41–50 of 181 posts
Kinda funny game, though if you want a bit more fidelity, but less control, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a pretty good version of SF. Though as for games that use SF (but not 1:1) Watch Dogs 2 is a pretty good proxy, though my favorite video game interpretation of San Francisco is from GTA San Andreas (San Fierro)
my first experience with San Francisco in a video game was through the City Escape stage in Sonic Adventure 2. and I didn't even know then that it was San Francisco (I had never been there when I played the game). only realized this when I visited the city many years later.
Haha, I know that stage by heart, and I've never been to San Francisco. I had no idea that's what it was modeled after!
We got GTA SF before GTA VI.
Kinda funny game, though if you want a bit more fidelity, but less control, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a pretty good version of SF. Though as for games that use SF (but not 1:1) Watch Dogs 2 is a pretty good proxy, though my favorite video game interpretation of San Francisco is from GTA San Andreas (San Fierro)
Very impressed with the Watch Dogs series of games for this purpose. We recently used Watch Dogs Legion to prep for a trip to London to get more familiar with the city. Set the game on peaceful mode and just walked around and did virtual sight-seeing instead of playing missions. It's a surprisingly good recreation of the city, and we really appreciated getting some familiarity with the place before we visited.
It wasn't perfect, but it did help a little. The streets are way narrower, and the traffic is much worse, but muscle memory to stay on the left side of the road was nice.
Seemingly lower-hanging fruit options I'd like to see:
- show street names, maybe some landmarks or businesses, togglable
- enter address to teleport to
- enter address to get directions to, GPS style, to travel there manually
- get coordinates / current location as a URL to share
- zoom in on minimap, or expand minimap, so that teleporting can be more precise
- changeable avatar
- more dynamic weather / lighting options
We got GTA SF before GTA VI.
When I was in SF the first time some spots seemed weirdly familiar to me. Only later that day I remembered that I probably know them from GTA San Andreas (but maybe also the Full House intro)