The Crew Motorfest and Test Drive Unlimited: Oʻahu Recreated

Test Drive Unlimited begins with your avatar arriving on the island by plane. Motorfest has roads around the airport too. The real Daniel K. Inouye International Airport opened in 1927 as John Rodgers Airport and now covers 4,220 acres, more than one per cent of Oʻahu. Its Reef Runway, completed in 1977, was the first major runway built entirely offshore.

Both games put you on Waikiki's streets. Test Drive Unlimited lets you drive through Waikiki's beaches; Motorfest's version keeps Kalākaua Avenue surprisingly accurate, with the major junctions in the right places and the Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Statue in place. In reality Waikīkī means "spouting fresh water", and its famous beach is almost entirely man-made. The neighbourhood runs from the Ala Wai Canal to Diamond Head, which forms the backdrop above the sand.

Visitor guidance: Waikiki Beach and the Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Statue are public.

Test Drive Unlimited's roads run around Diamond Head crater, and Motorfest goes further: you can drive straight through the crater. Diamond Head is a volcanic tuff cone that Hawaiians call Lēʻahi, formed roughly 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. Its summit trail, built in 1908, runs 0.8 mile and climbs 560 feet past bunkers to a view over Waikiki. The crater became a National Natural Landmark in 1968.

Visitor guidance: Non-residents need a timed reservation and a small fee for the summit trail.

Motorfest gives Hanauma Bay its own subregion in the South region, east of Honolulu. In reality the bay is a marine embayment inside a tuff ring, protected since 1967 as a Marine Protected Area. It once drew more than three million visitors a year; today entry is capped at 720 people a day, and the park closes on Mondays and Tuesdays. The reef closest to the beach died under that earlier pressure, leaving only its blackened skeleton.

Visitor guidance: Entry is capped at 720 guests a day and the park closes Mondays and Tuesdays; book ahead.

Motorfest's North Shore stretches across the entire north of the map, and it is the one stretch where the game lets you open up the throttle. In reality the coast runs from Kaʻena Point to Kahuku, and Banzai Pipeline, off Ehukai Beach, is its most famous break. Pipeline's waves average nine feet but can reach twenty, breaking over a shallow, cavernous reef; the Triple Crown of Surfing is held here every December.

Location precision: Motorfest models the whole North Shore region; the pin marks Banzai Pipeline, its best-known break.

Visitor guidance: The beaches are public; watch the winter surf from the sand.

Motorfest lists Haleʻiwa as a North Shore subregion, a town stop on the coast. It is the North Shore's largest commercial centre, and its old plantation character survives in 30 historic buildings, with the Rainbow Bridge marking the northern entrance to the old town. On 7 December 1941 two P-40B fighters took off from the now-abandoned Haleʻiwa Airfield and scrambled against the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Location precision: Motorfest models Haleʻiwa as a North Shore subregion; the pin marks the Rainbow Bridge at the entrance to the old town.

Visitor guidance: Walk into old Haleʻiwa from the Rainbow Bridge.

Both games include Pearl Harbor, and Motorfest lets you race boats across the harbour. Test Drive Unlimited lets you drive through the harbor area. In reality this is a lagoon harbor west of Honolulu, much of it a US Navy base and the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet. The surprise attack here on 7 December 1941 brought the United States into the Second World War.