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Roads in Video Games

Started by KEK Inc., September 06, 2010, 01:15:20 AM

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KEK Inc.



Left 4 Dead 2 starts up in Savannah, GA.  The font actually looks better than Georgia's obsession to use Series D, but the numerals on I-16 looks awful...  Also, I think Macon is the control city, since I-16 doesn't actually go to Atlanta.
Take the road less traveled.


deathtopumpkins

Plus "West" should be capitalized in a smaller font, and that arrow is certainly not standard. Pretty good job though, I must say.
Disclaimer: All posts represent my personal opinions and not those of my employer.

Clinched Highways | Counties Visited

KEK Inc.



Here's a screenshot between the apartment complex and the gun shop.  I looked on street view of the actual intersection, and it looks nothing like this, but I'm impressed the Valve did their research and used the correct street name for the end of I-16 (Montgomery St.). 

Valve (the game developer) is located in Bellevue, WA, and frankly, some of the road hardware in New Orleans looks like something from Washington state (particularly the street lights); however, the signage in New Orleans (with I-10 Veterans Memorial Highway) looks exactly like the one posted above. 
Take the road less traveled.

kurumi

The arcade game APB (Atari, 1987) featured BGS's with route numbers:

My first SF/horror short story collection is available: "Young Man, Open Your Winter Eye"

Ian

The game Midnight Club: Los Angeles has really detailed gameplay and you can even drive on some of LA's freeways.
UMaine graduate, former PennDOT employee, new SoCal resident.
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CL

Let's not forget True Crime: Streets of LA. They recreated something like 400-sq-mi of LA roads (including freeways, interchanges, etc) and one would see up-to-spec looking signage. I can't find any pictures on the internet but you'll have to take my word for it.
Infrastructure. The city.

thenetwork

Quote from: kurumi on September 06, 2010, 04:46:22 PM
The arcade game APB (Atari, 1987) featured BGS's with route numbers:

23 Years, and I never knew that that was Atari's way of naming route numbers!!! You learn something new everyday!

Harley Davidson, the video coin-op game, did a somewhat decent job of creating the highways and byways of West LA.  I used to brag to my wife that I could name most of the unmarked streets I was riding on while I was playing the game.

KEK Inc.

#7
Here's a videogame with some fictional roads.  The game takes place in the future on a planet called Pandora (this game was released two months before Avatar came out in theaters), and there are multiple megacorporations that run the planet, but the 3 notable ones are Dahl (an Iridium mining firm), Atlas (a weapons manufacturer interested in alien weaponry), and Hyperion (the company you work for). 

Anyways, this part of the planet is controlled by Atlas, and they have their own road system!  :sombrero:  The planet has 50 Earth year seasons.  When they first built the settlement in the planet's winter, the lake was full of water, but now it's dried up.









Take the road less traveled.

WillWeaverRVA

#8
I hate to necropost, but Call of Duty: Black Ops has BGSes for VA 110 near the Pentagon. Unfortunately, they're not accurate, feature Helvetica fonts, and the level in which they appear takes place in 1963 - US 1 ALT didn't become VA 110 until 1964 (per the VA Hwys Project). It also doesn't go as close to the Pentagon (it doesn't go right into the Pentagon, as the signs seem to indicate).
Will Weaver
WillWeaverRVA Photography | Twitter

"But how will the oxen know where to drown if we renumber the Oregon Trail?" - NE2

Quillz

The racing game Rush 2 for the N64 had a fairly accurate recreation of the I-405 between Wilshire Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. You could also drive on a small section of I-110.

Ian

Quote from: SyntheticDreamer on November 09, 2010, 08:04:44 PM
I hate to necropost, but Call of Duty: Black Ops has BGSes for VA 110 near the Pentagon. Unfortunately, they're not accurate, feature Helvetica fonts, and the level in which they appear takes place in 1963 - US 1 ALT didn't become VA 110 until 1964 (per the VA Hwys Project). It also doesn't go as close to the Pentagon (it doesn't go right into the Pentagon, as the signs seem to indicate).

Wow really, what part in the game? Must not have gotten there yet.
UMaine graduate, former PennDOT employee, new SoCal resident.
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WillWeaverRVA

#11
Quote from: PennDOTFan on November 09, 2010, 08:59:53 PM
Quote from: SyntheticDreamer on November 09, 2010, 08:04:44 PM
I hate to necropost, but Call of Duty: Black Ops has BGSes for VA 110 near the Pentagon. Unfortunately, they're not accurate, feature Helvetica fonts, and the level in which they appear takes place in 1963 - US 1 ALT didn't become VA 110 until 1964 (per the VA Hwys Project). It also doesn't go as close to the Pentagon (it doesn't go right into the Pentagon, as the signs seem to indicate).

Wow really, what part in the game? Must not have gotten there yet.

Pretty early on, actually. It's in the beginning of the third mission (U.S.D.D.), which is pretty much all cinematics. The signage appears fairly early on.

Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, did the same thing in that game with its random I-395 and US 50 signage (even though I-395 and US 50 do not have an interchange) in a fictitious area of northern Virginia. Again, it's in Helvetica. Also worthy of note, the radio chatter in the level Wolverines! makes reference to actual locations (someone requests that bombers destroy the I-495/US 50 interchange to thin out enemy resistance there).
Will Weaver
WillWeaverRVA Photography | Twitter

"But how will the oxen know where to drown if we renumber the Oregon Trail?" - NE2

KEK Inc.

I played the bridge level in MW2, and they screwed up everything about a bridge in Jacksonville.  I researched the bridge, and it isn't even a double decker...
Take the road less traveled.

PAHighways

Burnout Dominator has several tracks, only one of which I know is based on a real setting:  Steeltown Works.

Pittsburgh landmarks are in it such as the USS Tower, PPG Place, Heinz Field (called Monroe Park with the PNC Park scoreboard), Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, Roberto Clemente Bridge, and Fort Duquesne Bridge (called Fort Powell Bridge).  There are guide signs for "I-279 NORTH/Fort Powell Bridge" on a few segments of expressway, and several European-like guide signs with a PA 8 shield in a few places.


WillWeaverRVA

Here's the cutscene in question, the signs appear at about 1:30. I apparently missed an erroneous VA 395 shield on one of the BGSes (of course, this was not yet I-395 - again, the scene takes place in 1963).

Will Weaver
WillWeaverRVA Photography | Twitter

"But how will the oxen know where to drown if we renumber the Oregon Trail?" - NE2

burgess87

Anyone else got Need For Speed:  Hot Pursuit? 

Looks like the BGSes use Clearview.

Ian

Quote from: burgess87 on January 03, 2011, 05:26:21 PM
Anyone else got Need For Speed:  Hot Pursuit? 

Looks like the BGSes use Clearview.

They also have replicas of the ARRA signs for a few of the construction sites in the game.
UMaine graduate, former PennDOT employee, new SoCal resident.
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Michael

Quote from: burgess87 on January 03, 2011, 05:26:21 PM
Anyone else got Need For Speed:  Hot Pursuit? 

Looks like the BGSes use Clearview.

I have NFS III:Hot Pursuit (the 1998 game), and they use generic fonts, and sometimes the wrong colors.  Here's a video:


NFSHP2 (2002) did somewhat better.  The speed limit signs on the overhead gantries look like they're MUTCD compliant.  Here's a video:

Look at about 2:44.  I also just noticed that the "Divided Highway" signs are white on black.

Here's "Hard Truck:18 Wheels of Steel Across America":

Henry

How about the original Rad Racer? In Stage 5 (Los Angeles Night Way), you see trailblazers with the number 10 on them, which would be a reference to I-10.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

triplemultiplex

I completed the campaign in the game Homefront recently and there's some road stuff in there.
A few US 50 shields in Montrose, CO, where the campaign starts.
At one point, the player is escorting tankers down a fictionalized segment of I-80 in Nevada with a helicopter.  The segment seems to be modeled after I-90 in Seattle where it crosses Lake Washington and immediately plunges into a tunnel.
Most interestingly, the final level involves fighting your way into San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge.  This includes ascending the Marin County tower to the road deck and marching south through waves of enemies.  It was pretty cool, but I don't think the road deck of the bridge would've survived the air strikes about 2/3rds of the way across.
"That's just like... your opinion, man."

Interstate Trav

I would like to see a game where you can drive from city to city via the Interstate System, similiar to Flight Simulator, but one for the roads.

triplemultiplex

Here's a handful of screen caps from Homefront.  They did great with the fonts and colors and, hey look, state-name interstate shields!  I don't know about some of these control cities, however.


This one with Montrose is all over one multiplayer map.


I-70 goes to Colorado Springs?


Used a 3di cut out for US 6 here.


The upside-down blurry sign is a warning for an avalanche area.  Not to many of those on I-25, though.


Same graffiti on this US 101 shield as that US 6 shield above.


Three guesses as to what's wrong on this sign.
"That's just like... your opinion, man."

nexus73

#22
Quote from: Interstate Trav on March 23, 2011, 11:07:10 PM
I would like to see a game where you can drive from city to city via the Interstate System, similiar to Flight Simulator, but one for the roads.

Don't forget to add US 101 and California's state route 1 since those are such scenic highways!  I love Freeway Brent's speeded up videos and would love to have an accurate highway driving simulator in which a person can drive with real life congestion at a real time speed or else change the parameters to "Empty Road" so they can let 'er rip!  Then to go with the highways, one could have a variety of vehicles.  Want to play out the movie "Speed"?  "Smokey and the Bandit"?  Buses, trucks, cop cars, clunkers to massage along to the next town, big limos, Smart Fortwo's, a classic 'Vette from "Route 66"...so far the driving-oriented videogames of today disappoint me with their graphics and inaccuracies.  It's still better to go drive a real car these days but between gas heading for $5 a gallon and the improvement in video games, I hope that someday I can "drive" roads I have never been on and have it be just as good as being there in real life would be without all the expense of actually being on the road!

Rick
US 101 is THE backbone of the Pacific coast from Bandon OR to Willits CA.  Industry, tourism and local traffic would be gone or severely crippled without it being in functioning condition in BOTH states.

Quillz

Those HomeFront screens look pretty good.

myosh_tino

Quote from: triplemultiplex on April 09, 2011, 10:44:27 AM

Three guesses as to what's wrong on this sign.
Hmmm....
1. "Oakland Bay Bridge" should be "San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge" or just "Bay Bridge"
2. I-80 is East/West, not North/South
3. California doesn't use separate exit tabs on overhead signs (for the most part)

There is technically a 4th error which is the use of all-caps instead of mixed case but looking at the other screenshots you posted, it looks like all their signs are all-caps.
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