Episode 75: The Best New York Game

The Best Games Ever Podcast

Gimme ham steak on rye with extra pickles and a dozen egg whites on the side. Hold the pickles. Who's uncle do I gotta bribe to get a parking space around here? Get outta here.

And so on. Yes, this week we're asking our esteemed panel: what the best game set in New York (or a facsimile thereof)? There are an absurd number of games to choose from. The Big Apple is probably the most depicted city in the medium, and it's not hard to understand why: beyond the fact that it's an enormously influential media hub (the "capital of the world", or so the saying goes), where a disproportionate percentage of the world's most successful creatives hail from, it's also just has an intoxicating allure. Everyone wants to explore its streets, its hip neighbourhoods, its melting pot of cultures and cuisine. And what better way to explore it than from the comfort of your own home, in video game form, where you don't even have to go through security at Heathrow first. Anything is worth avoiding that, frankly.

New York, or close approximations of it, serves as backdrop to a huge number of the greatest games of all time. Its stunning photorealistic recreation in Sony's Spider-Man games is one of the most intricate game locations ever constructed, as is the painting-like autumnal metropolis of GTA IV's Liberty City, a deft imitation that absolutely nails the vibe of the real world city and many of its signature landmarks, despite being completely unlike it in terms of its layout and geography. New York crops up in places you'd hardly expect, too. Mario Odyssey, anyone? Despite literally featuring a character who is canonically from Brooklyn, the last 3D Mario adventure has an entire sequence set in New Donk City, meaning that the Mario universe has at least two New Yorks. It's so good, they built it twice.

But which New York-based game is the best of all? Well, to find out, you'll have to watch or listen to this podcast here. Handily, below are several methods for doing so. So keep your frickin' hair on, aight?

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