Maybe it's this summer's maddening heat causing my brain to act up, but I couldn't help but reminisce about the tropical beach vibe emanating from so many games from the early aughties. You might not remember, but you'll thank me for reminding you, because it was the best.
The knee-jerk reaction might be to think that late '90s or early '00s video games didn't invent tropical beaches, and that's true. Having a game set on a tropical beach is almost like a cheat code, one that immediately has our brains associating it with fun times, even if the game itself fails to live up to its looks. Still, these early tropical beaches usually existed in games about beach sports like Wave Race, the jet ski levels from Crash Bandicoot 3, or games about driving in Miami, like OutRun. These are successful series, albeit niche ones. It was only when the PlayStation 2 generation arrived that we began to witness the full-scale invasion of the tropical beach in video games.
