Forza Motorsport 7: Comparing the Mazda MX-5 Miata with its video game counterpart

Everything in life is a comparison test. You have to compare colleges, compare cities, and compare cars to figure out which one is the most viable for you and which one meets your needs. As a journalist, this is an incredibly difficult process because you have to track every detail and compare every specification when it comes to things like how an iPhone 8 compares to a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 or maybe a Dell business laptop against one from Asus.

It’s not 100 percent objective, of course, because we’re all human, and we have a certain background and perceptions that can dictate our viewpoints. Yet there is one comparison that is one of my favorites and is what you might call a “pure play” of subjective evaluation. I recently drove a Mazda MX-5 Miata for a week, and then I tested the same car in Forza Motorsport 7, the racing game that came out this week for the Xbox One. It was an interesting test, because it’s also one of the main reasons journalism even exists — to evaluate things on behalf of the reader to help with a buying decision. My comparison could help you decide if this low-cost sport roadster is for you, and also if Forza 7 is worth buying as a way to drive virtual cars in simulated race tracks few of us would ever visit.