Most ridiculous real life location mistakes in games

[Mindfreak191]

I can't say it's a ridiculous mistake to model a generic "old bridge" after a real bridge from the same region, when I've seen a Starbucks cup in Game of Thrones.

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I'm not gonna take your sentence as offensive since you're probably just glanced through the OP, but if you look again you will see that I mentioned that the Bridge is literally called "Old bridge" in Mostar(wiki). So even if you were to give the developers the benefit of the doubt that they just modeled it after a "generic bridge" they still gave it the same name, so it is a mistake. I guess people don't mind until it's something from their country....

 

[Rotobit]

Has anyone posted Prague from Metal Gear Solid 4 yet? I'm pretty sure they don't explicitly say it is Prague, but it's very much made up to look like it. Except it has no color at all and is kinda surreal, deliberately.

Not necessarily a "mistake", but Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy is the most non-NYC NYC. It's like when Hollywood features say they film in New York and it's really Vancouver.

I mean, they've got the NYPD dressed like this:

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next you'll be telling me New Yorkers don't call the laundromat a "lavomatic"

 

[shoemasta]

What was going on in The Last of us where you find Ishi's boat in Pittsburg by what appears to be the ocean?

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Its a large river. Which Pittsburgh has plenty of.

 

[nuoh_my_god]

Sorry, is this the best preserved?

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Hmm you're right.
Apparently that's the best preserved in Britain.

Google let me down.
I remember seeing a show on the History Channel that mentioned the best preserved Roman amphitheater not being the Colosseum in Rome, but I can't remember which it was...

Again there's like 230 of these ruins out and about...

Edit:
It might be the one in Nimes France

It's so well preserved they're apparently still having concerts and gladiatorial games (WWE) here!

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The one in Pula, Croatia is pretty well perserved and in regular use for concerts, film festivals and the like.

The Arena

Film festival in the Arena

Kraftwerk in the Arena

Bonus:

They played an official ice hockey game there, mid september, still summer heat, open air. Mad!

 

[Hailinel]

I never got around playing Second Son, I see a lot of mentions of it, should do it lol

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It's just bananas how bizarre Second Son's Seattle is.

Here's a rough map of actual Seattle:

Spoiler: Seattle Map

And here's Second Son's map of Seattle:

I understand that as an open world game, there's a need to cut off where the player can go at the edges of the map, but this just throws me so much that I found it hard to really get into the game at all. Seattle in this game is basically a rearranged downtown (the southern half of the infamous map) and a mishmash on the north end.

But at least it has the pink elephant sign.

 

[Mindfreak191]

It's just bananas how bizarre Second Son's Seattle is.

Here's a rough map of actual Seattle:

Spoiler: Seattle Map

And here's Second Son's map of Seattle:

I understand that as an open world game, there's a need to cut off where the player can go at the edges of the map, but this just throws me so much that I found it hard to really get into the game at all. Seattle in this game is basically a rearranged downtown (the southern half of the infamous map) and a mishmash on the north end.

But at least it has the pink elephant sign.

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[TheAndyMan]

I don't know if bothers me per se, would a 1:1 representation have to be modified for gameplay?
Games can be based on real places, but if it gets in the way of gameplay or aesthetics, then fine.

 

[VenomousCoffee]

X-Com The Bureau (the 3 man squad game from a few years ago) said the main character got an engineering degree from Indiana University and he talks about living in Terre Haute while studying. Except IU is in Bloomington and it doesn't have an engineering school.

Bizarre mistakes because A) just Google it and B) it was a few lines of dialogue so it should have been basically free to fix.

 

[Mindfreak191]

I don't know if bothers me per se, would a 1:1 representation have to be modified for gameplay?
Games can be based on real places, but if it gets in the way of gameplay or aesthetics, then fine.

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Which I'm totally cool with and it wasn't the reason I made the thread in the first place, but seeing that a lot of users are replying with examples where cutting out parts of a city for gameplay purpose seem like mistakes, I've just let it go lol

 

[Ragnorok64]

Its a large river. Which Pittsburgh has plenty of.

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I've been to Pittsburgh. You see hills on the other side of any of the rivers. If I recall correctly, in TLoU you see horizon.

 

[OldGamer]

There were the "mountains" outside of Chicago in Watch Dogs.

Though it's fairly clear that they are only there to add gameplay variety, and were a willful stretch of reality rather than a mistake.

 

[cakefoo]

I'm not gonna take your sentence as offensive since you're probably just glanced through the OP, but if you look again you will see that I mentioned that the Bridge is literally called "Old bridge" in Mostar(wiki). So even if you were to give the developers the benefit of the doubt that they just modeled it after a "generic bridge" they still gave it the same name, so it is a mistake. I guess people don't mind until it's something from their country....

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Oh! Thanks for explaining. To be fair, that translation wasn't in the OP, it was in a later reply on the first page. But I retract my comment.

I could see how it looks ridiculous to someone who knows their geography. And the act of overstepping one's creative liberties would be a mistake if the game's standards of accuracy don't afford the designers to take them to x degree.

I guess I just want to say that I feel a duty to be skeptical of treating everything I see in this thread as a "mistake." I'll give most devs the benefit of the doubt that they at least know they're straying from geographical accuracy and taking creative liberties. Then again, I condemn the thought process some devs seem to have, that "Eh, only the insignificantly small population of natives of that locale will care."

 

[lamalande]

What's your opinion on Brothers in Arms games? It has missions set in Sainte Mere (one has you providing support from the church) and Carentan as well.

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I have never played it. So I just checked gameplays on Youtubes, seems completely off too. I don't understand why the church look is always competely off, it's no t something that should be really hard to reproduce.

For Carentan they did almost perfectly reproduce a house that is near the town.
That being said, the game seems to do a decent job as reproducing Cotentin's foliage.

 

[Vintage]

Talking about Prague, I've been there once and I played Deus Ex: MD. It neither looked nor felt anything similar.