Growing up meant summers spent outside for me. Long days locked outside with no hope of returning home until the sun fell and my parents called us for dinner.

There are, perhaps, few more disconsonant scenes than of the austere silence of the library and the boisterous play of video games, but a growing movement is starting to put the two under one roof.

It may be the Summer of Gaming here at Kotaku, but for many Brooklyn neighborhoods, the season's long, hot days mean just one thing: weeks of non-stop band shows. No, not Rock Band — real bands. Is there common ground?

I have a thing for playing outside. There, I said it. That's why I created a half-dozen video-game inspired games for kids to play outdoors.

I also secretly hoped that it might inspire others, people who actually know what they're doing, to do the same.

Get up off your ass. Move, move, move. It's summertime! No need to go outside. Video games can help you become active and maybe even lose weight. This is hardly new, but have we reached saturation?

We've spent this month talking about the confluence of summer and gaming, from summer blockbusters to beach arcades, summer reading to video-game-inspired outdoor play.

We took a look yesterday at the games based on Summer's biggest blockbuster movies. Today, let's switch things up, and look at the games inspired by the movies.

Summer means sun. Weeks off school, days off work, Coronas under a palm tree as a sea breeze washes over you. But it also means it's time for Hollywood's big shebang: the summer blockbusters.

The video game industry has longed enjoyed riding on the coattails of Hollywood, turning summer blockbuster films into what should be easily profitable video game adaptations. But things don't always turn out as planned.

1975, Jaws — "It was the Village East theater in Birmingham, Alabama. And we rode in my sister's husband's Trans Am…I have certain flashes of scenes, like the scene where Roy Scheider pulls the license plate out of the stomach of the shark. I remember that. They're just flashes. I remember it being very scary. My…

July is the time for snooty summer reading lists (not ours) and cocktail party chatter about reading them. The time when certain magazines and certain readers just lord their oh-so-fulfilling summer over your shiftless vacation.

What do you think of when you imagine going to the beach on a hot summer day? Sunblock, towels, bikinis maybe? Not me. I think about Galaga.

When I graduated from High School I didn't do anything worthy of compliment or insult, not true of our favorite video game characters.

Swimming is something you and I can probably do — and will do more this summer. But swimming has long been an ability less common to video game characters than running, jumping or shooting shotguns. I asked top developers why.

Summertime is here, and it's time to hit the beach, splash in the waves, and bask in the sun with a little ultra-portable gaming, courtesy of Kotaku's 2009 Summer Reading List.

In Seek 'n Spell you use the iPhone 3G's built in GPS to run around the real world gathering letters that you can use to score points with big words you spell out.

With the year half over and the northern hemisphere's summer in full swing, it's time for vacations, long-lazy days of hanging out, and the great outdoors.