Summers in Georgia are miserable. Until you’ve been outside, in the sun, with 100% humidity and a temperature approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, you don’t realize how much your body can sweat.
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to beat the heat and enjoy video games at the same time. Besides — you know — just sitting in your living room all afternoon drinking Dr. Pepper while playing Call of Duty.
…which is awesome, too.
Summer Activity #1: Go to a Gaming Bar
This image is from Battle and Brew, one of Atlanta’s best.
Gaming bars are great because they bring together several of the best things in the world. Play video games and go out with your friends to a bar? No more internal debate going on.
Every bar is a little different, just like “regular” bars. For example, some will just have old retro games, like old arcades or pinball machines. Others will be a bit more high-tech with modern, fancy games that cost you a whole paycheck to play for 30 minutes.
Or you can go to my favorite — the ones with consoles or PCs that you can play. These usually work by paying a fee to rent the systems and games per hour.
These bars will often host tournaments for games like Hearthstone or Call of Duty, which is something to experience if you’ve never been before.
The best way to find a few local gaming bars is to just search in Google. For example, if I search for “Atlanta gaming bar,” it brings up several places I can wet my whistle while meeting new gamer friends at the same time.
Summer Activity #2: Go Outside!
Outdoor movie screens used to be hard to come by, but they’re a lot more common now. They’re fairly inexpensive considering what you get for your money.
Why not set one up outside and set up your console to the projector? This gives you the best of both worlds — you get a little fresh air and get to participate in the best hobby ever.
Of course, I dunno if I’d do this next to the pool. Watching a movie while swimming is one thing, but playing with an electronic device (i.e. the controller) while in the water is a bad idea.
Summer Activity #3: Play in the Snow
When it’s mid-winter and you’re tired of wearing 5 layers all the time, you can’t wait for summer to come.
…but by mid-summer, the idea of having tons of snow on the ground sounds pretty dang good.
One way to help you get your mind off the heat and back into the winter mindset is a game with tons of snow in it. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, certain Minecraft seeds, or even a snowboarding game like the old school 1080 Snowboarding are good options.
On the flip side, maybe you can get a game about summer sports Wii Sports Resort. This lets you experience all the fun things about the summer — from jet skiing to playing Frisbee on the beach — without actually fighting the heat, sand or dodging boats.
Summer Activity #4: The All-Day Tournament
One thing my friends and I used to do during the summer was alternate between activities.
For example, we’d go outside and play basketball for an hour. After playing in the Georgia summer heat for that long, we’d be ready for a break and head inside. We’d load up Goldeneye 007 or NFL Blitz and go to town.
By the time our body temperatures had reached safe levels again, someone had inevitably rage quit the video game. Then it was time to head back outside for something else, like going to the pool or playing roller hockey on the street.
…yeah, we were smart.
Anyways, you can do the same thing. Create a day-long tournament of going back and forth from video games to outdoor activities.
Summer Activity #5: Go LARPING!
LARPing stands for Live Action Roleplaying. The idea is that you dress up in your favorite gear and roleplay as whatever you’re dressed up as.
For example, maybe you can wear robes and carry a mace, calling yourself a priest that heals people. Or you can don some fur armor and a giant two-handed sword to roleplay as the barbarian that just charges into battle.
People will LARP in different ways — sometimes it will be more of a sci-fi theme, but usually it seems to be a medieval/fantasy theme.A great place to learn more about LARPing is the official website.
If you want to just get started, you can search Google for your city + LARP to find local games. For example, when I Google’d “Atlanta LARP,” it brought up a game called Dust to Dust that has a fantasy/medieval theme.
What activities are you planning to do this summer? Let me know down in the comments!
