Sam’s Favorite Summer Games
Pixelated Paradise
It’s summer. Wooo. This year’s hot season in Houston started with a massive storm coming in and knocking out my area’s power for the better part of a week. This would’ve shattered younger Sam’s world because he was an inside kid through and through. While other kids went to camp and made memories and developed social skills, I was much happier camped out in my bedroom whiling away the hours in different worlds through the staticy buzz of my CRT TV. And now as an adult…..not much has changed. It’s still too hot in Texas to exist outside for long without sunblock or shade. And outside of the occasional river float or beach trip, I’ll still be staying inside for most of it. But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy summer. Far from it. I love seasons and reveling in their traditions. In September and October I really enjoy watching horror movies and carving an ugly pumpkin. November is for football and overeating, not Christmas shit. That starts in December or the day after Thanksgiving if you’ve really got Christmas blue balls. January and February bring actually cold weather and seasonal depression if you’re into that sort of thing. I prefer year round Depression Classic™ but hey to each their own. March-May is spent enjoying the last vestiges of good weather before we finally arrive at summer.
My summers are still very much spent in front of a television, both watching and playing things that give me summer settings and vibes without the crippling sunburn or heatstroke. So let me share with you some of my favorites so you can hopefully find something that kicks your summer off the right away if you don’t have a pool in your backyard. Let’s start with my favorite summer games.
The Big Ones
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – Did you know that Nintendo’s purple little Gamecube is the official console of Summer? I didn’t either but here we are. I went back and forth on which one of these titles should claim the top spot but it doesn’t need to be a competition. It’s Wind Waker by the way. After two stellar titles on the N64 in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, people were very excited to see what a next gen Zelda would look like and a lot of people weren’t pleased when that game became the Wind Waker. Featuring a lighter tone, unfamiliar sea travel and very controversial cel-shaded graphics, a lot of fans considered it to be a kiddy game and a downturn for the series. And those people are all mongoloid morons because what a great fucking game they missed. It rules. This game is a feast visually and audibly. Those cel-shaded graphics they shit on? They’ve stood the test of time better than any Zelda game and it gives it such a unique and timeless art style. And just flat out beautiful, these colors and vistas really pop in a way few other games ever have. It features absolute jams like Dragon Roost Island, Windfall Island and Makar’s Song. It’s not the longest Zelda game either. If you’re someone who felt the strain of 100+ hours of the Switch Zelda games, this one you can wrap up in under half that time. The sea setting makes for a perfect summer retreat and I pop it in every couple years just to experience it all over again.
Super Mario Sunshine – Similar to Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine had a lot to live up to after Super Mario 64 completely changed the 3D landscape when it launched with the N64. And once again, fans really weren’t thrilled with the results initially. Whereas the previous game had run the gamut of level variety such as lava, snow, water, haunted and desert levels, Super Mario Sunshine decided to stick with an Island Resort aesthetic for the entire game which turned out to be a very inspired choice. Delfino Plaza is probably the coolest hub world we’ve seen in a game, full of secrets and exploration all its own before you even jump into the actual platforming levels it harbors. Fans might’ve dislike Fluud, the sentient water nozzle that gives the game it’s other unique quirk, but it gives Mario an even more impressive platforming bag. There’s a reason Mario also had Cappy in Mario Odyssey, it also gives the player a more rounded platforming skillbase. Yoshi is also back after only a cameo in 64. I guess he only gets to be gameplay feature in every other 3D Mario game so look to see him back in Odyssey 2. Back to the levels. Every world is brimming with seaside vibrance and sunny tones. Mario has never felt more chill. It’s a game you want to just sit and absorb as the waves roll in. There aren’t two games on this list more absolutely summer than these.
The Summer Blockbusters
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – This one is the epitome of a classic summer blockbuster. But instead of going to the theater you get to play through it on your couch. And it’s a heck of a journey. As someone who didn’t own a Playstation until the PS4, the first thing I did when I got one was buy the Nathan Drake collection so I could play 1-3 and then this game. And while I’ve never returned to those first 3 Uncharted games, I’ve played through this one at least five times. People compare them to Indiana Jones movies as if that’s a bad thing. This game gives you a great story with likable characters, smarmy villains, twists, turns and rock solid gameplay. It is a little tonally odd that you rack up a massive body count on your quest for long lost pirate treasure but this is still a video game we’re talking about. While the game takes you all over the world, my fondest memories with this game are at the helm of a Jeep in Africa, a boat in King’s Bay and sneaking through the jungles of Libertalia in the game’s great climax. It even features a fantastic epilogue in a beach house you can feel the sea air through. It’s still Naughty Dog’s best.
Far Cry 3 – There have been six mainline Far Cry games. This is still the best one. It’s actually not even close really, at least to me. The story is a mixed bag. Going from trust fund rich kid to seasoned jungle warrior isn’t quite the organic character path the game thinks it is but that’s okay. It’s one of those Ubisoft games where once you get the silent sniper and bow, all you want to do is go to every outpost in the game and make them run red. The game is best known for Vaas, the psychotic and charismatic villain who haunts your progress and psyche through the first half of the game. And for good reason, he’s having a lot of fun with the performance. The game never quite matches that energy after he leaves the story but it’s still a very fun time running around committing war crimes on this sun drenched island. You even burn down a weed field with a flamethrower while your character gets high on the second hand smoke and dubstep plays in the background. Remember dubstep? It sounded like two fax machines fucking next to a megaphone. It was very 2012, as is this game. This one holds up though.
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag – There have been (checks notes) 13 Assassin’s Creed games!? Really? Why? That’s too many Assassin’s Creed games. Especially when they haven’t been good in a minute. This is the peak of the series though, no question. While the Ezio games are also great and the Italian Renaissance is a fantastic setting for frankly anything, this game definitely improves upon those by being the least Assassin’s Creed style game in the entire series. Within a few hours you’re commanding your own pirate ship and boarding other rigs, building your fleet, going on shark hunts and swimming on the ocean floor for sunken treasure. Having just replayed through it again about a month ago I can definitely say that it really holds up and is a super summer-y game. The game sings when you’re just sailing your ship through the Caribbean, watching the sunset on the horizon while your crew sings sea shanties. It’s awesome. Since then Ubisoft has gone on to completely lose the plot with the Assassin’s Creed series and even mess up their next big “AAAA” pirate game in Skull & Bones. I don’t know how, the blueprint was right here. Frankly they can fuck up their next 20 Assassin’s Creed and pirate games for all I care, they peaked with both with this one.
Bioshock – Oh man, I almost forgot to include Bioshock. What a dunce I am. This game starts incredibly strong with your main character surviving a plane crash at sea, then swimming to the adjacent lighthouse to find some relief. Instead they’re taken on a descent deep underwater where they find what remains of the greatest city ever conceived, Rapture. And what remains is a mean, twisted and drowning version of that once proud utopia. You’ll make your way through and see the whole city, from the botanical marvels of Arcadia to the mind fraying grotesqueries of Fort Frolic to the lava churning engineering level of Hephaestus. The entire thing has gone to hell and you slowly unlock its secrets and story through environmental storytelling and audio diaries. The levels brim with art deco brilliance and memorable characters weave in and out of the story, either on screen before you or through your radio. This was a landmark game when it came out in in 2007 and a remaster in 2016 made the game more available for everyone to play. If you haven’t gotten around to it yet, I really can’t recommend it enough. The art direction, the sounds of the Big Daddies, the guns and plasmids gameplay, it all sings. And while I like Bioshock 2 more than most and think Infinite is great as well, this one still remains the best in the series for me. Play it, would you kindly?
Campfire Games
Sea of Stars – I will sing this game’s praises and try to get as many people to play it as I can. It’s one of those that I really fell in love with and want everyone else to experience that kind of gaming bliss as well. You play as two Solstice Warriors on a quest to defeat the evil monsters roaming the lands using their eclipse magic. This takes the form of night and day, sun and moon powers. The variety in this game is breathtaking. One minute you’re scaling a mountain for a wizard’s quest, the next you’re in an undead bog trying to save an ally from hypnotized doom, the next you’re in a future dimension fighting cyborgs in the name of freedom for enslaved denizens. The pacing is great, the setting is unique, the music is a standout and the graphics and sound design really give the presentation a huge boost. This is one of the best looking games of this style in a while. I have to also give kudos to the inventive turn based combat here. By the end of the game you’ll be firing off specials, healing your team, swapping in new party members for strategic counters and overall just having a blast with the systems at play here. Again, everything looks like a 10/10 for this style. Also by the midway point of the game you’re traversing the open world on a ghost pirate ship, island hopping at your leisure. Sounds like a summer game to me.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – I’m probably not the right person to talk about this game or frankly this series. Maybe even cozy games in general. For the most part, they’re not my bag. If I want to veg out and play something low stakes or relax I’ll usually throw on something like PowerWash Simulator or boot up Skate 3 and ride around town. But I do certainly get the appeal of them. Not everyone wants to always be saving the world or ripping through hordes of enemies. Sometimes you just want to be on your own island, talking to your neighbors, upkeeping your yard or just going fishing. That’s exactly the kind of experience this game offers. It’s an incredibly chill time. When this game came out right as the pandemic hit, everyone and their mom was playing this game. It was a phenomenon the way only a hit game can be. Movies or shows can capture the cultural zeitgeist for a few weeks, this game was massively popular for months on end. I was one of the ones who bought it at launch. And while I stopped playing after a few weeks and never returned, I still remember how fun it was initially and the overall good vibes everyone had showing each other their islands and trying to fill out their museums and aquariums. It’s still a great summertime getaway.
Firewatch – Firewatch is an interesting game to talk about. It’s definitely the most indie game on this list and some people probably haven’t heard of it. It’s certainly no gameplay powerhouse. Most of the game has you walking through the forest and surveying the area as the new fire lookout in 1989 Wyoming. But gameplay isn’t the point here. As you explore and unpack its plot, you begin to settle in with the few characters in this story and become attached to them. As the summer progresses and more plot elements unfold, it hits you in unexpected ways. This is more of an emotional and introspective game than I’m used to playing and I really enjoyed it. It’s on the shorter side, you can probably complete it in a day or two. But the game and its soundtrack remained with me long after I’d moved on to other games. While a lot of games on this list have you swimming in the sea or adventuring across sandy locales, this game has you searching for answers in a deep forest away from almost all other human beings. I definitely recommend it if you want something less action oriented and a little deeper than the others on this list.
The Quarry – From deeply personal and introspective to watching dumb teenagers die, that’s the kind of list you can expect from me. The Quarry is from the same developer who made Until Dawn. Did you play Until Dawn? You should. It’s stupid and fun in the same way this one is. Whereas that game belongs firmly on the Winter Games list, this one is summer all the way. Set on the final day of camp after all the kids have left, you play as the remaining camp counselors who have all been mocapped and voiced by C and D List actors. The performances range from alright to ‘holy shit, why did they go with that take?’ Justice Smith sounds like he drank an entire bottle of benadryl before going into the recording booth. But it works. The game is in keeping with the classic horror movie trope of teenagers getting picked off one by one as they try to flirt, drink and survive. It’s camp, both literally and figuratively. Me and my friends had the best time just sitting around on the couch, passing the controller between chapters and laughing both with and at the game. It’s a great time, one of those games you want to make someone play who hasn’t before. It also requires basically no skill besides the occasional quick time event so you can even let Grandma play if killing off David Arquette and Macaulay Culkin’s wife seems like her kind of thing.
Psychonauts – Another game set at a summer camp but with a very different tone, Psychonauts came out back in 2005 and was universally praised for its humor, characters, setting and originality. You’re at a summer camp for psychic prodigies, the Psychonauts. It’s a very fun world to inhabit and features the classic gameplay loop of unlocking a new item or ability which opens up new areas and so on and so forth which I really love and kind of miss. The game comes from Tim Schaffer who created Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Brutal Legend, Broken Age and several others. He’s got a very unique writing voice and it comes across in every interaction and character you come across. The game became enough of a cult classic that it even got a sequel a couple years back. While I’ve never gotten around to playing that one, this game definitely gives me the fun summer camp story I never had as a kid and I definitely recommend it to anyone who really loves and values weird in their video games.
The Rest:
Forza Horizon 3 – I love a good arcade racing game. While you could pretty much put any game from the Forza Horizon series on this list, 4 introduced the concepts of changing seasons to the series and 5 kept that trend going. Horizon 3 is set entirely in the sun blasted Australian summer. I remember playing the demo when it came out and being blown away by how good it was. I bought the game on launch day and it dominated my next few months. There’s so much content from the amount of races to the cars to the different regions you can explore and race through. You can swap from taking sports cars through the cities to bounding over the outback in Jeeps to drifting around trees in rally cars. There’s so much to do and I’m definitely gonna be getting back into this one this summer and can’t be more ready to experience it again.
Sunset Overdrive – Another Xbox One game that was actually a launch title for that system, Sunset Overdrive is a blast from start to finish. Created by Insomniac Games before Sony bought them out and set them to making the Spider-Man games, this one is set in a near future city that’s been taken over by energy drink-created zombies. You must band together with a whacky group of characters to take the city back and defeat the corporation behind the outbreak. If that sounds silly and dumb, it is. If silly and dumb sounds like a bad thing, we can’t be friends. I would describe it as Dead Rising meets Jet Set Radio. The movement in the game is top tier, allowing you to zip and hop around the city with ease. The combat has the layered fine tuning you’d expect from an Insomniac game. Overall it’s a really fun and zany underappreciated gem that I never hear anyone mention anymore. If it’s within your means to play it you could do a lot worse this summer.
Dave the Diver – I bought this game last summer on Steam after seeing the stellar reviews it got on launch. And while I didn’t play it through to completion, I could definitely see why it got such high marks. I love games that have different gameplay loops that feed into one another. It’s a big reason why I like the Persona games so much. This game has you diving and capturing fish during the day to then cook and serve to your customers in the evening at your up-and-coming restaurant. It’s a very rewarding loop and if it was just that then it would still be a successful game. But there’s definitely a lot more going on here and it includes some of the best audio design and presentation I’ve seen in a small game like this. It bursts with personality and the next new gameplay tweak is always right around the corner. It’s only $15 right now and they just dropped fucking Godzilla DLC for the game that will only be available until November. I’m definitely going to get back into it this summer and hopefully other people are too.
Pokemon Emerald – Pokemon Sun/Moon are technically the “tropical” pokemon games but they’re also some of the only ones I quit because of how hand-holdy and boring they are. Scarlet and Violet are very summer-y and take place in fictional Spain, but those games are technical nightmares. But ya know what was awesome when it came out and remains that way? All the Gen 3 Pokemon games. They’re still really fun to play, they feature an excellent dex and between Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and the updated Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they’re some of the most accessible in the series as well. You can’t go wrong with any of them, especially if you prefer to just emulate which has never been easier. Go forth and catch ’em all.
Abzu – Abzu is gorgeous. Very much in the vein of relaxing and beautiful games like Flower and Journey, Abzu takes you through various underwater levels teeming with both aquatic and robotic creatures. Told wordlessly through music and colorful visuals, it’s light on story but big on vibes. You can swim with schools of fish and grab onto whales as they float through the kaleidoscope environments. Another indie title you can complete in a single setting, I recommend it for how pretty it is to look at and how pleasant it is to swim through while listening to serene music play over it. A very simple game but also very relaxing.
Those are all the ones that came to mind when creating this list. Happy gaming!
