Capturing the feel of a real world city is so hard to do in a game - it's why Rockstar creates an exaggerated stereotype of a chosen location in the GTA games.
That said, if you have to live in a city to really understand it - I'd like the Ubisoft guys to take a crack at Montreal in a video game, it's such a unique city that it could really be interesting. Heck, it's even got a Formula One circuit within the city limits. It doesn't have global landmarks like New York, but in the context of a game, it's got a lot of diverse areas, like Old Montreal and the mountain in the centre.
If no one told me it was supposed to be Chicago, I wouldn't have known. I would have thought "Oh a bad facsimile of New York, how original."
Chicago is the poor mans new york. Everyone knows that. They even tried making their own style pizza and ended up with some half aborted pizza abomination that they call "chicago style pizza". Savages.
I feel like people might not know this, but we do have "regular" pizza in addition to Chicago-style. This isn't aimed at you specifically, but I've heard one or two people who were shocked that we had "normal" pizza in addition to Chicago-style. Deep dish is great, it's delicious, it's heavy, it's cheesy and saucy. But it's an entirely different beast from "pizza". We know that. We love it but you're either in the mood for pizza or for deep dish, not either or. When you have friends over and you say you're gonna order a pizza, they'd probably be surprised if you showed up with a deep dish. It's a "special occasion" kind of thing.
Regular pizza in Chicago is different from New York's thin, crispy, greasy, foldable slices, but it's still recognizably pizza. Chicago pizza is rarely sold in slices, mostly pies. Instead of triangle cut, they are usually cut in squares. They are usually doughy, with a sweet sauce, and spicy sausage.
Besides, y'all are just jealous that you don't have that Portillo's Italian Beef.
@wrighteous86: Exactly. I love Chicago deep dish, but I very rarely eat it. When I talk about Chicago pizza, I'm usually referring to just regular ass pizza in the Chicago area. It's generally superb, and the way you describe it is exactly how I like it: big doughy crust slathered in a sweet, tangy sauce. Usually with sausage and onion. I've been ordering from the same local joint for 15 years, and their pizza is close to perfection.
If no one told me it was supposed to be Chicago, I wouldn't have known. I would have thought "Oh a bad facsimile of New York, how original."
Chicago is the poor mans new york. Everyone knows that. They even tried making their own style pizza and ended up with some half aborted pizza abomination that they call "chicago style pizza". Savages.
Regular pizza in Chicago is different from New York's thin, crispy, greasy, foldable slices, but it's still recognizably pizza. Chicago pizza is rarely sold in slices, mostly pies. Instead of triangle cut, they are usually cut in squares. They are usually doughy, with a sweet sauce, and spicy sausage.
Besides, y'all are just jealous that you don't have that Portillo's Italian Beef.
Mmm. That pizza looks good. I'm not a fan of the Chicago-deep dish myself, all that cheese is too much. Just gimme a few squares of some tasty pizza and I'm a happy Chicagoan. But as a Chicago-based person, I can confirm two things.
No one knows WTF Willis Tower is. If you're looking for a tourist trap tower, it's Sears Tower.
And, Chicago-Pizza is not exclusively Deep-Dish Pizza. No one says, "Let's get deep dish." People say, "Hey, wanna go to Uno's/Lou's". When you order pizza, you get a pizza as shown above. The squares are crispy and tasty as thin crust, a bit too filling for me if I do the double crust.
I guess I'd be pretty salty if I didn't have ready access to this, though.
I was a bit put off when the Food Network did a Best Of Chicago and pitted Mr Beef against Al's Beef as Chicago's best. For me, those places are on Buona Beef's level. Not bad, but not great. Al's does have tasty Bleu Cheese Fries, though.
Too bad Watch Dogs didn't have a Portillo's type restaurant. The building is quite unique, and they could have called it, "Dick's Hotdogs" or something. People would snicker at the name, but when you go to Portillo's, you're eating at Dick's restaurant.
It's kind of a shame that Museum Campus is missing. The Art Institute is quite a landmark and is right by Millennium Park. I understand not having the two lions, but buildings with Greco-Roman architecture are as much Chicago as anything else. That building and the Museum of Science and Industry are remains of Chicago's World Fair. I believe the Lyric Opera House is missing as well - it's a stone's throw away from Union Station and is one of the more iconic locations on the river.
I don't know if it's a satisfactory answer or not, but Joystiq ran an article about the Ubisoft Chicago and the reason the producer gave for the lack of real landmarks was essentially, "It is very difficult and expensive to license things". It's an interesting article.
I think this is common every time a city is "recreated" in a game. A friend of mine lived in London when The Getaway came out, and he was disappointed with that. I think you kind of just have to roll with it.
Yea, the one time I stayed in Chicago I was in the Hilton or whatever on Michigan but about the only touristy thing I did was walk by the water tower on accident one day. I spent about five minutes in the game world spinning the camera around, wondering why everything but the building and area immediately surrounding it felt so foreign.
In real life it's kind of just there but it was treated with an odd reverence in the game's Chicago, especially considering the lengths they go to distance themselves from other landmarks.
@spacerunaway: I have to say, the whole "licencing" difficulty excuse for not putting in real landmarks is a cop-out excuse, unless licensing for landmarks has changed significantly since November 2000. Why November 2000? The game Driver 2 for the original Playstation. It has (to this point) the most accurate representation of Chicago's layout, including all the landmarks along Lake Michigan, Wrigley Field, etc. When they couldn't get MLB's license for the Cubs, they made Wrigley's marquee said "Home of Chicago Clubs". I'd much rather have seen some design liberties like that taken than what they gave us. I was expecting a Driver 2-style Chicago with updated graphics, and instead they gave us this shoddily constructed version. I feel sorry for tourists who have never seen the real city but play Watch Dogs and come to expect something entirely different when they see the real thing.
That's a shame. I didn't play it because some friends got into it before me and told me it was garbage. It being set in Chicago was honestly a huge selling point for me because I'm not aware of any other open-world games set in my city. Hearing this means I'll probably never play it no matter how cheap it is or probably even if it's free on PS+ because what's the point.
In reference to that Jostiq article, and them saying they focused on "realistic" regional dialogue:
"We had written 'Chi-town' in a few lines and we had conflicting reactions. Some people said they would never, ever say Chi-town. Others insisted it's a term used as a half-joke while others said they use it often. We kept the term in but reduced the times you'll hear it.
Nobody says that. Nobody uses it "often." I have no idea where they found these "people", but they don't freaking live here, I can tell you that. You'll get slapped in the face for saying chi-town. They have failed on literally every front with their game, lol. What a half-assed pos.
@hunter5024 While Chicago may be "known" for deep-dish pizza, the reality of living here is that some people like it, some don't, and it's a special decision to get one regardless because it's a lot of food and they are expensive as hell. They're pretty popular at drunken birthdays and suchlike, but they are honestly a different thing than pizza. We have plenty of regular pizza and it's honestly hard to find any that's not good. Whenever I go visit my family who lives in an Indiana suburb about an hour and a half drive away they get pizza, and it's always complete garbage no matter where they get it from. I've never had New York style pizza, but I'd probably like it.
The most annoying food-related thing about Chicago is the whole no ketchup on hotdogs thing. I like ketchup on my hotdog. Why are you trying to preserve the "flavor" of a processed meat tube that's like two bucks? Next you'll be saying I need a good wine pairing for my microwave burritos. Absolutely ridiculous. Hot dogs aren't great no matter how you eat them, so I typically just don't eat them because you will get shit for putting ketchup on it. People don't know how to mind their own bushiness about it, especially if they're an older (50+) person.
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