I lived in Chicago for quite a while and there are occasionally games set there or at least partially there. Watch Dogs is set in Chicago and I recognized the area in the trailer. It isn't an exact recreation but I immediately knew where it was. Also in Need For Speed The Run the race in Chicago took place right where I went to school and down the highway I traveled on to get into the city every day. Again, it wasn't perfectly accurate but it was pretty close and I really appreciated how they got the lighting for the street lamps so damn close to how it actually looks. Those are the two games that I can think of off the top of my head that I recognized areas from where I lived. They also do occasional movies in Chicago, like The Dark Knight. I know exactly where they filmed many of those scenes. Suffice to say that games do get Chicago right to an extent. I've also been to New York City quite a few times in my life and the recreations vary from almost entirely fictional to at least somewhat accurate. A lot of times it feels like games are content to get Times Square right and then just build a random city around that. Again, never lived in New York City, just visited so I'm not super familiar but that has been my takeaway. I always thought it was interesting that the Batman films' Gotham seems to be a recreation of New York City but they never shoot it anywhere around New York. It was so weird to see classic Chicago landmarks and then be told the city was in the middle of a body of water. Suffice to say Chicago is next to Lake Michigan but it is far from surrounded by water. And I believe The Dark Knight Rises was shot in Toronto, which I have also traveled to regularly, and again, it is not a city surrounded by water.
I never had a game use my hometown but there was a movie that shot there. Cannibal Girls starring Eugene Levy and directed by Ivan Reitman(!) had all of its twon footage shot in Beaverton Ontario. It's strange to see Eugene Levy walking around my hometown; but what is even stranger is that the movie was shot in 1973 and the town still looks exactly the same.
Indianapolis isn't all that fascinating, unfortunately. Although I do get unnecessarily excited when any part of Indiana is in an episode of Supernatural.
@Raven10: Actually, Gotham is pretty blatantly New York City in the new one. I was surprised they didn't try to edit out stuff like the Empire State building from some of the skylines. The Bronx appears to have been drowned in a flood, though. There's lots of Pittsburgh and Chicago in it too.
GTAIV is probably the best representation of NYC I've seen in a game. It's not 1:1 by any means, but it's such an incredible representation of the atmosphere and feel of the city down to different neighborhoods feeling just like the ones in the city. It's great.
I grew up in New York City, so it's not a big deal, but if a game was set in the town I live now it might be weird. Of course, I doubt any game ever will be set here. Well, maybe one of those fishing games. I live on the Gulf Coast of Florida and people here like to fish. They still make fishing games, don't they?
Never had a game set in my hometown (Melbourne) but it often turns up as other cities in Hollywood films. Ghost Rider for instance, that was an odd one.
Especially in the scene when he dive's into the river off a bridge. The whole audience in the cinema collectively gasped at that because it does not matter if you are Satan's messenger you are not surviving a dip in the Yarra.
And yet we can't help but love it's murky brown waters.
Yeah, same goes for GTA for me. Whenever something like that is done, it's always altered for gameplay reasons. Like you said, GTA was amazing because you've never been to NYC but Sleeping Dogs looks awesome because I've never been to Hong Kong. Also, I can't tell if the Cantonese is bad or not but I thought major Chinese actors were voice acting. Maybe they're frmo different parts of China but I can't really tell if its bad.
@Raven10: Actually, Gotham is pretty blatantly New York City in the new one. I was surprised they didn't try to edit out stuff like the Empire State building from some of the skylines. The Bronx appears to have been drowned in a flood, though. There's lots of Pittsburgh and Chicago in it too.
GTAIV is probably the best representation of NYC I've seen in a game. It's not 1:1 by any means, but it's such an incredible representation of the atmosphere and feel of the city down to different neighborhoods feeling just like the ones in the city. It's great.
It wasn't shot in New York City. The skyline shots and top down shots were all CG. Most of the movie was shot in Canada. I think it was Toronto but it could have been Vancouver. I'd have to look it up.
They filmed in NYC. Trump Tower on 5th Avenue was Wayne Tower in this film. Weirdly, the fight scene is filmed in both NYC and Pittsburgh. I think maybe the charge was in New York and the actual brawl in Pittsburgh? Odd. The skyline was definitely not CG, though. There's no way they'd spend all the time, money, and resources to film the exact same skyline and then leave in the Empire State Building or the Bank of America building. Batman Begins, though, was full with skyline CG, and it looks noticeably different.
Wikipedia points out that it was also filmed in Newark, LA, London and Glasgow.
@themangalist Yeah, same here. I'm still living in HK at the moment, so it's a little jarring. That being said, I will admit that the game's attention to detail on other things (such as the green minibuses and the purple bins everywhere) is pretty impressive.
I'll probably end up picking it up day one over at 188 or something. To satisfy my curiosity if nothing else.
None in my town I think, but plenty of things are set in my state, most notable from games is Alan Wake. As much as I love the atmosphere in Alan Wake, I don't know many places that are similar to the setting of Alan Wake here. To me, that seems more like Alaska or something, but whatever.
Pffft, I'm lucky if I see a character from my country, and If i do he ends up being a maniac who committed genocide. So it's the bad kind of lucky. Imma go drink some booze now.
I wa hyped as hell for Fallout: New Vegas because (you guessed it) I grew up there. Just seeing what Fallout 3 did with the DC surrounding (visitng familiar locations) was one of my favorite parts of that game so I could not wait to do that to my stomping grounds.
This... The scale is obviously all off, but Primm, Jean, and the Hoover Dam are all where they pretty much should be, and the freeways at least looks accurate on the map.
It's a little different, since New Vegas is modeled after 50's Vegas, and not my 90's Vegas, but it's still really weird.
The only games I've ever seen to have anything set in Glasgow (in Scotland) are train simulators, so eh... Railworks' rendition of Central Station is pretty good.
The closest to this feeling I've had was watching the Jet Li/Morgan Freeman movie Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog). The entirety of the exterior shoot was filmed here and it is full of familiar areas to me but - apart from one throwaway line by Morgan Freeman mentioning the name of the city - could have been set just about anywhere for as much relevance the location has to anything. Directed by a Frenchman, starring an American, an Englishman and a Chinese bloke, and even the cashier in the local shops has a cockney accent. There's not even a single accent from the same country never mind the local area. Truly baffling, and very jarring to see your city represented like that,
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