California Games is a collection of alternative sports games on the California coast released by Epyx in 1987. The developer has already proven himself with such great gaming series as Summer Games, Winter Games, as well as World Games and their follower has not disgraced its former glory. Only 6 different competitions, but what! We put on sunglasses, take sunscreen and a towel, we all go together to play this beautiful toy!
Competitions in: Half Pipe, Foot Bag, Surfing, Skating, BMX and Flying Disk. If translated into Russian, then these competitions are used: a skateboard, a ball, a surfboard, roller skates, a bicycle and flying saucers.
So I sit and think, did X-Games (Extreme Games), sports in alternative sports evolve from this game?...
Depending on the platform, you can alternately play with a whole small team. For example, up to 9 people are allowed on Dandy, Sega Mega Drive and many other systems, and up to 8 on the Sega Master System.
Initially released for the Apple II and Commodore 64, California Games proved to be quite popular and was later ported to the Amiga, Apple IIGS, Atari 2600, Atari ST, Atari Lynx, DOS, Sega Mega Drive, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Nintendo Entertainment System, MSX and Sega Master System. Nowadays, the game can be found on mobile phones, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. The Commander version is available on the Wii Virtual Console.
Briefly by version:
Apple II and Commodore 64 - these games appeared first. They have an 8-bit level, but the Apple II naturally rests both in terms of graphics and sound, too, for example, there is no music at all during gameplay.
Nintendo NES: the game has been simplified: music, menus, even graphics, especially in the backgrounds. But each competition is accompanied by its own melody, and the gameplay is fast and enjoyable.
Sega Master System: A noticeable strong influence from the Amigo version. It is played faster than the original, there is high-quality music and a pleasant visual component. Class.
Amiga: what can I say - cool music, excellent graph, however, the angularity has remained, they could have tried better.
Sega Genesis: I was expecting a direct port from the Amiga and I was wrong. The game went through a complete restyling, in fact, only the name remained, and the competition, everything else became a cut above: first of all, the coolest music, the voice acting of background events too, cartoon-quality animation, excellent graphics and responsive controls. This game is the best, 100%. I just don’t understand why they removed the competition with flying saucers ??? In addition, the cover does not say anything about the rollers, probably they also wanted to cut them? But it's funny - on skateboards and with a ball you can play together at the same time!
Atari 2600 and Atari Lynx: despite the various limitations of these systems, both implementations are extremely decent, some games have been changed very much, check out cycling at least. True, they removed flying saucers and rollers.