California Games

Copyright : Epyx | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

The smell of the surf, the sun on your back, the sand between your toes ... this isn?t california dreamin...this is real! Six of the best West Coast Sports designed to set your pulse racing are yours for the winning, these include: Skateboarding, BMX Bike Racing, Roller Skating, Foot Bag, Surfing and the Flying Disc.

Get your shorts on and head on over to Epyx California Games.

Graphics

California Games is one of the few sporting games (with respect of course to Daley Thompson) that has looked great on every platform it was ever released on. The CPC is no exception here as the graphics are bright and colourful, the sports are well designed and make the most of your open screen space, animation is top notch and there are no glitches such as blending with the background or any severe slowdown.

As we said California Games was well ported graphically to every machine it was ever released on and those who owned the GT65 model of the CPC 464 will have missed out on the detail on show in this one.

Sound

Sound is a little bit of a let down. Having played the game on the C64, Atari ST and the Amiga one of the most striking elements was the excellent soundtrack, which by the way was ripped from the musical "Grease" but then again that was probably ripped from something else before that....anyway the CPC version is missing this and quite a few in-game sound effects. We?re not saying it?s dead and not worth bothering with but a little more effort could have been put in.

Gameplay

As with all sporting games, you either love them or hate them, the choice is yours of course. California Games offers a few sporting events that have not previously been seen in other games of the genre and did offer something different to the games player, there is no doubt in my mind that many viewers purchased this title regardless of their sporting ability or interests as it just stood out from the crowd.

The 6 different events are pretty fun to play but after a while, like all the rest, they soon become tiresome. Lucky for you that each event has a play time of about 2 minutes so if you are seriously good you could complete the game in 12 minutes time. If you are a true retrogamer you will already know if you like or hate this game, we personaly think it stood out from the crowd and made it?s mark felt. For that reason alone it?s worth playing.