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Language: en

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When I was a kid, one of the video games
I played a lot was Need For Speed II.

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Actually, it wasn't even the full game.
It was a demo version

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that came on a free CD with
a monthly computer magazine.

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ANNOUNCER: "Three! Two! One!"

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The demo only had one car and one track,

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but I played that one track a lot,
in the way that kids do.

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Or at least, the way that kids did back before

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the internet gave them massively multiplayer
and regularly-updated games for free.

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I knew how to take every turn,

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I could make it all the way through the big
downhill section near the end

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without having to take my
foot off the gas.

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Or my finger off the up arrow.

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And I knew all the short cuts and secrets.

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The graphics seemed better back then,

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although that's maybe just because they were
on a slightly fuzzy CRT monitor.

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And having spent so much time
playing that one track,

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as a kid, I wanted to somehow explore the world,

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I wanted to park up, get out of the car and
have a close look at, say,

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the totem pole next to the car park.

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It turns out the developers of Need for Speed II
were based here in Vancouver, Canada.

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That track was Vancouver and the area around it,

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or at least, a very simplified
version of it.

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But I didn't put two and two together until
the first time that I was right here

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and realised that I've sort-of seen this before.

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And now, I can do exactly what that
young version of me wanted to do.

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I can drive bits of that track,
but more importantly,

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I can get out and explore.

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So I rented a car, and I drove roads that
I sort-of recognised.

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Admittedly in a sensible SUV, not a Ford GT,

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and I can't actually cut a corner past
Stanley Park's totem poles in real life,

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but: it's a very strange experience.

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After Stanley Park, the track goes on
to Lions Gate Bridge.

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And I remember thinking that a 270° right turn
straight off a bridge would be ridiculous

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but there it was.

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The second half of the track is
up the Sea-to-Sky Highway

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and then back downhill at ludicrous speeds,

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and then down Terminal Avenue, with the Skytrain
speeding past and Science World on the left.

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I didn't know what the names of those things
were when I was a kid,

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I just knew that I wanted to be
in this seemingly-futuristic city

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and go for a ride on that train.

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Decades later, I did.

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And then there was the section in the middle.

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A long straight along a seawall,
with a lighthouse at the end.

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And I really wanted the option to
look at the ocean view from there.

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I thought that it would
probably be spectacular.

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And, yeah. It is.

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I do have a point to all this nostalgia.

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The designers of that track,

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the artists from Vancouver who created that
simplified, low-polygon version of their city,

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I'm willing to bet that they never thought
that, nearly a quarter-century later,

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they'd have this sort of effect on anyone.

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And I'm almost certainly not the only person
who's played that game

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and then stumbled across the real version,
and found that

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they have an odd connection to this place.

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All the things that we create,

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whether you have a big audience or

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whether you're just making stuff
for the folks close to you,

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sure, maybe those things you make
will be forgotten.

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Or maybe the things that you create will get
laid down as someone's long-term memory,

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and affect them a lot later in their life.

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So: make nice things.

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Try to give people something
they'll be nostalgic about,

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not something they'll flash back to.

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You never know what impressions you might
be making for the future.

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ANNOUNCER: "Best lap!"

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GPS: "Turn left onto Stanley Park Drive."

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I really just want to do 100, 150 round here.