I’ve spent a few hours with the recently released demo of Forza Motorsport 2, trying out the different cars on the only track. The track included in the demo is quite small (my lap record is 0:52) and looks rather boring, especially after an hour of play. The game itself is pretty solid, as one would expect. The cars are well detailed and behave realistically, the physics and damage models are almost perfect, although you can’t wreck your car in the demo. One thing I noticed, and something a lot of people have complained about, are the jagged edges some of the cars have, which look rather awful. It seems the developer has compromised on the anti-aliasing in order to run the game at 60 fps constantly.

As for the gameplay, the learning curve is rather steep, and even when you’re familiar with the steering and the car your driving, a minor error can cause you to spin out and lose your position, sometimes making it impossible to even catch up with the other drivers. The AI is pretty good, the other drivers react very realistically, however, a few are a bit too competitive, as they’ll often try and block you, even run you off the track. Compared to PGR3 for instance, Forza is a lot more realistic on all levels.

Forza Motorsport 2 certainly looks to be the Gran Turismo for the Xbox 360, with over 300 cars and 13 tracks (with 65 total track configurations). The online component is looking to be a breakthrough for a racing game, with a ton of features. The game ships at the end of this month.