Editor's note: As a Washington D.C. resident, Daniel looks at the fidelity of Fallout 3's game world. All that subtlety was lost on me -- I've never been there! -Demian

When I first heard of Fallout 3, I was interested in it primarily because it's set in the very place on Earth where I live. That's a very rare thing for us non-New York City or California residents -- as famous as Washington D.C. is, being the capital of a world superpower and all, it’s actually not explored much in fiction beyond the Pentagon and the White House. People know what the monuments look like, but very little about what the city itself actually feels like.

Fallout 3 developer Bethesda takes their name from their home base of Bethesda, Maryland, which is right by D.C. This is really a local developer setting a game in their own backyard, sort of like what Sega is doing with the Yakuza series.

So how accurately does Fallout 3 portray the D.C. metro area? In my opinion, much more accurately than expected considering it’s a post-apocalyptic version of an alternate-world D.C., with “World of Tomorrow” overtones. For example, I know someone who, when tasked with finding the Declaration of Independence, looked up its real location on Google Maps and used that to find it in the game.

The most accurate elements of D.C. in Fallout 3 are obviously the district’s most famous features -- the monuments of the inner Mall. As you may have seen, they’ve got The White House and Washington Monument and all, and the Jefferson plays a major role in the story as well.

To someone who has actually been to those monuments, Fallout 3’s depiction is actually a little more striking than expected, because the layout of inner D.C. is just about perfect. I remember people twittering during the Obama inauguration that every time they looked at the scene they wondered who was on super mutant duty. If you want to know what it’s like to stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial and see the Washington Monument with the Capitol building behind it in the distance, playing Fallout 3 really won’t put you far off.

Fallout 3 also gets some minor details right that I found pleasantly surprising -- things that people not living in D.C. wouldn’t recognize.

Most strikingly, the metros are all pretty much dead-on. The architectural design and layouts are about 85% congruent between the game and real life. The only major differences come from Fallout 3’s atomic-age art style. Even the names and locations of most of the metros in the game are real.

The shape of the Potomac River is also spot-on, as are a lot of the towns and other areas in D.C. Where I live, Fairfax, is represented by the Fairfax ruins. There’s nothing of particular interest there, but it was still cool visiting the location I’m actually playing the game from.

Even more subtle stuff like the general feel of the land is accurate. I’ve seen people on message boards complaining about hills and varying elevations in Fallout 3, and asking if the D.C. area really is this hilly. Guess what, it is.

This may sound like a bad joke, but downtown D.C. in real life is probably more violent than it is in Fallout 3 in terms of the number of crimes and deaths.

On a macro level, Fallout 3 does depict a generally inaccurate view of the D.C. area in terms of geographical distance and size -- understandably, the game world is significantly scaled down.

However, I think Bethesda did miss some opportunities. D.C. includes a handful of military bases, but none of them are represented in Fallout 3 in name or location, despite the game's abundance of forts.

Fallout 3's Fort Independence lies right outside of the Fairfax ruins. The real Fairfax County contains Fort Belvoir, but the many other bases, barracks, and military labs in the area didn't seem to make the cut.

My biggest disappointment with Fallout 3’s depiction of D.C. is the Pentagon (known as the Citadel in-game). I've visited the inside of the Pentagon more than once -- the guys at Bethesda probably weren’t so lucky, but I’ve still got to be picky due to the missed potential of the place.

The Pentagon is actually far more than a massive military office building shaped like a pentagon. It’s kind of its own society, complete with a mall and food court. It's a compound that could've translated into a whole town in Fallout 3, not unlike Rivet City. The Pentagon was the one D.C. monument I had to visit twice in order to actually recognize in Fallout 3.

I definitely wouldn’t say you should use Fallout 3 as a virtual road map for D.C., but if you visit after playing the game you might be surprised at what you recognize. Still, it’s pretty fascinating to play a game set in the area in which you (and the developers themselves) live. You New Yorkers and Californians know what I'm talking about.