I was born in the UK and have lived here all my life, but I have never really managed to adapt to the climate.
Most of the year is spent in a gray and perennially cold climate, often accompanied by a light drizzle. The sun is simply known as a stranger in a foreign land visiting us during the summer, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. I wake up, day after day, to an ashen hue outside the window, and I try to keep warm by wrapping myself under a duvet that I pull up to my chin. Even when it is warm inside, it is still painful to look out that window at the gray world, and it becomes especially eerie in the fall, when darkness sets in as early as five in the afternoon and soggy leaves and mud cover the sidewalks.
But when it’s really warm and sunny, the feeling is almost indescribable. Life suddenly feels more exciting, the outside world is something to be savoured rather than avoided. I feel like my body draws some power from the sun, like Superman. After a particularly unpleasant trip to the dentist last summer, I remember coming home and soaking up the sunshine and the warmth that enveloped my skin. It was truly therapeutic. Unlike autumn – or any other season for that matter – I could walk down the street in the evening and it was still bright and warm. The weather can be deceiving here, mind you. I vividly remember one unusually sunny day when I was so excited to get outside because of the weather that I started listening to the Beatles’ cheerful “Here Comes the Sun” as I prepared to leave the house. Just as I was ready, the rain started to fall. There goes the sun.
As technology has advanced and another volatile summer looms, I sometimes wonder if games can fully capture that invigorating feeling in lieu of reality. One of the few times I felt like a game came close was when I played Alba: A Wildlife Adventure. You play as Alba, a little girl who visits a Mediterranean island to see her grandparents. She sets out to explore the island, taking pictures of animals, and chatting with the people who live nearby. The game strikes a wonderful balance between abstraction and realism; the soft visuals aren't meant to mimic reality like many big games, and yet there's something very grounded in reality, which you can see in the little details like the purple flowers growing on the side of a building, or an old man sitting in the shade of a tree as he stares into the distance.
There's a cartoon feel to it: everything is warm, idealistic and cheerful, with people eager to help you. That feeling of joy and excitement I get when I'm out walking on a beautiful day is communicated by imbuing it in the characters as well as the landscape, the bright weather reflecting with a kind of brightness in the soul, and it captures the look of summer, but also the feeling it gives. It's the only game I've played where picking up trash to put in the trash is enjoyable. The developers, Ustwo Games, wanted to revisit the summers of their childhoodand Alba was their way of trying to get back to those better days. The game island is, as they note on their site, “the next best thing” to going back.
I have such a love for the sun that it recently convinced me to play a game I wouldn't normally play: Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I'm not really interested in playing an assassin in video games; to be honest, I'd rather be almost anything else. Odyssey, however, caught my attention when I saw images and pictures of its green, sunny world. What a beautiful game.
As either Kassandra or Alexios, the story (from what I’ve played so far) focuses on your attempts to work as a mercenary while digging into your character’s family issues. But what really strikes me are the visuals of the world. While Alba aims for abstraction, Ubisoft has focused on realism to stunning effect. The aquamarine blue of the sea is impossible to resist, and I often jump through the foaming shallows before swimming. I float slowly through the water, and when I position my camera above it, I see an undulating impressionistic canvas of emerald sea, yellow sand, and dark stone. I’m in the middle of a Monet painting. When I emerge back onto the beach, my skin is glistening. My character strolls nonchalantly in baggy, short clothing, letting the sun rest on her calves and forearms. Wearing so few layers is something I would almost never dare to do in London. I only venture out without a jacket a few times a year, if not less.
Ubisoft's Discovery Tour mode, offered as a standalone product for teachers and students, is meant for education, but I also see it as a way to quietly discover the appeal of the world. The odyssey of this game is not in the killing and death, but in the beauty of the place; it's the romance behind the bloodshed.
I don't know if romantics like John Keats, who loved nature, would have appreciated the idea of a simulation of it, but I certainly think so. Games are always concerned about the accuracy of their simulation. One of the obstacles they face is the obvious fact that a player can't actually feel the heat of a summer's day. an intriguing patent comes along that might make the controllers actually hot to the touch. It's probably a bit unnecessary. What the games offer, beyond a literal recreation, is a nice reminder of that feeling and that reality. When you live here in London, you cherish those memories even more.
As I write this, August has just arrived. There’s one more month of summer, and then a return to a cold, pale grey world, with t-shirts under jumpers under coats and hoods ready in case of rain. I think I’ll continue to play both Odyssey and Alba to console myself from the misery that lies ahead. There are, of course, other games that the weather suddenly brings into new context. In a conversation on this topic, Chris Tapsell told me about Mario Sunshine – but also about the decidedly grittier game Grand Theft Auto 5. GTA is a series I wouldn't normally play, but, like Odyssey, I'm learning to keep an open mind. The games may not feel like a return to the real summer days, but, as the developers at Ustwo say, they may be the next best thing.
