The Game Boy landed in America on July 31, 1989, and it was the first console that did not care where your television was. Backseat, pool bag, porch, tent. So the last list of the summer run has a different rule: these are the games that went WITH you. The cartridge that was actually in the bag when you left the house.

Tetris is number one and it is not close, because the pack-in was the smartest decision Nintendo ever made and even my stepdad played it. Link’s Awakening is the vacation game, an island you cannot leave on a machine built to go anywhere. Pokemon Red and Blue turned a solitary machine into a social event, and the first real Pokemon summer was 1999, a Link Cable stretched across somebody’s porch. Metroid II is the night game, played under the covers with a flashlight. The full ranked ten is on the site as an immersive scrolling feature. Go argue with it.

Also this week: Sony’s PS5 disc deadline and why a Game-Key Card is a license in a box, the Video Game History Foundation’s free E3 archive, MiSTer booting original discs, and This Week in POCG History from July 1998 and 1999, when one shooter demo ate our entire front page.

That closes the summer. August is two halves: PC and The Beige Years first, then 16-Bit August.

Playing Out of Control Gaming. Retro and classic game reviews, PC to Nintendo, every system. Since 1998. No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

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(0:00) Cold Open · (1:59) The News · (11:15) This Week in POCG History · (13:17) The Game Boy Summer Ten · (25:53) Your Question

Everything is at https://pocg.net The full ranked ten: https://pocg.net/editorial/game-boy-summer-games/ Last week: The Ten N64 Games That Play Like Summer: https://pocg.net/editorial/n64-summer-games/ The SNES list that started the rule: https://pocg.net/editorial/snes-summer-games/ The Guides section (six live, no affiliate money): https://pocg.net/guides/ The Restoration Project: https://pocg.net/restoration/

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The Nintendo 64 turned thirty this summer, and it came out of the box built for a room full of people: four controller ports, standard, right on the front. This week’s feature ranks the ten N64 games that actually play like summer, two ways at once — the vibe of the season, and the four-player couch that WAS the season.

Last week’s rule holds: a summer game plays like summer, the release calendar does not get a vote. Wave Race 64 leads, because nothing on the machine says beach like that water. Super Mario 64 is the birthday game. GoldenEye earns number three without a grain of sand in it, on pure couch memory and the friend who always picked Oddjob. Pilotwings 64 closes the list. And the hardest cut is the one you think it is.

In the news: the Zool N64 monster-tamer gets an English fan translation, God of War is confirmed for a physical disc as Sony sets 2028 to end new PlayStation disc production, Compulsion Games goes independent, Glen Schofield retires after 35 years, and a homebrew developer brings Super Monkey Ball home to the Dreamcast 25 years late. Plus Reggie Fils-Aime’s Disrupting the Game gets an Off the Shelf / On the Shelf verdict.

Nintendo Month rolls on: SNES last week, the N64 this week, the Game Boy next week to close out July.

The full ranked ten is on the site as an immersive scrolling feature: https://pocg.net/editorial/n64-summer-games/

More at https://pocg.net · Forum: https://forum.pocg.net

Playing Out of Control Gaming. Retro and classic game reviews, PC to Nintendo, since 1998. No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

Everything is at https://pocg.net The full ranked ten: https://pocg.net/editorial/game-boy-summer-games/ Last week: The Ten N64 Games That Play Like Summer: https://pocg.net/editorial/n64-summer-games/ The SNES list that started the rule: https://pocg.net/editorial/snes-summer-games/ The Guides section (six live, no affiliate money): https://pocg.net/guides/ The Restoration Project: https://pocg.net/restoration/

FOLLOW POCG YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Pocgnet The Forum: https://forum.pocg.net Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/pocgnet.bsky.social Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@pocg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playingoutofcontrolgaming/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlayingOutofControlGaming Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pocg/ The feed is always on.

School’s out, the pool’s open, and I made a list: the ten Super Nintendo games that actually play like summer. One rule, and I am holding myself to it: the release calendar does not get a vote. A summer game FEELS like summer. The beach, the backyard, the road trip, nowhere to be.

Donkey Kong Country leads, because Aquatic Ambience sounds like warm water and David Wise built it on hardware that had no business doing it. EarthBound is the great American road trip. Zombies Ate My Neighbors is the sleeper, the summer movie marathon in cartridge form. Super Mario Kart, Yoshi’s Island, Secret of Mana, Harvest Moon and more fill it out, and some very famous cartridges did not make the cut. The full ranked ten is on the site. Go argue with it.

Nintendo Month starts here: SNES this week, the N64’s 30th summer next week, Game Boy to close July. Plus a new segment, What It Plays: the ANBERNIC RG CubeXX, the $60 square-screen handheld whose comfort zone covers every game on this list. Bought with my own money, no affiliate links, full review on the site.

In the news: Nintendo Month opens with an ending. The original Switch gets a European end date under the EU’s new battery rules, Mario Kart Tour and FFVII Ever Crisis get shutdown dates, the world’s largest public game archive loses its funding in Germany, and Xbox cuts 3,200 jobs while John Carmack says his old faith in Microsoft “isn’t aging well.”

Playing Out of Control Gaming. Retro and classic game reviews, PC to Nintendo, every system. Since 1998. No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

More at pocg.net. The forum is open at forum.pocg.net. Follow on YouTube (@Pocgnet), Bluesky (@pocgnet.bsky.social), Mastodon (@pocg@mastodon.social), Instagram (@playingoutofcontrolgaming), Facebook (Playing Out of Control Gaming), and Reddit (r/pocg).

(0:00) Cold Open · (1:32) The News · (14:47) This Month in POCG History · (17:15) What It Plays: RG CubeXX · (22:35) The SNES Summer Ten · (34:10) Your Question

Everything is at https://pocg.net The full ranked ten: https://pocg.net/editorial/game-boy-summer-games/ Last week: The Ten N64 Games That Play Like Summer: https://pocg.net/editorial/n64-summer-games/ The SNES list that started the rule: https://pocg.net/editorial/snes-summer-games/ The Guides section (six live, no affiliate money): https://pocg.net/guides/ The Restoration Project: https://pocg.net/restoration/

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