California Games - From Top 2 Bottom

The focus was on quality, originality, and replayability…

California Games is what you can call a true classic and for many it quickly became the most popular multievent type of game for years to come, yes it only had six events but every one of them was crafted with love and could have easily been turned into full-blown games at the time.

Epyx hired several game designers and coders to create their own unique events, likely contributing to the fresh feel of each activity.

What made it so good then?

Skateboarding, BMX, Hacky Sack, Rollerblades, Surfing, and Frisbee are what made it so great in my opinion. All the events were so unique compared to anything else on the market at the time, enticing us to keep playing. The fresh, top-notch presentation made it an instant hit.

Everyone had a chance with the first game—it was easy to play but hard to master. The intuitive design made it possible to improve, even if you weren’t generally good at games.

I don’t know when Epyx realized they had a hit on their hands, but I’ll never forget the first time I saw this game (on the C64, at a friend’s house). I was completely blown away by everything—the graphics, the music, and the playability were unlike anything I had seen in a game before. Plus, the ability to save high scores was a huge win; nothing beats knocking my family and friends off the leaderboards.

My Fave California Games box, that said – most US Epyx game boxes rock my world!…

The US box of the Amiga version is one of my 3 versions, normally I would include all in the post but I am actually doing this blog while on my summer vacation and for some reason I can’t find the box shots of the other versions on my cloud…

I AM NUMBER ONE…

I practically begged to borrow the game but was turned down. Eventually, we managed to get a copy from somewhere (though I can’t remember where). I vividly recall playing the C64 and Amiga versions for the first time at my place, as if it were just last year. Both versions of California Games rank high on my list of top 100% games of all time, and I still can’t decide which one I’d bring with me to a deserted island—either one would do. Tight controls, easy to get into and next to no loading times between events and re-tries.

Another small fun fact is that California Games had sold 500.000 copies across all formats by the end of 1989.

The recipe for success was there…

The Death Of A Series…

It felt like a decade passed between the release of the first game and the sequel (at least on the Amiga). The hype in the magazines was intense, and although my brother and I noticed the screenshots looked terrible in the previews, the magazines never emphasized this, so we assumed it was just bad screen captures and that the game would look better when we played it.

Time went by, and when California Games II finally arrived, it turned out to be a (PC) MS-DOS exclusive. The game looked exactly like the previews—really crappy PC pixel graphics with a bizarre colour palette.

I hadn’t heard anything about California Games II since then until it unexpectedly appeared on a game display shelf at the end of summer 1992, which made me wonder if it was actually an Amiga game or just the PC version mistakenly placed on the wrong shelf.

California Games II hits Amiga With a Faceplant…

The Amiga game box looked identical to the PC box, and the screenshots didn’t resemble any Amiga games I had ever seen before (except for some poor adventure game ports). For some inexplicable reason, this gave me—an eager buyer with my weekly Paperboy route money—hope that the Amiga version would be truly amazing.

There’s no cool intro, no presentation to speak of, and everything feels unfinished and half-hearted. The sound (if you can even call it that) is terrible, and all the elements that worked so well in the first game are absent.

Instead of a user-friendly menu, they opted for a poorly designed picture featuring random people with objects representing the sports you could select by clicking on them. There are five exciting sports to choose from—hang-gliding, bodyboarding, jet surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding—which could have been great if executed properly.

After that terrible menu picture (and the accompanying speech bubbles), there really isn’t a single positive thing to say about the game. Some events lack sound, some are over before they even begin due to poor game design, and others are so frustrating that you’ll want to quit immediately to avoid enduring them any longer.

The game naturally bombed and was a commercial failure (thank goodness for that), but it also contributed to Epyx’s eventual bankruptcy. A solid game could have saved them, but ultimately, the entire Epyx story involves more than just this one failed title.

EVEN THE BOX SUCKED BALLS…

I genuinely want to find something positive to say about the game, but as I mentioned earlier, the game box is yet another disappointment (well, at least the backside) and was probably my last opportunity to highlight anything good (see pictures above).

California Games II shares the title of the worst sequel on the Amiga with Sidewinder 2 and I honestly can’t understand how neither of them even got published.

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?…

The awful events are even worse than anticipated due to the poor execution. The controls are a disaster, there are no instructions or opportunities to practice before waiting several minutes for a failed event to reload, and I won’t even get started again on the sound and graphics. Seriously, this was a 16-bit EXCLUSIVE GAME, and nothing looks or sounds like it should. To wrap up my rant clearly—THIS GAME IS AS CLOSE TO A TRAIN WRECK AS YOU CAN GET.