Forza 2 is my game of the year and I'll tell you why.

After PGR3, it had been a lean old time for racers on the 360 and the emergence of Forza 2 was a bit like that time Nell McAndrew flew out to the gulf to become an instant 'forces favourite'.

Like Nell, Forza 2 isn't the most head-turning thing you've ever seen visually, although no octane-starved petrolhead would go so far as to kick it out of the garage without, at the very least, a lengthy squint under the bonnet, no?

Also, between them, Nell and Forza could hardly be described as the most talented pair alive, but it could be sensibly argued that they do what they do exceedingly well, and aren't too precious to get 'down and dirty' when it's required. Nell, let us remember, on becoming the official Lara Croft model for the game Tomb Raider in 1998, underwent implant surgery so that she could 'feel more comfortable in the role.' Forza applied major changes to its multiplayer infrastructure when cheating and exploits became rife. The similarity?

They are both bent on keeping the tits out, and that, my friends, apart from being an appalling punchline in its own right, is nonetheless an admirable sentiment by anyone's reckoning.

Equally notable is the fact that they have both, by virtue of hardy builds and an almost cynical sense of timing, made the absolute most of their functional charms to rise above a mediocrity that may otherwise have claimed them. Take Nell. The tabloids describe her as 'no-nonsense' and a 'down-to-earth northern lovely', which of course she is. But, at the same time she is also clearly a self-effacing, fun-loving bint who never stops giving.

Forza possesses these same qualities too. In fact, the most pertinent thing to emerge from this increasingly tenuous piece, is the fact that neither of them are trying to pretend they are something they're not, and they both still have a hell of a lot to offer, even when you've ragged them senseless in a Lamborghini.

I could go on in this analogous vein, but I doubt either of these pantheons of WYSIWYG would thank me for being oblique, so I'll cut to the chase.

They both make me harder than Lara's whip-handle. Thinking about either of them individually gives me the raging horn. Thinking about them together turns me into that ubiquitous salivating squaddie on R&R who might just, snapshot in hand, gravitate to some growling cockpit and really splash out again tonight.

January 2008

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