Top 10 Video Game Cities of all Time

The virtual destinations everyone needs to visit.

Inspired by our mammoth six-and-a-half hour adventure through BioShock 2's underwater city Rapture, we proudly present the Top 10 Video Game Cities of all Time. It was a tough list to compile; we murdered darlings along the way, including San Andreas and Vice City from the Grand Theft Auto series, Stormwind and Ironforge from World of Warcraft, and Paradise City from Burnout. But the result, we hope you'll agree, is a top 10 of unquestionable quality.

10. SimCity - SimCity

Okay, so this might be cheating slightly as the city you build here is different every time, but we reckon the cities created in Maxis' classic sim are more involving than any other in this list. Sure, depending on who was in charge, the created cities varied from impeccably managed metropolises to rundown slums, but that is part of the charm. Your city was exactly that: yours. The Sims has made the genre somewhat more person focussed, but SimCity 2000 taught many of us the ins and outs of city management, and made the appearance of a building destroying monster quite heartbreaking. Damn you monster!

9. Goron City - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - N64

Those poor goron. Not only did they have to suffer living holed up in a cave near the top of Death Mountain, but they were starving. When elf-boy Link first arrives in Shigeru Miyamoto masterpiece Ocarina of Time, the entrance to Dodongo's Cavern - the goron's source of food - is sealed, the result of evil magic from big bad boss Ganandorf. Ganondorf won't budge until the gorons give up the Goron Ruby. Where is it? Inside Dodongo itself. So it's up to Link to enter the cavern, battle past its monsters and defeat the great Dodongo, thus returning the ruby to its rightful owners. The dungeon and the city were wonderfully designed, had memorable music (who can forget head goron Darunia dancing to Link's ocarina playing?) and was home to, of course, the bomb-loving gorons themselves (perhaps Hyrule's most adorable race). It might have been a while since we last explored Goron City, but we can remember it like it was yesterday.