From everything we’ve seen from Rockstar’s GTA 6 so far, it feels like a vacation in Florida. And, because it's a GTA game, it's the most fully realized version of the Sunshine State we’ve ever seen, and will likely ever see, in a video game. Well, at least until we return to Vice City when GTA 10 comes o🍸ut🌊 in 2076.
Seeing Florida represented in a game with this level of visual fidelity🔯 is so exciting to me because the 27th state and gaming are inextricably linked in my memory.
Though we must acknowledge that the state where🅠 GTA 6 takes place is not, technically, Florida, it's Leonida, just like🍌 its metropolis is Vice City, not Miami. Apples and extremely realistic virtual apples.
Florida Is Where I Fell In Love With Video Games
My family went to F💙lorida most years when I was growing up because my grandparents were "snowbirds," eager to leave Michigan as soon as the leaves started to change. So, in the co🃏lder months, we'd fly into Tampa International Airport, they would pick us up, and we'd stay with them in their trailer park for an entire week. They lived 30 minutes outside of Tampa, in a census-designated area called Riverview.
And it’s inside their trailer where I first fell in love with video games. Sure, I liked them before. I had played Pokemon on my 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game Boy Pocket and various 2D platformers on my sister's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sega Genesis. But the Christmas of 2000, I got an N64 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and gaming became a lifelong passion.
I also have a strong memory of tracking down Neville's chocolate frog in the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets GBA game while staying there, but that would have been a few years lat𒉰ꦬer.
GTA 6 Is Playing The Song Of Time
Despite 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:getting stuck in Jabu-Jabu🦩's Belly for 12 years (or maybe because of it?), Ocarina of Time was my favorite video game for a long, long time. While it’s set in the vast biomes of Hyrule, Link’s first 3D adventure will always belong in Florida to me. In s꧅taying in the air conditioning to work my way through Dodongo’s Cavern while it was 80 degrees out; in eating my grandma’s potato soup while I explored the Great Deku Tree — to the extent that I picture a Skulltula whenever I have a bowl of the stuff all these years later.
Ocarina of Time makes me think of taking a break to enjoy a dip in the community pool at the center of the park, where we could go swim when it was hot, passing by the murky pond where my grandpa said he’d seen an alligator a few days prior, then rinse off under showers where the pressure was so high the water felt like needles. Then going back and sneaking in an extra hour of virtual adventures before heading off for dinner and an evening round of mini golf. Florida is tied to my love of gaming, so Grand Thefꦐt Auto 6 recreating the state in such loving, sweltering detail is an intoxicating pitch.
I don’t have similar ties to New York (Liberty City) or L.A (Los Santos). I've visited America's major coastal cities for work trips, but I've never spent real time in either. So the two GTA games that have launched since graphics got good enough to feel close to their real-world c♔ounterparts don’t hit for me in the same way.𒐪 I like Liberty City and Los Santos, but I have no relationship to their real-world inspirations.
But I’ve spent a week orܫ two in Florida each year for about a decade. That doesn't make me a FL native, by any means, but I've been to its beaches and big cities and the rural spaces in between. I've driven through the Everglades and had a slice of lime pie in the Keys. I can’t wait to take my first trip🌄 back in years, even if it’s virtual.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Will Be The Next 'How Did They Do That?' Game
But there are things video games still can’t do.
