It’s the middle of the summer, just after E3, which of course means that video game news has largely slowed to a halt again. Things will pick up after a few weeks, I’m sure, but until then, expect lots of editorials and questions about your lives as awesome gamers.
As many of you are no doubt on summer break, I wanted to talk a little about summer gaming. When I was younger, I remember several days in the summer months where I would just get up and play the NES or Sega Genesis all day long, walking to Blockbuster to rent games and then promptly dispatching them as soon as I got home. It was a glorious schedule, and one I long for again. I think my favorite summer gaming memory, though, comes from the summer of 1997, when Star Fox 64 came out. I remember walking to the GamePower, a local video game shop, trading in several video games and then running back home with a copy of the game in my hand. I then beat the game in one sitting, and my brother and I played multiplayer matches with our friends nearly all night.
Man, that just made me crazy nostalgic. What about you guys? What are some of your favorite summer gaming memories?
Probably when my cousins and I played the N64. Goldeneye and Diddy Kong Racing dominated much sunshine hours, but by god was it worth that vampiric complexion.
Playing Dark Alliance with my brother, Half Life on my PS2, Mark of Kri, Resident Evil 4…
All time fave was playing FF VI with my buddy in 8th grade. Was much fun.
Maybe I am just younger than all of you but my favorite memory is definitely the level grinding of POKEMON YERROW!!!!!!!!
Probably staying up until 4 or 5 am playing Counter-Strike, meeting some of my to-this-day eFriends, and even some current business connections.
Also, Grind Session on PlayStation with my best friend 8 (or whatever) years ago. Real skateboarding during the day, Grind Session at night.
Holding off hordes of zombies in Left 4 Dead. In particular, it was on Death Toll on Expert, and we were in the boathouse. Francis had been incapped downstairs and Bill was getting rushed below me and Zoey. Me and mah grrl jumped down from the balcony and let em have it, then I gave Bill mah peelz and helped Francis up, and just as he’s up another wave swarms through the windows. Zoey is shotgunning a path upstairs while the three dudes blast away the zombies and Bill chucks a pipe bomb to divert them. Just as we reach the top floor and gain a moment of respite, a smoker snags me and a Tank is inbound. Zoey blows the smoker to Kingdom Come and Bill hops on the minigun while Francis finishes healing up. Zoey and I get behind Bill and we let the Tank eat lead as he charges at us. He hulks up a big rock so we get back, and as soon as we approach the balcony edge again, the Tank is running up the stairs. I chuck a molly I had picked up and we run like hell into the room and down the stairs. Francis had made his way downstairs by them and grabs an auto-shotgun, and as we pass with the Tank on fire and a hair away from smashing our organs, Francis empties the magazine into the Tank while backpedaling. The Tank is in pummeling range and cocks his massive fist back for a deadly blow, when Francis fires the tenth shell into the Tank’s tongue and the Tank falls to the ground in a burning heap. The boat announces its at the dock, so Zoey throws her pipe bomb to cover our escape and he reach the dock. Just as we make it on the deck and the ship is pulling up, a smoker snags Francis off the side of the deck, a hunter pounces Zoey, and a Boomer pukes on Bill, who’s low on health and lagging behind. It’s just me, my clear vision, and my M16. I punch the hunter off of Zoey and fire a burst into the hunter’s skull, turn left to see the smoker’s menacing green haze, take a knee and a moment to aim, and pierce the smoker’s head with a burst, setting Francis free, and help Francis fight off the horde that’s swelling around him. The puke on Bill gives Francis some breathing room to get back on the deck and he gets back to us, and as soon as he’s a few feet from us, a Tank comes barreling through, smashing zombies out of the way so he can get to us. I fire my freshly-reloading rifle into the beast, Bill retreats onto the ship, and Zoey blasts away her last few shells. Francis gets thrusted back, and flies into the boat’s invisible wall, and just as the Tank’s getting ready to punch me, too, I furiously shove the zombies around me and hop nimbly onto the ship. The screen clips to the ship pulling away to safety, and I let out a loud sigh of relief. A second later, the refreshing “boo-dink!” of the achievement pops at the bottom of my screen and a satisfied grin stretches across my face as my teammates shout and hoot and laugh as we’ve completed the campaign.
Oooh, good times. But seriously, any time in L4D when me and my team have set up even a makeshift defensive line and fight of hordes and adapt swiftly and overcome daunting odds, I remember why I love the game so much.
Mario on the original GameBoy riding to the beach; Twisted Metal 2 with my cousins…waves of nostalgia wash over me writing this. So worth it =D
My friends and i were always so addicted to SSBM… one of my friends we called a pro because he was the only one who could wavedash.
My favorite memorys have to be this summer where my other friend and i have played Left 4 Dead 2 over and over. And we’re still trying to get synergy(the co op half life 2 mod) to work so we can play together.
There was one summer, between 7th and 8th grade so ’92, my friend and I would ride our bikes to the beach everyday, about a 45 minute ride. Afterwards, we would ride back and play Street Fighter II on his SNES. He was always much better than me (he’s actually very recently been ranked 56th in the US on Xbox 360 leaderboards for SSFIV), but I still loved playing, and rubbed it in whenever I won.
I remember sitting down one day and playing EVE Online nonstop while watching Tour De France coverage. That was a good day.
Last summer left me with some of my best gaming memories of my life. First of all I had played about 100 hours of armed assault 2 within 2 weeks of owning it because I enjoyed its realism so much. That same summer though was when I built my first PC, “The Monolith” which got me playing games I could not run on my old machine opening a ton of new possibilities in my PC gaming. Also many years back my best friend and I would repeatedly play through the co-op campaign of MoH Rising Sun, which was also one of the first shooter games that I had ever played.