Your Most Memorable In-Game Locations

[James]

All games try and create an atmosphere with their environments, and as with all things, some do it better than others. I got to thinking about a couple of in-game locations that really stuck in my mind and was wondering about virtual locals you guys found memorable.

Here's a couple of my personal Most Memorable, just to get the ball rolling:

Jade Empire, Heaven: I'm not sure if it was due to the music, the layout, the bright colours or all three but I always remember Heaven from BioWare's Jade Empire to be an incredibly serene place. It's one of the few places in video games I'd genuinely like to visit if it existed.

Fallout 3, The Pitt: In stark contrast to Heaven, The Pitt was hell on Earth. I thought the Wasteland was bad, but after one visit to The Pitt I had never been so happy to see it's bright radioactive dusty lands again. Between the slaves, the cruelty, the dank fiery poisonous atmosphere and the terrible Trogs, The Pitt has always stuck with me as an incredibly memorable, if nightmarish, video game location.

How about you fine folks, what video game places have had an impact and stuck in your mind?

 

[Anubis]

The Divide in Fallout New Vegas made the Pitt look look like Disney Land.

 

[Alchemyst]

Ammunation

 

[Union Jack]

sonic generations - city escape..love the classic sonic version and love love the redone tune!!
and planet wisp when you first start looks great!
and anything in uncharted the games are just gorgeous.

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Shadow Moses

Arkham Asylum

These are the first two that come to mind, I'll probably think of more, though.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Liberty City - GTAIII, I learned this place inside and out.

Lordran - Dark Souls, The best realized open world ever, imo. So atmospheric and intricate, it's amazing.

Aperture Science - Portal 2, seeing it throughout history was a nice touch.

 

[TheBat812]

Red Dead Redemption.

 

[Soapy]

Dalaran in World of Warcraft.

It's a city sitting in the clouds above Northrend. (Warcraft's Skyrim more or less) It's one of the few cities in the game shared by both the Horde and the Alliance, and at the time it was only accessible by people who reached max level (80 back then). Seeing as how I was playing on a PvP server by myself, being constantly attacked by enemy players, reaching 80 was a pretty big challenge. But, when I finally got there, the first thing I did was go to Dalaran. Being greeted by this beautiful, triumphant music...
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...I really felt like I had "beat" World of Warcraft. I finished it. Having seen and done everything Azeroth and beyond had to offer, being granted access to this awesome city was my reward. Of course I went on to participate in the Argent Tournament, assaulting the Lich King, and then some Cataclysm stuff before I quit playing, but my adventures really came to an end when I reached Dalaran.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

The Spencer Mansion as seen in the remake of Resident Evil. Easily one of the best locations to date in gaming.


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It wasn't just the aesthetics of the place, but what you found there. Reading the Trevor diaries is still one of the most haunting and disturbing things iv read in a video game.

 

[SuperFerret]

Route 217 in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl. I felt like I was going to die in the snow there. Very bleak.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

Probably the citadel from Halflife 2. It's very much like the original game, you see Xen at the start of the original Halflife and that ends up being the final area of the game. Likewise with Halflife 2 you see inside the citadel area and almost continually through out the game you see it cutting into the skyline.

When your inside it's mosty a scripted tram like sequence, again similar to the first game, which consequent games ripped off (e.g. Batman Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Call Of Duty) it does an excellent job of giving off a cold steely feeling of mass production visually and through it's sound. The dun, dun, dun and squeeky noise although might seem little, adds alot to it. It also does a terrific job of making it feel like you are climbing up something incredibly huge vertically, when in realiity, Halflife 2's maps are actually fairy small. I believe Arkham City copied this towards the end of the game. Actually, it also copied two bits of the final section of the wonderfully wonderful in nature, Halflife 2, which is wonderful.

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[TheOnlyOmega]

The view of Liberty City from the top of any tall building in GTA IV. So beautiful. That whole city is amazing.

 

[jonathancrane]

Arkham Asylum.
The country outside of San Andreas: one of my favorite activities to do in the game was to go for drives in the countryside (which, if I lived in the region(s) that inspired the locales, I would do all the time if I was not entrapped on the northeastern seaboard.)

 

[uniqueweasel]

Paris in Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars looked great

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Riding into Mexico the first time in Red Dead Redemption. The music combined with the scenery just made me stop and stare out and the landscape and say "Damn, that's beautiful." It was almost like really being there and I can't think of too many other games that gave me that feeling of awe.

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Hahaha! That was actually my biggest gaming "D'oh!" moment.
I crossed the border, the music started, and I go "Aw, wow! This is in--" then I ride off an embankment, fall off my horse and die.
I respawned seconds later at a random Mexican location. Talk about ****ing up a classic modern gaming moment...

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Aww, that's too bad. It really was a truly great moment in gaming for me. I'd say it's almost worth playing again just for that moment, but it might lose some of its wonder the second time. Especially if it reminds you of what happened the first time, lol.

 

[socool]

Spoiler

Still scares me. The sound design, the gothic feel and the horribly depressing color palette added up to one of the closest moments to pissing myself out of fear (literally).

Oh, and let's not forget that those ****ing puppets run like cheetahs!!!

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Actually, I can't believe nobody's mentioned Silent Hill.

 

[BrollySupersj]

All of New Ausitn.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

The first thing that popped into my head was Metroid Prime, specifically this one location where it showed the Metroid Universe's star system. For some reason that really just wowed me and was the point where I got completely hooked on the game to the point that I ignored a couple calls to go out to keep playing the game.

Bioshock's Rapture is another one, took a while until I started playing the game, but once I did I was hooked.

 

[Speedball]

Zanarkand

The Citadel Presidium

Hyrule Castle in Windwaker

 

[ChrisBaleBatman]

Shadow Moses sticks out to me.

I'll also mention the Washington, D.C. and The White House levels in Splinter Cell ConViction as ones that stood out to me as well. Those were locations that were done in a way that was downright creepy to think about happening. White House aides screaming in fear as they were being hunted down by renegade PMC's and being shot like animals were what added to that atmosphere.

I mean...the violence I unleashed as Sam Fisher in the Oval Office alone, yeah...

 

[Jick]

Pandora's final chamber in the first God of War.
Such a epic piece of art followed by divine music with a chaotic landscape.

 

[Matt Mortem]

Raccoon City, The Mushroom Kingdom and The entirety of Red Dead Redemption.