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Ep. 07
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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