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Impressive non GTA cities


LazlowsucksiloveslutS
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LazlowsucksiloveslutS

What environments aside from GTA have captured your heart and soul?

I really love Chicago in the original Watch_Dogs game. Im blown away how much sh*t there is to do. All the random things happening ariund you, like just yesterday I saw this dude pouring out a little liquor for his dead homies. It is really surprising to me how lively this city is. Even better than LS in GTAV I would say.

 

First of all I like that they go to places that video games haven't gone before, like Chicago. A really inetersting place to discover-

 

I also like Stilwater in Saints Row 2. I don't know what it is but it has a unique vibe about it

 

And Lost Heaven,, Empire Bay in Mafia games (New Bordieaux was bullsjiy. sorry M3 fans

 

So what non GTA citites do you like or even love?

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Nintendo Thong Tuna

Stilwater in SR2 is my absolute non-GTA favorite. So many hidden areas, mission areas that can be explored outside their respective missions not to mention it's very diverse. It has pretty much every type of area you'd want in a playable city - projects, business districts, malls, industrial zones, docks, casinos, trailer parks, suburbia and more. Steelport was a disappointing generic city on the other hand.

 

Hyrule in Zelda Breath of the Wild gave me a lot of good vibes. It might have flaws like being too empty in a few places with too sparse enemy placement, but what I loved about it is the extensive amount of references to recognizable Zelda locations from all the past games, but in more open form.

 

Then there's all the explorable cities in Assassin's Creed Ezio trilogy, particularly II - I love having a virtual tour of Venice. I even enjoy the renditions of Paris and London in Unity and Syndicate even if I'm not too crazy about the games themselves.

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El Penguin Bobo

Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs. It feels so alive and vibrant. 

 

Same goes for WD 2's San Francisco. Makes me wanna go to SF some day.

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Never played any Watch_Dogs game so far, but I've heard nice things about both of their maps.

 

And it might be Nostalgia kicking in, but I'd like to say Bayview from NFS Underground 2. From bright casinos to gritty industrial buildings and hillside mansions, I know it's a racing game and you're meant to go 150k/h+ through the streets, but I just wanted to go on foot and explore.

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Guest Billy Russo

Chicago and San Francisco - Watch Dogs

London - The Getaway

Hong Kong - Sleeping Dogs

NYC - Spider-Man

Edited by Billy Russo
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Uncle Sikee Atric

Does it have to be single cities?

SCS's modern work in America and Europe and the work of modders to update and recreate modern cities in the older areas of the ETS2 and ATS maps has created a number of very active and modern city views. 

I love Portland, Oregon (shown below), but cities like St Petersburg in ETS2 and the Promods rebuild of London have also created scenes that residents living there can match to real life.  You can tell they're using street view from Google to try and make things look right.

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Furry_Monkey

The Getaway wins it for me (still disappointed that the sequel never got made :( )

 

The first time I drove to a mate's house in London I got lost and was stuck right in the city center, and that place is a maze if you don't know it.  This was in the days before phones had sat-nav on them and any type of sat-nav device was a rarity, mainly due to the ma$$ive co$t!  I'd been driving around for about half an hour and then I suddenly found myself in Trafalgar Square.  Because of The Getaway I instantly knew the way to the Blackwall Tunnel, and I already knew the rest of the way after that.  If I hadn't spent so much time playing The Getaway I may still be driving around London city center today!

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Guest Billy Russo

Not sure if Racing games count, but The Crew 1 & 2 have VERY impressive maps. It's basically a downscaled US and it feels like you're actually driving through some of those places. The ultimate road trip game.

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Sleeping Dogs is the only city I've seen that can match what Rockstar does with urban environments. It was truly impressive. 

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Commander S

Off the top of my head (and limiting myself to stuff I've actually played - I hear AC Unity's take on Paris is really impressive):
 

London (Assassin's Creed Syndicate)

Hong Kong (Sleeping Dogs)

New Bordeaux (Mafia III)

San Francisco (Watch Dogs 2)

Empire Bay (Mafia II)

 


WD2's San Francisco is the only one approaching Los Santos levels of scale and photorealism, but Sleeping Dogs does a great job in condensing the overall vibe of the real Hong Kong into a more concentrated dose. Likewise, some of the more generic buildings in Syndicate are indeed generic (made from shared modular kits), but they're still suitably period-authentic, and the overall sense of being in Victorian London comes through, largely down to the map layout being accurate overall (just shrunk down a bit!), and with all the major landmarks being near-exact.

 

The Mafia games are less specific to their real-life counterparts, but they still do a great job of replicating the look and feel of post-WWII New York and late-'60s New Orleans (respectively) - they're both really good for era-appropriate details, like the car designs (I love little things like how the car lights slowly fade off in Mafia III, as you'd expect of the period), clothing, signs/billboards, that sort of thing.

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silly_nate

Does Sanit Denis count? It’s pretty small but still really well done.

 

also Stillwater from SR2. Like @Nintendo Thong Tuna said. Everything you could want in a city is there + tons of interiors and hidden areas.

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Miami, Nice and Istanbul from Driv3r. 3 highly detailed cities, featuring vehicles from different eras, but not being specific on the timeline of the setting. 

 

Very ambitious game at the time, and a tragedy that it couldn't compete with GTA: San Andreas, despite the celebrity cast and amount of work spent visiting locations. 

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watch dogs 2, absolutely beautiful. id say that map is better than los santos imo

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Standard Deluxe 59

Los Angeles from True Crime Streets of LA had a very large map especially for being a relatively old game. While some of the geography was probably a little off, you really got the feeling of traversing real life LA just without the famously bad traffic.

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San Franciso - Watch Dogs 2

Sao Paulo - Max Payne 3

Paris - Assassin's Creed Unity

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Shadowfennekin

Stilwater - SR 2

Chicago and San Francisco - Watch Dogs (Hope London can be added to this list)

Hong Kong - Sleeping Dogs

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  • 2 weeks later...
DarksunDaFirst
On 6/7/2019 at 11:26 PM, Standard Deluxe 59 said:

Los Angeles from True Crime Streets of LA had a very large map especially for being a relatively old game. While some of the geography was probably a little off, you really got the feeling of traversing real life LA just without the famously bad traffic.

This.

I'll add Los Angeles from L.A. Noire to that.

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On 6/6/2019 at 1:46 PM, Uncle Sikee Atric said:

SCS's modern work in America and Europe and the work of modders to update and recreate modern cities in the older areas of the ETS2 and ATS maps has created a number of very active and modern city views. 

 

Hey there, fellow trucker! I have spent a surprising amount of hours driving up and down the west coast over the last few months - just got the ATS expansion too :)

 

 

I'm gonna go with a popular opinion in the thread and say Sleeping Dogs has been one of the best urban environments I've seen - I have nothing but good memories of that whole game to be honest.

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Empire Bay - Mafia 2
Berezino - DayZ

Moscow - Metro 2033

Edited by Sanches
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LeslieFromTheShoIntimacy

NYC from True Crime.  Don’t know if it’s true or not, but I remember a long time ago reading something that said the entire island of Manhattan is to scale.

 

If true, that’s pretty amazing.  I used to love driving around (despite the pretty crappy driving and unforgivable pop up) and it did feel like it took a good amount of time to get from one place to another.

 

 

Also; I liked Driver 2’s Havana.

 

Not many games you can free roam around Cuba, and it’s definitely interesting to explore. I miss seeing the Che Guevara murals, old 50’s cars and that funky funky music !  

 

 

 

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Algonquin Assassin

Empire Bay from Mafia 2 is probably my favourite non-GTA city. It's small, but it has so much personality and looks great in both its Winter and Summer 40s/50s renditions.

 

Honourable mentions.

 

-London. Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

-Rome: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

-Chicago and San Francisco: Watch Dogs 1 and 2.

-Saint Denis: RDR2.

-LA. LA Noire

-Manhattan/NYC: Spiderman (2018).

-Manhattan/NYC: True Crime: NYC.

-NYC: Driver - Parallel Lines (Yes in case you haven't guess by now I like NYC:ph34r:)

-Hong Kong: Sleeping Dogs.

-Miami: Scarface - The World Is Yours.

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You didn't really get to see that much of it but Hong Kong in the original Black Ops had a great atmosphere. I'd also say Pripyat in CoD4 as again you don't see that much of it but it's somewhat accurate and the design of the mission makes it feel immersive.

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San Francisco: Watch Dogs 2 - Really, really fantastically interactive city. My favourite real life city this gen.

Empire Bay: Mafia 2 - I don't think I'll be getting remastered versions of the first two games anytime soon, but good lord do I want it, especially this one.

Boston: TLOU - A little different considering this is set way in the future, but seeing the city overgrown and destroyed was incredible, and probably not far off what it might look like at some point.

Hong Kong: Sleeping Dogs - Brilliant diverse city, and a damn shame no sequel ever came because of the well known issues.

LA: LA Noire - Another game I wish had a sequel.

 

Probably more but these are what I can remember off the top of my head. Could probably write a book on my favourite fictional cities/locations in games.

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BioShock's Rapture deserves a mention here.

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Going old school here, but Union City from the PlayStation 1 game Urban Chaos?

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Manhatan in True Crime NYC.Probably my favorite representation of Modern Manhattan in games.They even show the name of each street and the 2000s NY vibe is captured really well,Manhattan feels big.The details like trash everywhere make for a pretty good map,Its still one of the prettiest PS2 games...its also one of the buggiest.

Driver Parallel Lines NY,holy sh*t this game is underrated,and its one of the few games that let you visit all boroughs(i think its the only one but im not sure).New York City in 78 with all districts and New Jersey,this game is crazy big.And it captured 70s New York so well.

 

On 6/8/2019 at 12:04 AM, Oldsport said:

watch dogs 2, absolutely beautiful. id say that map is better than los santos imo

Well the comparison would be better if gta 5 was set in san fierro.But WD2 is probably the best city map in this gen i agree

Edited by Auditore
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