A number of us at silverorange went through difficult addictions to one or more of the Tony Hawk skateboarding games over the past few years, characterized by ridiculous muscle memory for key combinations and detailed knowledge of each and every level. Many of the maps are based on real-world locations and we all now have a perverse knowledge of certain cities based solely on our experiences within the polygons of the game. On a recent trip to San Francisco I think each of us looked longingly out into the Bay towards Alcatraz and imagined nose-grinding the wire between the water tower and the cell block, then manualing across the roof, to misty flip into the...
Anyway, Steven and I were discussing this phenomenon earlier today, after Matt Haughey commented on his experience, when I recalled the exact same thing occuring over a decade ago (damn I'm getting old). When I was about 12, my family lived in England and we took a trip across Europe for a few months. As we were driving through Monaco, my Dad was busy trying to tell us about the historical significance of something when my twin brother and I excitedly pointed out that we were driving the Monaco race from Accolade's awesome "Grand Prix Circuit". We could predict tunnels, curves, and landmarks around the corner. Everything was freakishly the same, but a lot less pixelated.
Comments
Peter - March 26, 2004 2:22 PM
<img src="http://home.pmt.org/~drose/images/ss-dos/wordperfect41.gif" width=323 height=152 alt="WordPerfect Screen Shot" align=right hspace=20 vspace=14>
My experience with this is less exotic: when I was in university, I used WordPerfect to type my essays.
Sometimes WordPerfect would get confused about hyphenation, and it would beep and ask you to select the proper location for a hyphen.
After one particularly arduous essay all-nighter, I was sitting in the washroom down the hall, and my knee hit the toilet paper holder, and it made a squeaky beepy kind of sound that prompted me to think, for a moment, that my toilet paper needed hyphenation.
Matt McQuaid - March 26, 2004 2:54 PM
I'm a recovering Simpson's Road Rage addict. I am able to draw overhead maps of all the levels in the game, shortcuts included, and I often dream of walking around in the different levels with one or more of the characters.
The best part is that I can now play the game without having to be in front of a TV.
Stephen - March 26, 2004 3:35 PM
This is something I wish they would have left in the NHL games by EASports. At one time each rink was a replica to the real thing. Now they have just one generic rink for all teams to avoid any copyright problems.
I have also seen pictures of some baseball games where each stadium is also built to scale.
Vitaliy - March 26, 2004 8:03 PM
HAHA! Oh man, I remember playing that game on Win 3.1! :D
Daniel Von Fange - March 26, 2004 10:53 PM
That's exactly what happened when we went to Monaco. My little brother and I happily went off with no map, followed the track, and did not get lost. It was definitely a funny feeling.
Steven Garrity - March 27, 2004 12:31 AM
I had similar experiences with sheep sounds and flight similator.
Charlie - March 27, 2004 1:56 PM
For me it's been watching the The Players Championship at Sawgrass this week. For whatever reason, the Sawgrass course has been features in most golf games for the last decade and I have played it an awful lot in Tiger Woods 2003 and 2004 on the xbox. Found myself watching the tournament yesterday and making comments to myself like, "Uh oh, that's heading right..and there is a ridge there that funnels away from the hole"
Rob - March 27, 2004 10:51 PM
I like my video gaming in fictional settings. Mushroom kingdoms, post-apocalyptic Mars bases, glorified dollhouses are places I'll never find myself in meatspace.
It keeps my worlds from collapsing.
Michael Spina - March 29, 2004 9:19 AM
Same goes for GT3. Although I've never been to Seattle or Rome, I'd bet I could easily find my way around certain parts.
Fabian - March 29, 2004 4:44 PM
Can someone tell me, whether Battery Park in N.Y.C. looks like Battery Park in Deus Ex? I always wanted to go there.
I often feel reminded to this game as well when walking through industrial quarters at night, with the sky and those steadily moving clouds in front of a bright moon. Weird.
Fabian - March 29, 2004 4:55 PM
Oh, I forgot. I've been to Laguna Seca, place of the Superbike Grand Prix, when I visited California. By accident one day after the GP. (We came in for free :) And I knew every curve; and that nasty hill that made me sick when I played this game months before...