekend. In fact I didn’t spend a lot of time in front of the computer at all. Last weekend some friends gave me a gift voucher for EB Games, so rather than put it off for a few weeks, I headed down to my local store on Thursday and bought myself a copy of Forza 2.

The shop was having a sale, so I was able to save about ten percent on the price. I put that saving towards a steering wheel (and pedals) for my 360.

Let me say that this is a very cool game. It’s extremely addictive. Every time I said to myself, ‘just one more race’ it ended up turning into another one, and another one. At 2am on Friday morning (or was that Saturday) I finally went to bed. Lucky I’ve still got a few more days before I start the new job.

The only thing that saved me from a complete weekend of virtual rev-head behavior was an invite over to friends to see the new episode of Dr Who and some old Pink Panther movies.

As I said, this is one cool game. I could spend hours racing, upgrading my cars, and painting them. But it’s the racing that is great. I’m a novice when it comes to racing games. I’ve played some Project Gotham Racing, as well as some of the original Forza, but that’s really about it. I’m not really an expert racing gamer.

I think that’s where Forza 2 shines. It’s not all that hard to get into. I set the skill level to novice to start and won most races (especially after I upgraded the cars.) Now that I’m used to the handling I’ll be putting up the difficulty of the AI. Speaking of which. I’m starting to hate some of those AI drivers. They’re quite aggressive. The number of times I was run off the road just before the finishing line…. grrrr. Curse you M. Rossi!

The only problem I have now is when I’m behind the wheel in real life and see that ‘best line’ down the center of the road and get the urge to put my foot down. I don’t think I’ll get my Subaru to 177 kph down my local street though.

Who cares about violence in games. What about racing games? What effect will they have on the nations young?

Won’t somebody please think about the children!

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