Running a clean race has rewards of its own, and not all of them are monetary in nature. Because of Forza's close integration with Microsoft's Xbox Live service, all your race times are automatically uploaded to compare with those of other racers from around the globe. However, the game will levy a stiff time penalty against you for ontrack mistakes, whether they're collisions with other cars or other roadside obstacles, or simply going wide in a turn and skidding offtrack. The penalty system unfortunately doesn't take into consideration the actions of the usually polite AI, so even if you're rammed from behind or driven offtrack by an overzealous opponent, it's your lap time that will suffer.

Car damage is more than just crumpled fenders and scratched paint; sloppy driving may just take you out of the race for good.

Luckily, this is practically the only ugly spot in an online package that is seamless and wonderfully implemented. In addition to being able to host and join both circuit and point-to-point race types on any of the included tracks with up to seven other online racers, the game also includes an online career mode that lets you race against opponents of your skill level based on an in-game ELO rating similar to that used in international chess competitions. We experienced smooth online play in our Forza online test sessions, seeing no slowdown and only a few cases of cars lag-sliding across the track. The number of options for online races is impressive--from setting the number of laps or damage type to determining whether tire wear, fuel consumption, or collision are enabled. The only thing missing is a setting to forbid use of the suggested line aid in online races. We would have liked to have seen the option to disable this feature, or perhaps disable it after the first lap of a race, if only to avoid people using it as a crutch for online races. Furthermore, a maximum of eight racers online seems a bit low, especially since older racers have managed to pack in more online opponents without negative performance effects. Finding a group of like-minded race fans online--people you know can be counted on for a solid race session after session--can be difficult. Forza attempts to address this by taking the concept of your friends list one step further with car clubs, which are the game's version of a clan. Establishing a car club is easy: you choose a name, nickname, a brief description, motto, Web site information, a logo...and you're all set. As president of your car club, you'll be able to recruit and promote new members in the hopes of building up a powerful group of drivers. If you have at least four members in your club, you'll be able to post times to the Xbox Live car club scoreboards. Your car club will have an overall ELO rating attached to it as well, and all members of the club will contribute to that rating (in ELO rating-enabled races that is), meaning every single member has a stake in the overall reputation of the club.

Forza places a huge emphasis on every car's individuality through features such as the rarity rating and powerful customization tools, which let you paint your car and/or add a massive number of vinyls and decals, creating, with a little patience, a car that will be unique and unlike any others. That individuality can be further celebrated by pitting your car against other players' cars online. The fun doesn't stop there, however, as Forza also lets you buy and sell cars in online trading sessions with friends and strangers alike. By setting up a "buy and sell" session, you can browse the collections of up to eight other players who agree to enter the lobby with you. You can't set the price at which you'd like to sell a particular car unfortunately; the price is automatically generated based on the rarity of the vehicle and the quality of upgrades it contains.

Ah, Rio… The track environments are both technically accurate and aesthetically pleasing.

The graphical beauty found in Forza starts with the big, bright car models. The smooth lines on the car models are of exceptional quality and appear remarkably similar to their real-life counterparts, all the way down to the ridges on the tires and the detailed grills. As nice as the cars look, the real feather in Forza's cap may come in the game's racing environments. Real-time lighting and shadows are shown off to great effect on tree-lined courses like Maple Valley and Blue Mountains Raceway, as well as the cityscape of the New York City track--an intricate mix of urban grit and metropolis glitter--and it all results in a stunning graphical achievement. There are oodles of graphical treats on other courses as well, like the unique tunnel lighting at Rio de Janeiro, the neon-soaked Tokyo course, and the absolutely massive amounts of background detail on Germany's Nürburgring. The 'ring seems to be a regular guest star in today's racing games, but never has it looked as lush, as opulent, or simply as immense as it does in Forza.