In the videogame industry, for every Yin, there's a... well... Yin, especially when companies are scrambling to attract consumers to their platforms. For example, for Microsoft's Halo, Sony's got Killzone, and for Sony's Gran Turismo 4, Microsoft has Forza Motorsport, a racing sim so deep you may fall in if your not paying attention, but that may not necessarily be a bad thing, especially if you've been yearning for a GT-like experience on Xbox.

Notice I said GT-like, because the last thing Microsoft probably wants is for Forza to be a GT clone, so they've not only made sure that it can stand on its own, but also that it's the deepest racing sim ever created, and thus far, it appears that they've surpassed their goals.

Forza is the driving game of all driving games, an RPG/racing hybrid where the goal of the player is to achieve "car nirvana," a euphoria reached when one's car is perfectly balanced. However, getting to this divine goal won't be easy, only because the level of customization is unparalleled, but before you get to that, you may get stuck at car selection.

If you love racers with a wide selection of cars, you may explode when you sit down with Forza. The game features autos from over 60 top manufacturers such as BMW, Dodge, Ferrari, Chevrolet, Porsche, Mazda, Nissan, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz, and all of them can be customized and tuned in just about any way you can imagine. You can change a car's rims, body kit, add a spoiler, decals, fender flares, side skirts, hood scoops, and team paint-schemes, and as you make alterations, the game's camera zips around and zooms to the location so you can clearly see the changes.

Achieving Nirvana isn't easy, so you're going to have to do a lot of tinkering before you've created that perfect car, but while everything may look great on paper, you won't know how your dream machine drives until you've tested it on the road. The game features numerous tracks such as famous Nurburgring Nordschleife and the streets of Rio de Janeiro, and they all look fabulous. Road textures, surface irregularities, and oil and skid marks deliver a great sense of realism. They're not as pretty as the eye candy found in more exotic racing games, but they're definitely worth noting. However, the real stars of the game are the rides. Each car has been painstakingly recreated and can even incur damage and wear, which of course affects the performance, so think twice about foolishly taking a sharp turn around a corner without braking.

So how realistic is Forza's driving experience? As I said before, the realistic damage is something to think about at high speeds, but that's not all that should be on your mind. You also have to be aware of heat and pressure changes that affect tires and suspension, as well as weight transfer and aerodynamic load. If your car's got too much junk in its trunk, other players will leave you in their dust.

Speaking of other players, Forza lets you get behind the wheel on Xbox Live and compete against other gamers, but that's not its most important feature, for you see, Forza is a game of odds. In other words, the odds of you finding certain types of cars is dependant on where you live, so if you live in Japan, it may be easy to pick up a Nissan Skyline, but over here in the States, the chances of you finding one may be slim, but don't lose sleep over it. For a price (or trade, supposedly), you may be able to barter with that player in Japan, but it goes far beyond that. Players can even sell their tricked out rides around the world! It's a feature that's guaranteed to leave you spending countless hours online and off as you search for cars as well as put the finishing touches on your own to make some virtual cash.

Lastly, in addition to all of this, you can train what are called AI Drivatars to race just like you. You can then enter them into competitions, but we're not yet sure whether this is an off and/or online feature. It definitely adds that all important human element to racing, so you'll never know just how unpredictable the car you're racing against is.

From a technical perspective, Forza's the deepest racing sim ever conceived, but I still have my doubts whether it'll be able to top Gran Turismo 4. It comes close in the graphics department, but it doesn't yet have the photo-realistic sheen of GT4. Also, if the game doesn't feature any slick-looking courses (ala Need for Speed Underground), it sort of undermines the whole point of building super fast cars. Still, this may very well be the finest racing sim ever, and we'll all have to save our final judgments until it ships this winter.