It's Art....Only More Macho

I have always been enthusiastic about video games that encourage user creativity. When the WWF (or WWE, if you're not into pandas) Smackdown pro-wrestling series invited me to "Create a Superstar," I obliged dutifully. When the Tony Hawk skateboarding series suggested that I "Create a Skatepark," I took that suggestion to heart. So it stands to reason that, when Forza Motorsport 2 vested within me the power to paint my cars, I responded with, "Just show me where the paint is."

On its surface, the paint mode of Forza 2 doesn't look that flexible. You're given a limited pallet of shapes, icons, logos and letters, with no way of importing your own images into the game. Upon closer inspection, however, one finds that each paintable region of the car has room for 1000 of those shapes, all of which can be moved, rotated, resized, recolored, sheared and given transparency. As a result, a gamer with enough time on his hands can come up with ridiculously detailed designs, despite the limitations of the shape pallet. Those pretty cars can, in turn, be auctioned off to the highest bidder for in-game money, so a player's ability to be creative with the paint mode can pay off, in a way.

Not wanting to be left out, I tried my hand at producing a design that my fellow Xbox 360 owners could get enthusiastic about. It's nothing great, but considering how quickly I slapped it together, I think it looks all right. Witness my Gears of War Sprinter Trueno:

It seems inevitable that I eventually use the paint mode to design a Chorus, Isolate, Confirm 1982 Porsche 911 Turbo, but until that time, click HERE for more examples of Forza Motorsport 2 as a medium for graphic design, apparently done by people who really enjoy anime.