Time for another city from The Crew to compare to its real life counterpart! Last time I talked about the game’s version of Dallas and how it compares to the actual city. I’ve also talked about New Orleans in the game and how that one compares to the real life city as well. Well let’s move on now to The Crew’s St. Louis and compare it to the real city.

Now the first thing I want to mention is that unlike Dallas and New Orleans, I have not been to this city often. As a matter of fact I explored parts of this city for the first time on a trip I took last year. Thanks to my closest friends, I decided to take a Route 66 trip across Missouri that ended in St. Louis. It overall was a fun trip and really cool to see the different sights especially the things that make Route 66 so iconic.

The city of St. Louis has a lot to see especially when it comes to Route 66, but I will tell you this, if you haven’t been to St. Louis before, there are some VERY rough parts of the city and one of  the best Route 66 sights to see in the city is called the Chain of Rocks Bridge that goes over the Mississippi River into Illinois. Oh if I had only done more research online before going to see this bridge and walk across it. If I had done that, I would’ve learned that you DO NOT want to park on the St. Louis side of the bridge which is what I did!

There used to be a parking lot you could drive into on the St. Louis side of the Chain of Rocks Bridge and park in, but it was closed due to extremely high car break ins. I instead drove up to the gate, got out, stepped over the gate (it’s not very high, it is just to keep cars from driving in there) and proceeded to walk to the bridge and walk across it once I realized it was open to pedestrian traffic.

The bridge is a mile long and has an interesting curve over the Mississippi River. Sadly when I returned to my car, I saw that it was broken into 🙁 . I won’t go on too much longer on this and get back to the comparisons of  the game and real life city, but I was also very fortunate. Even though they broke my driver’s side window and I found my glove compartment open, the only thing that was taken from my car was an empty phone case.

Nothing was taken from my glove compartment which amazed me because had they dug deep in there, they would’ve found a knife. Plus if they had opened my trunk, they could’ve gotten the really big stuff I had with me which included all my clothes, a nice tool set, and my 2 tablets.

Fortunately the game version of St. Louis is not riddled with crime so you don’t have to worry about car break ins or muggings when driving around this Midwestern city. Just be glad this isn’t a Grand Theft Auto game or that would be a different story!

So what makes this city famous or iconic? Well one I already mentioned Route 66 and two is the famous steel Gateway Arch which is the tallest object in the city even towering over its skyscrapers. St. Louis is also commonly referred to as the gateway to the west. I’m proud to say that The Arch is there in the game almost exactly right where it should be in the actual city overlooking the Mississippi River or the downtown area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Dallas, the downtown area of The Crew’s version of St. Louis is nearly exact to the actual downtown area of this city. The steel arch is in the right spot, a highway that is a little below ground is also in the right spot by where the arch is and even the old courthouse is in the right place as well. They even have Busch Stadium which if you are familiar with the city, you’ll know that it is the home of MLB team, the Cardinals.

I would say the only thing missing from the downtown area in the game is the domed stadium for the St. Louis Rams, but honestly that doesn’t matter now because in real life, the football team is now leaving the city and headed to the Los Angeles area. A lot of the office buildings and high rises also resemble the actual ones as well which is a nice touch and just like the way Dallas’ skyline does in the game too.

It is so cool to drive around the central business district and see the buildings such as One Metropolitan Square (tallest building in St. Louis), One AT&T Center, and a few of the other familiar high rises. Again though this is what frustrates me with the city of New Orleans in the game. It is the only major city in the game that does not have its skyscrapers closely resembling the real ones. Heck the upcoming Mafia 3 does a much better job of this and the game is based in 1960’s New Orleans! Oh well, the Superdome and the smaller arena next to it make it recognizable as New Orleans so I’ll take it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now as I mentioned earlier, I had made St. Louis my final stop in my Route 66 drive across Missouri and St. Louis has no shortage of great sights to see along the now decommissioned mother road. I unfortunately did not get to see a lot of the sights I wanted to thanks to my unfortunate incident at one of Route 66’s biggest sights in St. Louis, but what the creators of the game have actually done has included Route 66 in various parts of the map and just like in real life, Route 66 comes by or near the city and in fact when driving around the downtown area, I found a building that has a painting on the side with the Route 66 shield on it as you should be able to see from the screenshot above. Very cool as you will actually see a lot of that along the real route if you ever decide to drive it or along it.

Well there you have it folks! My comparisons of the The Crew’s St. Louis versus the real city. The downtown area is for the most part spot on. You won’t really see any of the other surrounding suburban cities because as I’ve mentioned in my previous city comparison posts, the PS4 (and other gaming systems) just doesn’t have the computing power to have each city, much less the entire US to scale which I think is a good thing.

Gosh could you imagine if it took me 9 hours in the game to drive from my area to St. Louis like it does in real life? For those that have the game or have played it before, what do you think of the game’s version of St. Louis? Is it pretty much spot on or could they have done better? Don’t hesitate to comment and always check back to the site because I will have another city to compare to the real thing.