Sometimes video games build actual locations or parts of them into their worlds, and I find it fun looking at differences and similarities. The guy who does a lot of indie game marketing talks once had this post on imgur on all the games that designed castles after Neuschwanstein that was really interesting, but I can’t find it anymore.
Gonna start with a simple one: The Nazca lines from Peru seem to have been popular in Japan for a while, specifically the big bird one which shows up in a couple of games.
Since in the real world you can only properly see the pictures from the sky, it makes sense that the first game where it appears it’s a flyover, in Xevious. (This one’s from the Sharp X1 port cause I couldn’t find a good screenshot from more high-end versions.)
The original Dragon Slayer did have some messages and stuff hidden in its level layout, but there’s also an alternate version known as the LOGiN version (no idea if anyone knows how that came to be and how it’s related to the computer magazine, couldn’t find anything on the google) which has a lot of pictures, including a whole map dedicated to the bird. Map from The Cutting Room Floor: Dragon Slayer (PC-88) - The Cutting Room Floor
The one in Illusion of Gaia is also neat. You visit a whole bunch of real world locations in this game, and it makes you run across the desert where the bird is drawn and while you only ever see small parts of it at once you can kinda piece together the image in your head:
The entirety of G.O.D. ~ Mezame yoto Yobu Koe ga Kikoe takes place in a shrunken-down chibified Earth, which has the story hitting nearly all major continents and worldly points of interests. The entirety of England can nearly fit on a single screen (images hidden because the only save I have of this game is right before the final boss with a spoiler-y world state):
Also, just so this isn’t just Nazca lines, Billion Road offers a chibi-fied version of Japan that includes cities that are often overlooked in other exported media. Here, I’ll compare Iwate, a smaller town in Iwate Prefecture.
(I often wonder if this is as a result of the pretty large population of ethnic Japanese people who live in Peru, or if it has to do with the aftermath of Japan’s late 70’s/early 80’s obsession with UFOs/ancient astronaut new age stuff)
I always suspected a photo shoot in the 80s or 90s generated international interest in the Nazca lines.
If anyone wants non-Nazca line video game geography, might I propose Fuuraiki with its various photos of late 20th century Hokkaido? Or the wave of games that depicted the recently-historical Kowloon Walled City - Kowloon’s Gate, Shenmue II, I want to say Marc Ecko’s Getting Up.
It would be fun to go to a games exhibition somewhere where you can see the real world place. Like you’re near the Golden Gate Bridge and there are a bunch of games in the room using emulator save states so they’re all on their Golden Gate Bridge stage.
Maybe we can get some Statues of Liberties together, too?
The first chapter of Duke Nukem Zero Hour ostensibly takes place in New York. Don’t think there’s any recognizable topography in the city, but you get to Liberty Island and can take a peek at the statue before you go inside the fundament. Later you also see it all blown up in the future, but I couldn’t be bothered to play that far just now.
Here’s another one in Best of Best by SunA, ripped straight from the Home Alone 2 poster:
Forza Horizon 4’s visually accurate (but squashed-down and pedestrian-free) version of Edinburgh freaks me out.
Conversely, real-life racing circuits that you’ve been to are also weird things to experience in games - most of the time a game will represent the track itself accurately but the surroundings and spectator areas will be mostly fictional.
I was playing Rampage World Tour just now and there’s a level for both Daytona, FL and Orlando, FL. When I first played this game on a cabinet in my local movie theatre, age 7, I was living in juxtaposition between Orlando and Daytona. To me, it was like, oh I know those places. It seemed like that was the whole world. Looking back, it’s odd, if not entirely uncommon for both places to be represented at the same time. I guess that’s the midway way?
In the beginning of Sayonara Wild Hearts we see the protagonist leaving Värnhems Falafel, which it turns out is a place in Värnhem, Malmö. Which means that the protagonist is a Swede, and probably the rest of the cast too. Simogo, the Swedish studio that made the game, are located in Malmö and as I understand it they added this place because they often went there for lunch during development. Pretty cute.
Being from Skåne, the region were Malmö is located, this is basically my home turfs. @Kiki and I went to Värnhems Falafel a few years ago, right before the pandemic really took of I think. Top notch Falafel, can recommend.
.png){kind=link}