Honey, Someone Shrunk Hong Kong

@F_munk: Close, they had Autosaurus Wrecks, basically a MechaGodzilla composed of cars.

@OMG! Ponies!:

I would pick Gozilla. If there is such a feature.

F_munk

oh my god, that looks beautiful
i want it for my city! (NYC)

Where are the Archologies? Or the Llama Tower?

evan7257

Wait a minute.... that's not Sim City? Oh man.

Sorry, but I have an urge to select tornado from the disaster menu...

@32ndnote:
They are not from a satellite. They are taken from a plane that takes the pictures of the area from 4 directions so you can see every side of a building. It is much better than what Google has as far as overhead images. Google does have streetview, which is also quite awesome.

I prefer the 3D buildings in Google Earth so long as somebody has filled them in with sketch-up. Take a look around Tokyo Tower or Shinjuku in Tokyo if you want to see more realism than the map of Hong Kong.

Kerensky97

@google.

Where is this in Google?!

chasqui

@Nick: After-wards, unleash a series of tornadoes as a game is being played at the stadium. Oh and don't forget to up the taxes to help afford your new stadium.

Too bad they only finished up a small portion of the whole map. :(

gus115

Wow, not only is it absolutely beautiful, but they actually named each and every building so you can mouse over them and learn more! This is so awesome! Someone do New York City, please!

@DJ Bushido: Sure it does.

Maybe I'm wrong about what "bird's eye" is but I thought it was just a 3-D rendering of buildings. Google does that for almost all major cities and since its open people can add to it as they please.

tande04

@atlasspanked: A good buzz has plenty of utilitarian value, are you kidding? In all seriousness, though, having been raised in rural America myself I'd have to say that the same complaint holds true for very nearly every single technological advancement ever. The rural areas are amost always the last to benefit since economics - not social policy - is the driving force.

@Bertone Zero77: I love birds eye view (been using it since Live Maps), but Hong Kong isn't one of the select cities where's it's available.

overpunctuated

F-U-N-D. Oh no!!! an earthquake!!!

@Bertone Zero77: Woah, your right. This IS kinda impressive.

pure241

@DJ Bushido: I agree. I've used it in GPS simulations and it's pretty damn cool to see their API map on top of bird's eye

diskdaddy

Now, if they'd apply 1/10th of the same effort to upping the resolution on remote wilderness, or even rural, areas as they do for creating cutesy models of high-rise urban gerbil-farms, Google Earth and Google Maps might actually become useful.

Nah, it's all about the buzz, not the utility.

atlasspanked

@Bertone Zero77: yeah man, Google ain't got no "Bird's Eye" like MS does... that stuff is sweet!

Edushi has been going on for a while, they have most important Chinese cities. I used it a lot while in Beijing and Shenzhen. It has pretty good info on public transportation and important points. And, of course, it's gorgeous.

Lalo Martins

@Nick: Don't forget to leave room for the Arcology.

Very nice. Very nice.

Identity: Secret since 2008

I would roll that up Katamari style

I can see the buildings Batman jump from and to!

GeneralGozz

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: And then scream at her when I see her in real life?

"DIDN"T I JUST TURN YOU INTO DUST?!"

Skeetz

As much as I hate to plug microsoft, I have to say that MSN/Bing maps "birds eye view" does nearly the same thing but with real photos.

Bertone Zero77

@Skeetz: Yes, but you could also fire an RPG at that annoying lady's house down the street.

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

@Lupison: Yeah, I used to love that game!

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

The empty calmness of it all reminds me of the opening scene in 28 days later where the lead was just walking down the street alone with his bag of Pepsi's.. honestly ending the movie right there would have been enough for me. Gah! Why did it embed this comment in a reply?

Skeetz

i wanna take out a bond. i think we need a new stadium. but first, i am gonna have to bulldoze some new land.

Nick

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: They're missing the smog though or the chemical cloud or whatever they had in simcity

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

What button to I press to start a hurricane or giant robot attack?

Hello Mister Walrus

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: I, in no way, want to play a game in my own city.. you know what I do here? i drive my mom to work. woo hoo hooooo

Skeetz

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: I almost ignored this post completely because when I logged onto Giz I saw the pic and thought it was a story about SimCity. But this is actually really cool.

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: You remember the game SimCopter? You would load a SimCity you made into it and fly around in it with your helicopter and perform missions in it.

Lupison

Wow... just... wow. Masterpiece.

Lupison

That's great. Simcity is the first thing I thought of when I saw this. It would be cool if mapping technology advances far enough where we have 3D environments of all the content on google maps.

And then what if you could take it a step further and take these environments and import them into a GTA-like video game so you can play GTA or any other game in your neighborhood.

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

While they're at it, they should add an 'Acts of God' menu; that will really give it the Sim City feel :D

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: And then it will get so common that people start to forget which world they're in.

@32ndnote: "They are satellite images taken from an angle or something." star commenter..

masbo99