Games of Summer

Summer is a wonderful time for gamers. Lazy weekends, schools are out, friends are visiting, there's tons of great reasons to pick up a controller. Though the more recent trend towards overbearingly brown color schemes and games that take themselves way to seriously may make it a little obscure summer is a big theme in many games, especially slightly older ones. Besides just being set in the summertime these games I've found to have something distinctly summery about them. A part of it is nostalgia, I think everyone has at least a few games under their belt that were summer projects that they worked on in order to get finished before school started again. But beside that there's a certain element of plain old fun, simple playability, and great colors that make games just feel right. Whether playing them during the summer, or brightening up a winter day there's just a bit of summer magic there. So here we go.


Summer Games / California Games

As part of a larger series of sports titles both these games are nothing but simple, classic sports collections. Summer Games included; pole vault, platform diving, sprinting, gymnastics, freestyle swimming, skeet shooting, and rowing. California games included fewer games with; half pipe, roller skating, surfing, bmx, footbag, and flying disk. Looking back on these games now they have pretty primitive looking graphics, but like all the best C64 games the animation, responsiveness and depth of the games makes the visual capabilities of the system largely irrelevant. And with all the variety in these two games it's easy to sink a lot of time into them.

Animal Crossing Wild World



Really I'm sure any of the Animal Crossing games could fit here, but Wild World is the only one I've put serious time into, and by serious I mean I played it for at least a few minutes just about everyday for nearly a year. The game isn’t as much of a soul sucking time sink as most MMORPGS seem to be, but it's up there. Granted the game can get boring, even though I turned it on everyday for nearly a year, most of the time it was just to pull weeds and water my flowers. But summer is probably the best time of year for the game, there's a large variety of fish to be caught, bugs to collect, and everything just looks really nice. In it's heyday my town was covered with flowers, and while it meant I had to be careful running around it was damn pretty, and trying to breed hybrids is pretty fun. AC definitely isn't a game you can put hours into everyday, but it's fun to sit down with for a quiet 15-30 minutes at some point in the day, visit with your favorite townie, and then get back to real life.

Wii Sports / Wii Sports Resort



As far as games to play with a group go it's though to beat either Wii Sports game, anyone can pick it up easily and it's perfectly suited to short play session before you head out side to get some fresh air like the game constantly insists you do. The games can get old after awhile, but like the better casual games they keep you coming back for at least a few minutes. Even after months of not playing Wii Sports I got sucked right back in by the fitness mode. It's much like Animal Crossing in that you won't spend hours playing it, but it's easy to play for 5 minutes daily.

Sid Meier's Pirates!



I had nearly forgotten about this one. A few weeks ago I got a copy of the Xbox version and have been playing it of and on since then. It's a great update to the old PC game, it's really hard to say much about it without saying a ton. But to keep it simple, everything holds up great still. Shimmering tropical water, simple but robust gameplay, and charming pirate antics make it really easy to spend a long time tooling around the Caribbean. While the Xbox version is generally inferior to playing it on pc, being able to do it from the couch is pretty nice. A Wii version was just announced recently. It's a surprise to me, but it should be a great game for the expanded Wii audience.

Mario Sunshine / New Super Mario Brothers



Mario Sunshine is a pretty obvious choice, it's the only Mario game to be set entirely in a summer location. It has a resort town, ocean, beaches, boats, and a great summery soundtrack. There's plenty of reasons why people don't consider it one of the better Mario games, but the good easily outweighs the bad in my eyes. The camera can be infuriatingly uncooperative, and some of the levels just aren't especially interesting. Basically when it's bad, it's bad, but when it's good, it's really good. The warp pipe sections are some of the best 3d Mario levels ever, even when they make you want to chuck the controller against the wall.



New Super Mario Brothers is another Mario game that's become a bit of an object of derision. It doesn't add much anything new to the Mario formula, and it is rather easy. But it's still damn fun. Like you’d expect it has the normal desert world, winter world, etc. set up. Except when you hit world 3 there's a small difference, an honest to goodness summer world complete with beaches and palm trees. It's also on of my favorite worlds in the game, there's a nice variety of water elements in the levels without getting annoying, and the music is great. Plus all the enemies bouncing in time with the music seems most fitting in the summer setting.

Outrun



If I were trying to put this list in order from 1 to 10, Outrun would easily be number one. This game is pure summer. Loose story line, fast cars, hot chicks, and great music. The whole point of the game is to grab your blonde bombshell, jump in a Ferrari convertible, and drive like maniacs to your destination. Not a bad basis for a summer game at all. Possibly one of the most unique things about Outrun is that it wasn't conceived as a racing game, but simply as a driving game. There's no real opponents besides the clock, and the traffic. It makes the absurd basis for the game relatable, who hasn't wanted to just run out and do something only to get stuck behind traffic.
I've always been drawn to the original game because of it's great looking arcade cabinet, but Outrun 2 (and 2006) are sterling examples of how to update a classic game. There's some gameplay additions, but nothing that takes away the raw thrill of driving way to fast with your girl at your side. Also Outrun 2 and 2006 include the original music, and remixes that are also quite good. I know I've already mentioned music in other games, but the music in Outrun is truly exceptional, the three song choices in the original game are the only video game music that I keep on a cd in my car. Plus the Xbox versions look wonderful on a hd set.

Naxat Summer Carnival Games:
Recca, Spriggan, Alzadick, Nexr



All four of these games are pretty straight forward shoot 'em ups with any gimmicks that seem to get peoples attention so much lately (Ikaruga). But they're all very well put together shoot 'em ups, that incidentally were all made for a summer competition. Recca is particularly significant for doing downright amazing things with the Famicom hardware. Like all shoot 'em ups these games all make for great quick 5 minute plays, or for spending hours with.

Sonic the Hedgehog




As a franchise Sonic has seen better days, but there's still glimmers of greatness here and there in the newer games. Not that I'm addressing the newer titles, I just wanted to voice my support for what's still great about Sonic, the poor blue fella is hated on by "t3h h4rdC0r3z' as much or more as the Wii.
Like Mario, Sonic games have a variety of differently themed stages. But the first stages are pretty much all straight up summer fun. In particular Green Hill Zone (any of them), and the first stages of both Sonic Adventure 1, and 2. to me the Green Hill Zone levels pretty much are Sonic. They're beautiful looking (love that green color), the level design is smooth and fast, and they just feel great to play. It's a shame that with the exception of a unlockable in Sonic Adventure 2 the Green Hill seem to be getting ignored.
As for Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. in one it has you running along the beach, over board walks, and getting chased by a killer whale. Which while really great, just isn't as fun as the first stage of SA 2, though it does say summer a little louder. SA2 starts out with Sonic skate boarding down a San Francisco looking hill on the blade of a helicopter, while a catchy song about "rolling around at the speed of sound", and "following your rainbow" blares (well at least it does when I play the game, it's a great song no matter what anyone says). All ending with Sonic getting chased by an enormous semi truck and a quick cameo by Big the Cat. The only drawback is that like the rest of Sonic Adventure, it takes a fair number of playthroughs to do it all fluidly. But once you get it it's a blast.

Powerful Pro Baseball



I don’t think I could get away with calling this a summer games list without including at least one full baseball game (Wii Sports baseball is little more than batting practice). The Powerful pro series of games has been around for quite some time now, though it's only found it's way into US release in recent years. It's in many people opinions the best baseball game out there. If you’re a big baseball fan there's an obsessive amount of stat tracking (what is it with baseball fans and tracking stats?), and deep gameplay. For more casual players it's easy to pick up and have a good while not being intimidating despite it's amazing depth, the adorable super deformed characters don't hurt either. Definitely a great summer game, you play for as much or as little as you feel like, it looks good, and well it's baseball. And what's more summery in the US than baseball?

Earthbound



I had to squeeze one longer game into the list, and I couldn't think of a better choice than Earthbound. In a way Earthbound is very much like summer. There's a lot of things the you have to do that really aren't much fun, but all the little things that happen over the months easily overshadow any annoying or boring parts. There's the obvious reason why Earthbound makes a great summer game, pretty early on you visit the resort town Summers, which much like Outrun gets all the colors of a sunny beach town just right.




But it's not just Summers, color wise the whole game is spot on. The bright, but slightly washed out pastel greens of Threed and Twoson with their sun bleached roads, picket fences, and nicely cared for houses are all just how they should be. There's so many more locations in the game, but these early ones are by far my favorites mainly for the colors.
That's not all the summery things about Earthbound though, the basis of the game is pure summer. I think everyone imagined the grand adventures they'd go on with tier friends while school was out for three months and their parents insisted that they stayed outside till it got dark. Well that's Earthbound, it's a impressive adventure with Ness (if you don't choose your own own) and his friends. They go to exotic places, fight, aliens, dinosaurs and,,, hippies.
What really impressed me about this game is that unlike every other JRPG I've played is that there's a pretty meaningful message about personal growth through the game, and it didn't make me roll my eyes and groan. It's implemented well and is actually quite touching. Also being a longer game than any of the others listed here it's an easy game to sit down with when there's more time available, like to unwind at the end of the day, and have a grand adventure while still getting all these other summer titles in.