Ever visited a place you first got to explore in a game?

One that got me real nostalgic was visiting Miami after playing so many times Vice City, specially going to Little Havana

No I haven't. But then again, I don't have the money to travel to places I'd like to see.

Other way round is cool as well. I feel that having visited Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh enabled me to enjoy Fallout 3 and its DLC The Pitt fully.

I went to the Hoover Dam about 15 years ago, then I played GTA San Andreas (same thing with the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street in San Francisco).
There is a lot of famous places pretty well recreated in GTA games.

i was gonna say "no" but it's actually a "yes".
but mine is really "easy": London. also kinda "fresh" cause yesterday night i've won and little tried Late Shift (ok ok, just "videos" you might say... and really not into FMV but gimme smth "brit" or "londoner" and i'm gonna play it and re-play it).

London is the only mega city i'd live. but really love anything brit related, accents included: i hugely appreciate when voice in a game has that clearly distinctive accent (ie: Late Shift is 50% that)

very interesting thread

Hmmm I remember only one place off the top of my head. I used to visit Egypt on vacation several times when I was younger and things were different. And of course I visited the archaeological excavations like the Karnak Temple or the Valley of Kings and Kairo. But unfortunately the real sites don't invite to excessive climbing, there are (probably) no more secrets to discover, they are generally a lot smaller and don't form levels. It was still very exciting, but nothing like Tomb Raider. Only a few iconic landmarks, statues and sights found their way into the game and because of the bad graphics I would say in hindsight there was no resemblance at all...

Venice, a couple of years after playing AC2... I wanted to climb around so much xD
the other way round, Prague (high school trip) in CoDMW3, but it didn't strike me the same way as Venice.. who knows, maybe when I'll get to play Mankind Divided, that could be a blast from the past (from the future) :P

I guess recognising locations in Cloverfield from playing way too much Prototype doesn't count :D
Otherwise City 17 trainstation is loosely based on the Western railway station of Budapest, so maybe that one counts for realsies

what a great thread!! =)
yeah, I usually don't play that much games based on real locations, I'm more on the RPG/fantasy side but it happened to me many times! I visited the whole of Egypt just to say one like other users wrote about! =)
and well, I'm Italian so I'm seeing lots of Italy-related replies here.. =P

a nice page, 24 Gaming Worlds Based On Real-Life Places! take a look =P

I really want to visit de_dust2 irl

I haven't been, but Casino Royale has some scenes in Venice. Having played Assassin's Creed 2 extensively, I "recognized" a lot of the locations.

Visited Washington DC after playing fallout 3. At least in the game I could get to the top of Washington monument lol

American Trucking Simulator. I drive on alot of the roads myself and while "condensed", major landmarks appear where they should.

i went down into large underground drain pipes after playing super mario bros

didn't find any turtles or coins

did find some graffiti and empty beer bottles

I went to Rome after playing Assassin's Creed 2. Ubisoft got some of the landmarks really well. I remember seeing the Castel Sant'Angelo and thinking about how similar it was to the digital version in the game.

Not sure if it counts, but I went to bathroom shortly after trying out Anthem.

Nope.

I only played HP games, and then was on the King's Cross station on the 9 3/4 platform.

It's ugly. In movie it looks like this platform is big and spacious. In reality it's small and super short.

Adding myself to the AC list: Firenze

Not quite the same thing, but definitely gave me a weird and unique feeling...

Visited a local art museum a while back and saw this painting. The feeling of "Hey wait a second, I've been there!" was very cool, and weird. With the painting being hundreds of years old, it almost felt like I was a time traveler. I could describe to my girlfriend the rest of the building off to the right, and that everything in front of the painting that wasn't shown was ships and a dock and lots of water. And that pillar -- I'd climbed that pillar! (And also climbed the buildings... and also assassinated people in those streets and ran away...)

Definitely one of my most memorable "video game" moments, and I wasn't even playing one.
Hoping to visit the area in real life sometime and see how that feels (I'll probably skip climbing the pillar and assassinating people though).

In case you haven't guessed, the game I was playing was Assassin's Creed 2.

Also, when I finally visited New York a few years ago, I made a point of wandering around the area where Castle Clinton and the East Coast Memorial were, since Deus Ex is one of my favorite games of all time. Unfortunately, the Castle was closed for the day, so we just peeked inside from underneath the door and through a large keyhole. Needless to say, both the Castle and the Memorial had a much bigger polycount in real life than in 2000's Deus Ex.

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venice (ac) and some train routes (train simulator <3)

Doom. I have been to hell and back a few times....

Joking, we are all fine here. :D

Playing Fallout 3 and visiting Washington D.C. must be quite surreal. Alas, I have not been to Washington D.C.

Nothing that I can think of off-hand. But when I went to Scotland last summer, I was only about an 8 hour drive and ferry ride from Skara Brae, of Bard's Tale fame.

Not yet that I can think of, but I'm planning to visit Prague and I want to see how it compares to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Edit: Thexder's comment reminded me of Fallout 3, and visiting Washington DC.

Add another to the Assassin's Creed list for Florence and Rome. It was a little surreal to be familiar with the locations prior to being there. They were modeled extremely well.