AN AMUSING online game gives netizens the chance to travel the world from the comfort of their living rooms.
The free driving simulator lets you explore miles upon miles of open road using satellite data pulled from Google Earth.
1
The game was created by Japanese software developer Frame Synthesis and is available for free on the firm’s website.
Players can choose to pilot a car or bus which is then overlayed onto satellite imagery provided by Google’s digital map service.
You can then drive it around almost any location globally, whether that be Paris or the Arctic Circle.
Players can even test their skills on famous racing courses such as the UK’s Silverstone Circuit or the famous Nurburgring in Germany.
To try the game for yourself, follow this link and hit “Start” to begin.
You can select your preferred vehicle using the buttons on the left of your screen.
Type in a location in the search bar at the top left to teleport to a new spot.
The game provides preset locations such as the Las Vegas strip. You can pick one of those by hitting the bar in the top right corner.
Most read in News Tech
Of course, your vehicle is simply overlayed onto 2D images of Earth, meaning you don’t have to stick to roads.
You control your automobile using the arrow keys. Press up to accelerate and down to brake or reverse.
Left and right turn the steering wheel, a visualisation of which is displayed in the bottom right of the map.
Frame Synthesis’ game was released in 2014 and has received a number of updates and improvements in the years since.
It uses data made available by Google Earth, a map of most of our planet’s surface made up of aerial snaps.
Google sourced more than 24million photos taken by satellites and aircraft over four decades for the tool.
It has worked with Nasa, the US Geological Survey’s Landsat program, and the European Union’s Copernicus program on the project.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at [email protected]
This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
