Can a computer game ever improve on real life?

Senior web journalist and computer game junky, Dom Sacco has just completed a Lotus double act.

He went to Silverstone to race a Lotus Exige in Forza 3 – this year’s latest must-have racing game – and try his luck in the real deal on the F1 circuit’s tarmac.

Dom’s a natural when it comes to piloting pixels around a screen, but this was his first time on track. And making your track debut in a car as hardcore as a Lotus Exige is a real baptism of fire.

But we’re pleased to report he lived to tell the tale.

Now even Dom is the first to admit the real thing is better than playing a computer game, and it’s easy to agree with him. You just don’t get that total sensory assault sitting in front of a TV screen, and there’s no sense of the noise and drama we all love about cars.

But in inviting Dom to try the two back to back is a real statement about how real the game is. And let’s face it, it’s the nearest most of us will get to driving a Bugatti Veyron, Audi R8 or Ferrari F430.

So can a computer game improve on real life? It’ll never replace the drama of seeing, feeling and driving a supercar; but it’s not far off.

Stuart Milne