There and Back Again

September 16, 2012

The first new car I ever bought was my beloved 2001 Honda Prelude. I obsessed over every detail of that car, spending hours in the crappy Flash-based Honda online configuration tool before ever setting foot in the dealership. I babied the Prelude for every one of the 10 years that I owned it, and when I finally sold it it still looked like it was fresh off the showroom floor.

But times change, and a new baby and the need for more carrying capacity eventually made it necessary to move to a more practical vehicle. So when I picked up Forza 4 for the Xbox, one of the first things I did was check whether my old car was represented in the huge catalog of available in-game vehicles.

It sure was, and I scooped it up for 6,000 CR (which seems disrespectfully low, regardless of what a CR is “worth”).

The in-game Prelude was only available in a few colours, and not in the Electron Blue Pearl of the earstwhile object of my obsession. Forza allows you to re-paint your car in any color you want though (for free!) and in moments I was looking at an amazing likeness of my old car. I shook off the very mixed feelings and jumped into the driver’s seat to start a race.

Lo and behold, the dashboard was lovingly reproduced. I was floored.

And then I heard the engine roar. The Forza team actually went and matched the engine sound of the 2001 Honda Prelude. I was nauseaus.

And sad. Because I went from owning my dream car to only being able to drive it in a computer game.

Still won the race, though.