Real life gaming deja vu

[Hollyday]

Last weekend was a national holiday here in Italy, so my flatmate and I hopped on a train and went North to see Bologna, Venice and Florence. Since I finished playing Assassin's Creed 2 a couple of weeks ago I thought it would be interesting to see if I recognised many places. I wasn't prepared for how weird it would feel. It was the oddest sense of deja vu I've ever experienced, walking around these cities which look almost identical to the game world. I spent the best part of an hour running around the Duomo in Florence taking pictures and following the ways Ezio used to climb up it. Walking over one of the bridges in Venice I froze as I remembered a particular mission on that exact bridge.

My poor flatmate was subjected to 'I killed someone over there' and 'climbing that tower was really difficult because...' all weekend, bless her!

Spoiler: where was this feeling strongest? well, it had to be:

The duomo tower in Florence, since this was my first big sense of achievement during the game. To see it in real-life was hilarious

I'm wondering, has anyone else ever experienced this? Obviously Assassin's Creed 2 is the usual example of this, but are there any other game world so lifelike that going to the real-world place gives you this sense of being there before?

 

[SckizoBoy]

snip

Miracle of Sound is with you on that (apparently, he was able to navigate Venice thanks to ACII).

I've only been to Venice fleetingly as well, and it was eerie, to say the least, though one thing, everything felt a fair bit larger IRL... unlike MoS, though, I had another fictional piece of media that gave me a bit of an advantage as I ended up knowing all the vaporetto stops as well... -_-

BTW... you didn't go trying to find Assassin's Seals, did you?! =P

I've had that a couple times with Hellgate: London mostly in the West End (being a Londoner and all), though to be fair, it was a shit game.

 

[Hollyday]

BTW... you didn't go trying to find Assassin's Seals, did you?! =P

Nope but I was so tempted to go looking for glyphs - I saw a few places where they were and was extremely disappointed that my attempt at eagle-vision failed (note to self: going cross-eyed does not constitute eagle-vision)

 

[Simple Bluff]

In COD 4: Modern Warfare, there was mission where you played as Captain Price fifteen or so years in the past based in Chernoble. If you ever played COD 4 (and you probobly did, based on its success), you'll definitly know what I'm talking about - it was one of the most memorable parts of the game.
Anyways, the very last objective is to defend your position while you wait for a chopper to pick you (and your injured squadmate) up. It takes place in a devastated fairground, sporting a very distinctive ferris wheel.

As it turns out, that ferris wheel (and many other landmarks of that level) actually exist. About a year ago, I was watching a documentary about Chernoble, and I recognized almost all of what was recorded from COD 4. At first I didn't remember where I saw it all from, but when they arrived at the fairground with the ferris wheel, the penny dropped.

 

[Mel Theofficegamergirl]

Living in a fairly large metro, I fancy myself a bit of an urban explorer. I like walking around in/near big buildings, just taking it all in. There's usually lots of plazas and fountains, gardens, all kinds of stuff to look at in awe. It's beautiful, but oh so artificial. It's like walking around in a virtual reality, surreal. Every time I'm out and about doing this type of exploring it reminds me of various fantasy/scifi games I've seen/played.

 

[King of Asgaard]

The other day I was walking down the street, when suddenly, a Taurus Demon leaped down from a nearby building and started charging me.
I thought, "Wow, this is like that time in Dark Souls!"
I then proceeded to climb up and jump off the nearest building, and strike the demon in the head with a big club.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Nope but I was so tempted to go looking for glyphs - I saw a few places where they were and was extremely disappointed that my attempt at eagle-vision failed (note to self: going cross-eyed does not constitute eagle-vision)

LOL... for about half an hour, a niggling feeling made me look for gardens with little chests by the walls... -_- If only real life economy was so convenient!

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Oh yeah, along with that semi-circular building that you skirt around. A lot of detail went into that level, and the good thing being that there was sufficient time to actually look at it all while playing.