<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too hot to play video games.<\/p>\n
But perhaps you want to try anyway.<\/p>\n
May I recommend, then, a nice cold<\/em> video game? Something frosty, chilly, that will invoke thoughts of snow, fresh cool water, and air conditioning? Maybe one that you could serve in a glass with some ice?<\/p>\n Well, I\u2019d be delighted. Here, take a look at our menu. I make no promises about anything in any of these games, except that they will be very, very cold. Enjoy as much as you like, as many as you like. Just don\u2019t get a brain freeze:<\/p>\n \u00a9 Tokyo RPG Factory <\/p>\n PS Vita, PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch<\/em><\/p>\n An RPG intended to invoke Chrono Trigger<\/em> nostalgia that happens to take place in a world where it\u2019s always snowing everywhere. Literally the entire game is in a fantasy snow world. While this does not make for a whole lot of location variety, it does make for a very chilly experience.<\/p>\n PS2, GameCube, Xbox, GameBoy Advance<\/em><\/p>\n Tough to play if you don\u2019t own an older system and a physical copy, but if you have one sitting around, maybe it\u2019s time to dig it out. It\u2019s a snowboarding game all about doing sick tricks while sliding down snow-covered mountains. And it has a sick theme song. Very cool.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Capcom <\/p>\n PC, PS3, Xbox 360<\/em><\/p>\n There are several of these third-person shooter adventure Lost Planet<\/em> games, and they all take place on a planet in the middle of an ice age, so you\u2019re guaranteed some good frost whichever one you pick up. Helpfully, all three games are on the same three systems, so it\u2019s a bit easier to access the others if you liked one of them.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Ubisoft <\/p>\n PC, PS4, Xbox One<\/em><\/p>\n This wildly popular, decade-old shooter is still enjoyed by lots of people; there are hundreds of players on Steam alone right now. Its multiplayer elements are the most popular, of course, and you\u2019ll have to have online connectivity to play, but that\u2019s good news if your friends also want to beat the heat. The Division<\/em> takes place in a snow-covered Manhattan right on the cusp of the holiday season, though given the in-game epidemic and resulting mass chaos I\u2019m not sure you\u2019ll be able to do much in the way of caroling or shopping. But at least it\u2019ll be chilly out.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Bethesda <\/p>\n It\u2019d be easier to list the consoles you can\u2019t play it on<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s Skyrim<\/em>! The hit action RPG that\u2019s on basically every platform ever and is, helpfully, very, very cold as long as you stay outdoors instead of inside one of its many cozy taverns. You can embrace the power that comes from being a Dragonborn, join the mage college, steal stuff, hunt for ancient artifacts or, like me, wander aimlessly through snowy forests, icy caves, and blizzard-covered peaks, fighting off wolves, picking lavender, and just enjoying the experience of existing in a wintery, mountainous, magical world.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Saber Interactive <\/p>\n PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2<\/em><\/p>\n Snow\u2019s in the name, so you know it\u2019s gotta be cold. If you\u2019d rather move a little more expeditiously through the world than on foot as the Dragonborn, you can hop in a big ol\u2019 truck and barrel your way through giant piles of snow in vast, chilly regions from all over the world. Like its less snowy kindred, SnowRunner<\/em> is best-known for having incredible terrain simulation. It\u2019s perfect if you don\u2019t want just any ol\u2019 snow, but are invested in realistic, textured snow that cakes up your wheels and shovels into big ol\u2019 piles and makes a giant mess on the side of the road.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Draknek & Friends <\/p>\n PC, mobile, Nintendo Switch<\/em><\/p>\n Another game about moving snow around, but uh, significantly simpler than SnowRunner<\/em>. A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build<\/em> is a puzzle about building a good snowman by rolling up balls of snow around obstacles in little hedge mazes. The only bad thing about trying to play this game in the summer is that its price on itch.io is tied directly to the weather in London. At the time I\u2019m writing this, it\u2019s $21.20, because it\u2019s very hot there. If you buy this in the coldest parts of winter, it can get down to single digit prices, or even be free.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Timberline Studio <\/p>\n Nintendo Switch, PC<\/em><\/p>\n The Red Lantern<\/em> is not just a cold game, it\u2019s also got dogs in it. It\u2019s about being a musher and driving a dog sledding team across Alaska, which means sledding across a lot of cold, snowy places. Giant ice lakes, frosty deep pine forests, dogs in little snow booties! Unfortunately for the musher, the cold is actively an obstacle. Fortunately for you, it\u2019s 100 degrees out or something, and the cold can\u2019t stop you.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Nintendo <\/p>\n GameCube, Nintendo Switch<\/em><\/p>\n Wait, Reb, why is Sunshine<\/em> on here?, you might ask. This is a decidedly hot<\/em> game, not a\u00a0cold<\/em> game, you say. Well, you are correct! But I include Super Mario Sunshine<\/em> here because it is a wonderful game of\u00a0contrasts.<\/em> Developer Bennett Foddy pointed this out to me recently in a conversation we had about this very game. Super Mario Sunshine<\/em> is great at depicting hotness, because it\u2019s so great at depicting\u00a0coolness:\u00a0<\/em>the refreshing clear ocean water, the canals, the sprinklers, the fountains, FLUDD, all of it just feels so refreshing, in contrast to the incredible heat of the game. So if you\u2019re willing to stomach just a liiiiittle more sunshine, you can join Mario and beat the heat by getting soaked. Figuratively. I mean, I guess you can play this while sitting in a sprinkler or something. I won\u2019t tell you what to do with yourself when it\u2019s this hot out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s too hot to play video games. But perhaps you want to try anyway. May I recommend, then, a nice cold video game? Something frosty, chilly, that will invoke thoughts of snow, fresh cool water, and air conditioning? Maybe one that you could serve in a glass with some ice? Well, I\u2019d be delighted. Here,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[77,8976,8975,8974,4661,5557,205],"class_list":{"0":"post-9678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news","8":"tag-games","9":"tag-heat","10":"tag-icecold","11":"tag-perfectly","12":"tag-summer","13":"tag-survive","14":"tag-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}I Am Setsuna<\/em><\/h3>\n
SSX Tricky<\/em><\/h3>\n
Lost Planet 3<\/em><\/h3>\n
Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division<\/em><\/h3>\n
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim<\/em><\/h3>\n
SnowRunner<\/em><\/h3>\n
A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build<\/em><\/h3>\n
The Red Lantern<\/em><\/h3>\n
Super Mario Sunshine<\/em><\/h3>\n