Location 16: Freeside - East Gate

Go east, young man

Entering Freeside East

In reality, Fremont St East is just a hoop across a road. In the game, Freeside's East Gate is a heavily-fortified wall of scrap concrete and barbed wire. But they're the same place.

The right gate, in the wrong place

The photo on the left most closely corresponds to where "Freeside East" actually seems to be. There's another part of Freeside (the street containing the Rush and the Wrangler)  that resembles the real-world gateway much more closely - however, triangulating with the King's, the second game snap here is at the wrong end of the street!

Time to hit the road again, and suffer the bitter disappointment of Bitter Springs.

Location 15: Freeside - The Atomic Wrangler

The Wrangler

Vegas Vicki

 There's no direct equivalent for the Atomic Wrangler across the street from King's, but I wouldn't mind betting (ha!) that it's a tribute to Vegas Vic and his female counterpart Vegas Vicki, big neon cowboy and cowgirl signs on Fremont St.

The Glitter Gulch on the real Fremont St is actually a strip club, which I visited in the interests of research.  The Atomic Wrangler sign in the game is an obvious tribute to Slim Pickens in "Dr Strangelove", riding a nuclear missile out of the bomb bay towards oblivion.

It's getting late: let's check out Freeside's East Gate.

Location 12: Freeside - North Gate

Much more interesting ingame

A lot more boring IRL

Freeside's North Gate in reality is on a humdrum road leading under the i-15, about as dull a slice of highway as you'll find.

The game is of course more interesting, with the graphics engine's forced perspective showing you what's further down the Strip.

Here's a video of the area to the north of the i-15 in real life, Las Vegas Boulevard N....

Let's walk onwards, to The King's School of Impersonation.

Location 11: Freeside - the old Mormon Fort

Can't stop sniggering at a girl
named "Julie Farkas"

They've nixed the geography a bit to place it inside Freeside's North Gate (the wrong side of the freeway) but it's the right building: the Followers' Old Mormon Fort puts the abandoned encampment back into use as a hospital and community gathering-place.

Were the Followers based
on Mormons? I.e nice folk but
a bit weird? Oh wait, that's gamers

These photographs in particular showcase just how deeply the game's forced perspective affects the user experience. The foreshortening of depth and the wider field of vision make taking like-for-like snapshots difficult (at least with a standard camera; I don't know anything about fisheye lenses or whatever, or if they'd have made it simpler to capture an authentically gamerish view.)

No Las Vegan I met knew anything about this place - it's about a mile north of Fremont Street in a rough part of town - but the walk up is fascinating; it takes you past the Neon Boneyard, a "museum" of retired signs that was probably the inspiration for Michael Angelo's Workshop.

Time to walk south to Freeside's North Gate.