I just wanna drive around the world and see shit I can't otherwise see, but in real time drives. I got the inspiration from those Trucker Simulator games.
We're almost there with Street View and satellite images, and the developer could do hand-modeling for certain cities and landmarks like MS FS does.
Yesssss, hard agree with this. I've been playing a lot of Euro Truck Simulator and I keep finding myself wishing it was 1:1 like MS Flight Sim. A woman can dream...
It's not what really you're looking for, but there are some really good open world map mods for Assetto Corsa that probably make it the closest feeling thing right now. They're based on real places, so while it doesn't give the touristy sense, it does a good job of capturing the vibe of just cruising around some beautiful scenery.
This. I remember playing Test Drive 3 as a kid, and being memorized with the choose your own route thing (which was huge for a game back then), and thinking how cool this sort of thing could be, if we could make the graphics realistic and basically make it like driving in the real world but it isn't the real world.
Well now we can make the graphics realistic. And we certainly have the data, the imagery and the technology.