Volume 90 -- May. 2, 2008

The Forza Motorsport 2 Community Update

By: Landin Williams

Hello and welcome back to this edition of the community update; the weekly article that digs deep into the world of Forza 2 to bring all the coolest content to the surface. I am super excited to come into the office next Monday, as our newest hire, Fred Howell, will be making his debut here on the Turn 10 community team, and that means things are going to change. With more hands on deck we'll be able to respond to community questions and needs much quicker, and his presence here will free up yours truly to do more creative projects here for FM.net in the form of content. You should see some cool automotive and gaming content on the website, as well as more events directed towards the community in the near future. And as I type, Che is reading over the interview/article I did with Robin Stockton, aka Vixen from our car-painting community, in our effort to spotlight the faces behind the Forza community. But for now, let’s give a warm welcome to Fred Howell aka Redesign!

2006 Saleen S281 E by: Lambos R Cool - Forza Central Photo Comp.

This past week was also very intense for us, partly due to the mayhem that is universally known as GTAIV. Che and I have been frantically scouring Liberty City for the past week, meeting up with members from our very own Forza community…and I have to say we have had some pretty interesting and unique moments. Rolling deep with a few teammates from Project BlackJack and our crew of community “gtaivers” (MrStabby, StrongSNIPER, BTK Bison, DeMan and WooTinn just to name a few), I have finally seen just how vast and entertaining the multiplayer modes can be.

I honestly had a great time playing with everyone who had a chance to join up with us, and if you ever see us log on to GTA with those gamertags (Che Team Forza and BLKJ BLASTO) we are probably setting up another multiplayer match, so jump in! Normally my weekend would be dedicated to working on my Hachi Roku, but this time I am willing to make an exception. From what I hear the single player mode is really amazing too, and hopefully a dedicated weekend will give me ample time to experience the madness for myself.

2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec Nur by: SPhilli22 - Skyline Photo Comp.

Of course playing GTAIV wasn’t the only thing I did this week, and on Tuesday I took some time to send out the coveted “Fuel Your Fantasy!” FM2 license plate frames, to anyone that sent in an e-mail request. In total I packaged up and shipped out well over 200 frames this week to Forza fans all across the United States, and for all the strange looks I got while carrying 20 packages over to the shipping center, I am expecting lots and lots of pictures from those of you out there who put these license plate frames around the cars in your 'hood. In fact I just created a thread in the General Automotive Discussion section to house all of your amazing pictures, so grab some frames, find a nice ride…and well you know the rest. Just make sure to snap a few pictures when your done! Also, be sure not to break any of your local laws while applying said license plate frames.

Join us this week as we nominate racing legend Dan Gurney to the highest office in the land in the Turn 10 Driver of the Week blog update.

This week I also got a major influx of messages and friend requests from some of the major tuning companies in the community. It seems my recent trend of driving and reviewing cars from the tuning marketplace has piqued the interest of our tuning gurus, and my garage is quickly filling up with some of the fastest cars in the game. All of this got me thinking…maybe I can select two tuners each week, and pit them against each other in a head-to-head tuning battle of supremacy. The challenge could be to create a car within a specific class that is competitive on a specific track, or a variety of tracks. So far this is just an idea, but after driving both 52 second Evo 8 MR’s I think it would be a great way to expose the abilities found within the tuning community.

1995 Volkswagen Corrado VR6 by: Dewstain - Rally Car Photos

As some of you should remember, last week I posted a quick review of Redline Tuning’s Evo 8 MR, the car that is capable of doing a 52 second lap around Tsukuba. This week however I am going to be talking about a different Evo, a car that was tuned and painted by the talented folks over at Tuning AG. After downloading the gift I jumped into free run and ran my standard 10 laps around Tsukuba. Right off the bat I could feel that the car needed to be driven in a very specific way. It almost felt as if the car wanted to be thrown in and out of the corners with a more aggressive or frantic driving style. With that in mind I stepped up my driving game in an attempt to chase down the 54.327 second lap in the Redline Tuning Evo. After the first few laps I started to get a better feel for the car, and knowing that I could be more aggressive and still get away with it helped me lower my lap times considerably.

1987 Ferarri F40 by: leggs 08 - Leggs Garage

Over the course of 10 laps I probably had 2 or 3 "good" laps in total, and in the end my best time was 54.845 seconds; slightly slower than my time in the Redline Evo--but a solid lap just the same. Now it’s worth mentioning that lap times don’t always tell the whole story; especially when you are driving on separate occasions under different conditions. Things can easily effect both your concentration and your consistency during a time attack, but as you can see both cars do have lots of potential. As an average driver I would definitely recommend both versions to anyone looking for a car that handles great right out of the box. After driving another car from AG known only as the “Bushido Philosophy”, I quickly realized the high standard of quality set by these dedicated tuning companies, and for that I congratulate you all! Next week I will be running some cars that were gifted to me by “xPuG DiRtyYx”, member of the well known and established Gearbox tuning, so stay tuned (pun intended) for more!

1999 Ferarri 360 Modena by: Darkpagey - Forza Ferarri!

With all this talk about tuning and designing cars, I figured now would be a great time to mention one of the coolest contests that I have ever come across during my time here at Turn 10. What is it you ask? Well I think this goes for everyone when I say we all fantasize about transforming the cars we create in Forza 2, to a real tangible object in space. We all have our favorite liveries and cars that we would just love to see in real life, and this contest finally gives you that opportunity.

2003 Nissan Fairlady Z by:nahos81 - Replica Livery Thread

What if you were asked to create a livery for a professional racing team? What if that livery could be seen on television and in automotive magazines? If you have ever dreamed of seeing your Forza 2 creation in real life then now is your chance. James Elterman, driver and manager of ShimmySideways Racing is looking for help…and he turned to the community here at FM.net. I won’t say much about the details, partly because I will be putting together a full length feature article about James next week, but for now here is what he has to say about the contest:

“I am very excited to announce that Turn 10 has agreed to cooperate with me to conduct a contest to design the new livery for my Time Attack Subaru known as the ShimmySideways STi. Some of you may recognize it from magazine coverage of Time Attacks conducted across the nation. The ShimmySideways STi needs new race livery to promote Takata, our new title sponsor, and we are giving you the opportunity to design it!”

With some great prizing on the line and a unique opportunity to design a car that is actually raced in real life, I encourage everyone (don’t hesitate!) to stop by this thread to check out the details. Stay on the lookout for a full article sometime next week.

1985 Toyota Sprinter Trueno by: goingtoooofast - Drifting Photo Gallery

Hotlap Season Week 3 - V12 takes a commanding lead...

The third week from our Hotlap Series has now been completed, and the results are extremely amazing. So far in the history of the Hotlap Challenge, we have never seen such a dominant performance from a single racing team as we are seeing this season. V12, a newly established team, has completely dominated this series since week one. Currently V12 holds a commanding lead over last season’s champions R2P, with over 300 points separating first from second. What's even more remarkable is that 3rd place is also over 300 points behind second place! Just goes to show you that last season's champs are still a force to be reckoned with. Of course we have seen some incredible performances from other drivers outside of V12, as AJ The Boy, blademeisterTRC and VVV Daveyskills hold it down for their respective teams, while placing in 3rd 5th and 7th respectively.

Hotlap Season Week 3 (32) - Top 10
1 - V12 seba grisea
2 - V12 BackONE AbS
3 - AJ The Boy
4 - V12 Kronoturbo
5 - blademeisterTRC
6 - V12 Ermy
7 - VVV Daveyskills
8 - V12 Fullspe3D
9 - V12 Nikrox
10 - V12 SGATTO

Click here to see if you have been selected as one of the Random 30 from Week 32!

1988 Lamborghini Countach by: Duffers999 - Lambo Photo Thread

It seems like cracking the top 50 is a serious challenge in itself, so congratulations to everyone who was able to hit the points this week!  Week 4 has already begun, and features R2 cars on Mugello in an unrestricted “leaderboard” challenge. The points from week 3 will be calculated over the weekend and posted in this thread so check back for the finalized results. For now here is a breakdown of the current standings after week 2.

HLC Season 3 - Individual Standings

HLC Season3 - Team Standings

1993 Nissan Skyline GT-R by: Hybrid Theory - Skyline Photo Comp.

Alright just a few more things before I dash for the weekend. The folks over at the Cyber Racing World Championship (CRWC) have recently released yet another great broadcast featuring white-knuckle action on Maple Valley, so make sure to head on over to Forzacentraltv.com to check it out. In-case you don’t already know the CRWC has been releasing high quality racing broadcasts over the past few months, with races from their very own tournament series. These videos are actually surprisingly entertaining, and many of us here at Turn 10 check out the videos on a regular basis. So head on over and take a look…you won’t be disappointed!

And finally the drifting crew here at FM.net has put together two great tournaments that you should definitely check out. The first one is a two person team tandem competition, hosted by CHD Westies and DIS KickinWing. This tournament will be judging the competitors abilities to pull off smooth and exciting tandems, so make sure to check it out here. The second tournament is a 3v3 team competition that features some really great prizing, courtesy of Team DUI. All 3 drifters from the winning teams will be awarded prizes, so this is a great opportunity to see how you stack up against others in the community. You can check out the official thread here for more info!

With that said I’m out! Thanks for stopping by for this week’s edition of the community update, and I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace

Landin