The Gamer's Quarter

[dessgeega]

can a videogame be said to inhabit a season?

shenmue is emphatically winter - not just because the game is set around christmastime, but because it is a game about seeking the warmth of loved ones and of familiar routines as a heavy, intruding cold threatens to consume and numb you. is umihara kawase fall - a cool, quiet time of explorations both external and internal on a sepia-stained lakefront, pink sneakers and fishing lure grazing the water's edge?

what is summer? is it light and warmth, the cool clarity of a night with a thousand stars, a breeze rippling across a sea of grass, a quiet moment away from routine to assess one's growth? what games are summer? are streets of rage / bare knuckle's stages the hot, wet nights of deep summer? is outrun the summer breeze that blows through your hair?

tell me what games evoke summer for you, o treasured forum compatriots - not just the tone, but the sense of the season. what game makes you feel like a summer's afternoon?
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[Intentionally Wrong]

Obligatory Mario Sunshine mention.

[Harveyjames]

I remember Nintendo saying 'we decided to release Mario Sunshine in summer because it is hot and this game has sunshine in it!!' or something and I remember thinking 'that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard'. First, no-one wants to sit indoors playing games when it's sunny out, especially not Mario fucking Sunshine. Second, shut up. Third, games are bought and played all through the year regardless of their release date so tailoring it to be played only in one season is dumb unless it's Oh No Christmas Lemmings. Fourth, shut up. Fifth suck my balls.

Not to dump on your thread, Dessgeega, which is about something completely different (people's seasonal playing habits ). Um. I played a lot of Super Mario Bros 3 around Christmas. I think you tend to play more round Christmas/holiday season because more people are indoors and there's more people with whom you want to spend time with and bond with but don't necessarily want to have to talk to.

Derailing the topic slightly, I don't play a lot of games now. I seem to watch a lot of films, though. When games start giving me a reason to play them, I'll play them, but the medium (unlike film) has only really just started realizing its potential and the people in charge, making the games and buying the games are so dumb and boring it's going to take like 30 years before good games actually start getting made in earnest. If more games were good I'm sure I'd play them all the time! Byeeee!

[Cycle]

California Games was always a good summer game. Also, Summer Games.
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[Harveyjames]

Also, what Cycle said.

[ryan]

It's so damn hot over here that I'll play nearly anything to stay out of the heat. No Mario Sunshine though. Weird.

During summer I tend to pick strategy games that I enjoyed earlier in the year and ride those out until other titles come along, due to the normal drought. Nothing specific, just old stand-bys like the Age of Empires and Total War series.

Mario Kart definitely makes me think of summer though. I played it constantly with a friend for the first few summers after it was released. I think all but two courses are outside, so I'm sure that doesn't hurt. Although I do enjoy the image of grass flickering under the tires, and I'm fairly sure I had that in mind when I puttered around in my go-cart as a kid.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Ethoscapade]

wasn't going to post here but after the above poster mentioned mario kart i realized i had some of the same memories of mario kart 64, which, um, pretty much delegates this discussion to someplace beneath aesthetics; most of my nostalgia has absolutely nothing to do with whether a game is intended as the "summertime" sort or no.

[helicopterp]

This thread seems to have drifted from metaphor to memory, with a strange bit of spite thrown in courtesy of Harveyjames. So I'm going to knock it back to its roots, I hope.

Excitebike 64 feels like summer to me. Everything in that game plays at a fever pitch--the bikes are loud, they get big air, they crash fantastically; the tracks are replete with scenery, changes in elevation, and stunning shortcuts--the game mechanics are persistently verdant in that sense. And maybe something about the racing genre generally screams summer, evoking memories of silly, arbitrary contests that go with the season.


More in line with what the others have posted: I didn't get a real video game system--I don't count my dusty Game Gear--until I was 13 years old. My family lived (and still does) in the suburbs of Atlanta, but my mom worked in the city. During a few summers, when I was out of school, everyday my mom would take me to my cousins' house near where she worked, and you had better believe they had all the nintendos. Back then, I hated Zelda--I have no idea which one, but probably all of them--because it was such a single player game, and if I tried to watch I would have to hear that low, minor dungeon music over and over and over again while watching Link go back and forth across all the same fucking rooms he had already visited 20 times. But Super Mario Kart and Super Mario 64 enthralled me (the latter still does in a way that I'm not sure another game ever will). It probably wasn't more than a couple of weeks, but it felt like an eternity when my cousin and I played Mario Kart every day for hours to try to keep Luigi from winning the Donut Plains 1 race on 150cc. And playing Rainbow Road for the first time was such a moment of awe! What a weird, dangerous course! Then a couple summers later we played Mario 64, passing the controller back and forth each time one of us died or got a gold star, trying to figure out how to do that tricky wall-jump, or just shooting ourselves out of the cannons in the first level with the Wing Cap on.

So, summer!
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[SuperWes]

I don't know about seasons, but Easter for me means Metroid. I beat the original Metroid for the first time on Easter day back in the day and from then on I somehow end up playing Metroid games around Easter time.

Also DOA Volleyball is a good summer game.

-Wes
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[dhex]

It's so hot during the summer that i generally don't play many games for fear of overheating the 'puter. Though some late night gaming sessions (headphones, side of case removed) are fun, especially anything dark and dreary and 3D-ish (fear, etc).
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[B coma]

Fall/Winter is a good time for apocalyptic titles. Panzer Dragoon Zwei's cold landscapes and warm colors suit fall, I think.

MGS 2 for the hazy, orange dog days of summer.

I tend to associate Kirby pretty exclusively with bright, happy seasons. Though hey, I live in California and it's bright here year round.

[Scratchmonkey]

Spring - Katamari Damacy
Summer - Outrun 2
Fall - Silent Hill
Winter - Metroid

[Mr Mustache]

Banjo Kazooie seems quite Summery to me; light, leisurely, generally pleasant. In fact a large number of n64 games feel Summery to me...maybe because they are hazy.

(Golden Eye, Perfect Dark and Conker's BFD are definitely winter games though)
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Straight up

[fish]

i associate playing a small toy guitar with the holidays/winter.
because thats when new small toy guitars are released, and everybody buys them, and it becomes impossible for any kind of gathering not to degenerate into an orgy of small toy guitars. and there are a lot of gatherings around that time of year.

that said, i am more excited about rock band now, than i was about x-mas when i was 6. i didnt start freaking out about x-mas 6 months early, when i was 6.
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you cant spell selfish without fish

[wourme]

First titles that come to mind, not necessarily for conscious reasons:

Spring: Klonoa
Summer: Destiny of an Emperor
Fall: Faxanadu
Winter: Secret of Mana

[Pijaibros]

[seryogin]

I don't know if anyone still remembers Squaresoft's "Summer of Adventure."

For me, summers have always been about playing Japanese RPGs. In fact, the previous summer was the first time that I can remember in which I did not play an RPG at all. Actually, I don't recall playing games at all during the last summer and that makes me sad in some ways. The summer before that I had played Skies of Arcadia to completion.

On the plus side, I was leading a wicked social life.

In general, I think JRPGs make great spring/summer games because of the wild, hopeful optimism that they inspire. Since summer's used to be about going on vacations, RPGs used to provide the perfect way to fake adventure in my heart.

Godamn, it sure does hurt to remember those days.
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[AJ 187]

Donkey Kong Country's always been a winter game to me. I assume it has something to do with the snow levels. Otherwise, the game seems summer-like. :s

[Ethoscapade]

nostalgia really is getting violent; it's incredible. of course games can't be separated from that for a minute.

every summer since the game's release, i played through final fantasy tactics with a friend of mine. this is the first time i'm playing it alone in almost ten years, right now.

[Mister Toups]

You know, come to think of it... I generally have the most interest in gaming during the fall.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Pijaibros]

I tend to make the time for RPGs in the winter.

I have this weird condition in where I am unable to play fighters, shooters or any twitchy games if my hands become cold. It's like I'm paralyzed. Unlike RPGs where I don't really have to pay attention to what I'm doing since things are usually a slow enough pace to not get killed.

[dark steve]

[Intentionally Wrong]

Forgive me for being so simple that a game set on a tropical island should succeed at suggesting summertime for me.

Perhaps I just have a poor sense of the seasons.

[helicopterp]

Well, you see, the Isle of Delfino was probably in the Equatorial expanses of the mushroom kingdom, so that kind of setting could occur year round, rendering the idea of summer there so constant as to be useless. It should bear the subtitle "SimAruba."

This would obviously lead to a painful discussion of the semi-Aruban stereotypes presented in Mario Sunshine as multi-colored humanoids with big noses, no mouths, a propensity for mumbling, and improper island administration.

Obviously,though, you should be placed in the remedial videogame climate and geography courses. You probably don't need to suck HarveyJames's balls, though.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Intentionally Wrong]

Maybe so. Where I'm from, though, the only time one would travel to Aruba is during the summer. So!

[elvis.shrugged]

FFVII, Outrun 2/2006 and Sonic 3 and Knuckles are my summer games, basically.

[purplechair]

SSX is totally a winter game for me, for obvious reasons. Snowy games are a lot more fun to get into when it's freezing cold out and you have the sensation of frosty skin still in your memory.

I dunno about summer games. The only one I can really think of is DoA Beach Volleyball, for obvious reasons. Nice-u spike-u!

[antitype]

Agreeing with Toups that fall is pretty much the best season for videogames, and not only because that's when all the best/biggest titles are usually released. I guess fall is pretty much the best season for everything. Summer is pretty close, though!

Spring
Ico, Katamari Damacy

Summer
God Hand, Killer 7 (summer at night), Jet Set Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Earthbound

Fall
Shadow of the Colossus, RE4, Half-Life 2, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Link's Awakening (monochrome)

Winter
D2
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antitype.livejournal.com | last.fm

[simplicio]

Spring: Cubivore (and attracts 2 females...)
Summer: Sky Gunner
Fall: Ogre Battle
Winter: DEFCON Christmas Mod
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[Redeye]