Game Review

Ford Racing 2 - by Ferral

David Harvey

General/Summary
Since the birth of the motor car Ford has set the standered for others to fallow. Ford Racing 2 features the best Ford cars since 1949. from legends like the 1956 F-100 pickup and the 1968 Mustang GT to future classice like the super car Slaying Ford GT. Choose between 32 diffrent super-detailed cars including Mustangs, Thunderbirds, F-series pickups, cars from movies and TV shows, exotic concept cars, 200mph stock cars and many more! Race on 16 sumptiuous tracks. Drive on roads, Desert tracks, Jungle trails, Oval speedways and Race circuits. Pit your wits aginst 34 diffrent challenge games to unlock Cars, Tracks and Game modes. Play 8 diffretn games types including Standard race, Duel, Drafting, Racing line, Time trials and Elimination modes. Finally go head to head aginst you friends in split-screen races.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Ford Racing 2 is excelent but only if you own a Steering Wheel. It is a major problem if you don't have one. I wouldn't recomend a track pad either. The keyboard controls each car with arrow keys however without carful adjust ments of the hand brake the arrows overcompensate the turns and you will hit the side walls. Other then the controls the gameplay is well done. Their are two driving views the drivers seat view and the birds eye view. The only thing thats not realistic is getting smashed up. No matter how many time you get hit by other drivers or run into obsticle your car never blows up and you never see a dent on you car.

Graphics
The graphics are very good and even close to high definition but they are still no match for the bright crisp graphics of Halo or Doom 3. Their is one thin I noticed though. Not all the cars look like they do in real life. Their still the samgeneral shap and color but they may be missing the strip down the side. The game allows the user to set screen resolution and in the advanced ssection you can set the texture detail fro the cars, road and background. The higher the texture resolution the slower the car moves foward however. At least this is true on a 15 inch PowerBook G4 with 64mb's of Video Ram. I suspect a G5 would have no problem at maximun resoultion and texture detail.

Sound
One thing that Empire Int. did well was the sound. Especially since they included custom soundtrack integration. So even if you enjoy the music that they have included in the game, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy listening to your own music even more. Now, I'm not a car person, so I don't know how the Ford cars and trucks shown in the game are supposed to sound, but from a gamer's aspect, they sound superb! What else is there to talk about when it comes to sound? Empire Interactive did a good job on the sound in Ford Racing 2. While the sound may not be top of the line, you can't expect the sound to be top of the line every time... or can you?