Another Forza 2 picture post (oh, and commentary)

The thing about Forza Motorsport 2 is that the creators picked a reward interval that keeps me stringing along, even though I'm really getting sick of the game. Putting down Gran Turismo 2 was easy, for example, because the easy races were trivial and the hard races were so many in number that the investment didn't at all justify the reward of ... whatever it is GT2 rewarded you with.

FM2 is different in that your Xbox LIVE Gamer score is bumped for each major level achievement (e.g. levels 20, 25, 30, etc—each take a few hours of gameplay) and even though the progression gets much more difficult at around level 30, it's easy to queue up the secondary rewards ("win all races in a given category") by completing all except the one locked until you're a level 35 driver (for example). So that kept me going for most of the game—and once I cracked level 40, I hit four consecutive Xbox LIVE achievements with only a handful of races.

But from 40 to 50 is a big jump, and I think I'm going to take this opportunity to free myself of the game.

Nevertheless, here are a few shots I accumulated earlier today, when I went on my level-40 blitz and won a bunch of crap.

It appears that my engine is on fire in this first picture, but I guarantee you that I've actually managed to powerslide this 1967 Ferrari 330 P4 entirely around the corner and leave one massive smoke trail. And skid marks.

This next one is of a somewhat rare circumstance: I managed to pass (and lap) a computer driver at the same time he was being passed by another computer. It doesn't typically happen, since the computer drivers typically don't deviate from the starting positions, and so don't really pass each other much. It just so happens that I had recently rammed the Lamborghini (at right, and faster of the two cars) and had damaged its engine enough that the Ferrari in the middle could pass it. I had just caught up (stalled earlier by the aforementioned ramming) and hence, the trio.

And another shot. Like I said, this is pretty uncommon. Again, I'm driving the 330 P4 around the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca of yore.

P.S. You clever kids may notice these pictures aren't in the same format as before.