Grand Theft Auto

I'm not much of a video game player so my ignorance of these things will be pretty obvious to the average gamer. Many video games have cool maps. What's interesting about the geography of Grand Theft Auto is that it is only sort of fictional - the names are different but the places are obviously recognizable. Here is a user created map of San Andreas created by Brazilian user DaniLekBom.

Names like "San Joan" and "Oakplace" are pretty thinly disguised. I like how he squeezed "San Donado" down at the bottom. You can just about see where the ESRI user conference takes place.

There's also a city in the desert. It's called Las Venturas. It has a strip! What was that inspired by? A couple of mysterious places inland like Endsville, Grapeseed and Coconut Springs have less obvious corollaries.

Vice City is another common locale in the game. Sometimes referred to as Vice-Dade County as if it wasn't obvious enough where it is.

Liberty City is also a very familiar looking place. Here's a nice map of it. Lots of green spaces - including a largely empty "Staunton Island."

A close-up detail...

Here is the entire United States GTA'ed.

I like how the Dakotas are renamed North and South Yankton and New Jersey becomes New Guernsey.

You can find these, and many more maps, including Europe, Asia and Africa on the GTA Mapmaking Forum.

NOTE: This is not an endorsement of a violent, sexist video game that may encourage crime and DUI (I don't know, I've never played.)  I'm only here for the maps.

The War of 1812 Board Game

A good way to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 is by playing the board game.
This is the map board

From the Columbia Games Web Page:

War of 1812 is an elegant strategy wargame depicting the Anglo-American struggle to control the Great Lakes and Canada.
War of 1812 sets up in five minutes and plays in 1-2 hours. This classic game has been enjoyed by thousands of gamers for over 30 years.
Unit types in this edition include artillery, cavalry, infantry, and navies. The map board is unchanged from previous editions.

This page also has a good summary of the war, mostly a listing of failed campaigns by both sides and the partial destruction of cities such as Buffalo, Toronto and Washington. The game strategy much like the war's is to concentrate your forces on one or two of the four Great Lakes fronts (Detroit, Niagara, Kingston and Lake Champlain) and attack early (in 1812-13) before the Napoleonic wars abroad wind down and the British forces receive major reinforcements. If you play the British side, try to hold out in a defensive posture until those extra forces arrive.

Here are some close up images from the board. The first one highlights Sacket's Harbor, New York where American naval forces were concentrated and where two attacks by the British were successfully repulsed.

Here is the western frontier where the war began with American forces crossing the Detroit River and invading Canada. British forces responded by driving them back and then surrounding Detroit.

These are the labels you stick on the wooden blocks to indicate who is where.

In the long run nothing really changed. Both Americans and Canadians decided that they were victorious. In the game version whoever can control the lakes and/or Quebec can rewrite history.

Huge Risk

This article is over three years old but I just discovered it. Four self described nerds from Eau Claire, Wisconsin created this gigantic risk board from a beer pong table.

 

Some of the countries have been altered, which is OK by me because I never did understand that weird line across the United States. Here is the original board image courtesy of the Elliott Avedon Virtual Museum of Games.

I've never won a Risk game but one time I was way ahead and coming in for the kill. I was staging a massive invasion of Yakutsk or one of those places when a huge thunderstorm came through and knocked out the power-and the game. That's probably why I'm a bitter person now.