Looks aren't everything.....but they sure help.

I remember the first time I played SoulCalibur on Dreamcast.It was 9/9/99,the day Sega's great white hope launched.I went to Kay-Bee Toys ,where I had the system reserved,and dropped a full weeks pay on the system with no game.Of course it came with the complementary demo disc,but that left alot to be desired.So me and my cousin went back to Kay-Bee and he bought SoulCalibur.When we got home and plopped the GD-Rom in the DC,we were shocked and awed by what we saw.The graphics were quite possibly the best we'd ever seen,period.The character models were so detailed and realistic that we spent more time watching the game than playing the game.The backgrounds were beautiful,the animations were smooth and the effects were amazing.

Now I could go on and on about how much I loved the first SoulCalibur game,but that's not really the game that I'm here to talk about.The game that I'm here to talk about is Forza Motorsport 2.Earlier this evening when I cranked up my 360 I was pleasantly surprised to find the playable demo of Forza 2 available for download.I'm a huge fan of racing games and have been patiently waiting for Forza 2's release (I even dropped 150 big ones on the official Microsoft wheel).I've been following the game's progress since last year and have pretty much known what to expect from the game.I know the gameplay and Ai will be better and more realistic than ever,I know the customization options will be far more in depth than last time,I know the car list will be much larger and far more diverse than the first game and I know that the graphics are going to completely blow me away.Well,3 out of 4 ain't bad.

After playing the demo I can only hope that Turn 10 is hiding the real graphics in the full game,because the graphics in the Froza 2 demo have "placeholder" written all over them.I actually booted up Forza 1 on Xbox and ran it side by side with Forza 2.Ultimately Forza 2 just looks like a high res version of the first game.You would think that with a high profile game like this Microsoft would go to great lengths to make sure that the graphics are up to snuff.

I have the "special edition" of Forza 2 reserved at Gamestop and for $69.99 I expect more out of the visuals.Now I'm the first person to say that graphics aren't everything,but when they can't even measure up to an Xbox360 launch game (PGR3) then something is seriously wrong.I'm still gonna buy the game when it drops because I'm a huge gearhead,but the gameplay,AI,customization options and car list had better be amazing.The funny thing is,the Gran Turismo HD demo available on the PSN (which is only a demo and not a full game) looks far more realistic than any other racing game out right now.

So the point is that graphics may not everything,but in certain game genres they are a big thing and racing happens to be one of those genres.