SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...**Crash** This is easily the most recognizable sound from any racing game.  It elicits laughter in online races when it happens in front of or behind a player.  It brings out a tirade of anger and thrown controllers when happening first hand.

What is it about racing games, and more particularly, Forza Motorsport 2 and it’s spiritual clone, Gran Turismo, that brings gamers into its fold?  Whereas with other sports titles, each individual sports game has its own following, racing games are a whole other sort where gamers are either racing fans or not.  People who normally find the sport of racing mundane and boring find uncanny amounts of excitement from these two games.

The recent turn towards visual customization in games as evidenced most prominently in Forza Motorsport 2 for the Xbox 360 has brought in a whole new element to the sim-racing genre.  Users devote untold hours into designing their cars to perfection and bringing real-life images and pop culture to the cars they most frequently use.

Integrated online play has taken the love of these games to even further levels of addiction.  DSM itself has held a recent Forza races on Xbox Live that drew a hot of players from its forums, some of which, hadn’t played the game in months.  But it’s not just the racing that keeps people interested.  Features like Forza’s Auction House keep the gameplay unique as a player can purchase a new car design each week from an auction and keep their presence unique.

Even aside from the visual customization is the uncanny variance in the cars themselves.  Players have hundreds of cars to choose from, each with their own nuances that allow players to enter races where no racers use the same car.  Even more surprising is when a player uses a car never expected in a race, such as races with Lamborghinis, Saleens, Ferraris that feature a racer using, say, an Audi TT upgraded to the point it holds its own amongst those more expensive cars.

Tuning is amongst the features that allow gamers to make those upgrades work.  This is perhaps the single most frustrating feature while also the most appealing and brings in many gamers who would otherwise pass on the genre.  The ability to completely tune an upgraded car adds to the element of realism in that a car can be raced with no tuning and succeed, but the more hardcore gamer can tune his car’s tire pressure, gear ratios, and many more things to further bring out that inner fire from their car.

There’s really no one explanation as to why the racing genre is able to produce such a large and long-termed following.  People can speculate endlessly, and often, each may be right in their own way.  What can be said is that the sim-racing brought forth by titles like Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo will be around for a long time and continue to put forth longevity that is often lacking in today’s games.