As A Street Photographer, Umurangi Generation Is The Next Best Thing To Doing It For Real

thegamer.com:

I'm big into street photography. Most weekends I'll sling a camera and a few lenses into a backpack, catch a train to a nearby city, and spend a day wandering around looking for interesting things to shoot. I've tried taking photos in the countryside, but I'm never as inspired as I am when I'm in an urban setting. In these bustling concrete sprawls, everywhere you look there are things going on, people living their lives, and stories being told—and I love capturing these moments with my trusty DSLR. I'll usually come back from a trip with 300 terrible photos, but it's worth it for the 10-15 that turn out decent. It's an incredibly fun, rewarding hobby, and a great way to get to know a city on a deeper, more intimate level.

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A lot of video games involve taking photos, whether it's Metal Gear Solid 2's digital camera, snapping spirits in Fatal Frame, Afrika's wildlife safari, or the on-rails photography of Pokemon Snap. But there's only one game I've played that accurately captures the process and feel of real-world photography, and that's Umurangi Generation. There's a lot to love about this impossibly stylish indie game, with its vivid Māori cyberpunk aesthetic, killer soundtrack, evocative hands-off storytelling, and how unashamedly politically charged it is. But I don't think it gets enough credit for how brilliantly it simulates the experience of using a camera in a cluttered, lived-in, story-filled urban landscape.

The biggest thing Umurangi Generation gets right about photography is the importance of lenses. When I go out IRL, I bring a few with me to suit different situations. I'll use a wide-angle 16mm if I want to fit a