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- California games -  
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This game is part of the "games" series from Epyx.
First there was the summer, winter and world games and now we
have California games were you have to compete in a range of
events.
All the events are those you would find in a sun filled environment
like California. You can compete in six events in total: half
pipe (skateboarding), foot bag, surfing, skating, bmx and flying
disk (frisbee).
You can do this with up to 8 players in total, each taking turns
to determine the ultimate winner.
Each event usually involves doing as much tricks as possible
in a certain amount of time or while navigation through an obstacle
course.
Here is an overview of all the events in detail:
- Half pipe: You have to skateboard on the half pipe and do
as much tricks as you can in 90 seconds. You can do tricks like
high airial turn and handplants to score point. You may only
fall three times before you have to stop.
- Pipebag: Use your legs and head to hold a little ball up in
de air whilst doing tricks.
Try to get as many different tricks from the maximum of 11 to
gain the most points in 90 seconds.
- Surfing: Surf the waves and do as much airial tricks you can
in 90 seconds.
If you wait to long or surf to slowly the wave will catch up
with you and make you fall, you can fall only 3 times in most
versions but in the Megadrive version there is no maximum number
of falls.
- Skating: Skate an obstacle course in the fastest possible
time if you can make it to the end that is.
Some obstacles can be easily avoided by skating around them
but some you have to jump over.
- BMX: Complete a dirt track as fast as possible while avoiding
all the obstacles.
You can do all sort of stunts while you are avoiding obstacles
to gain extra points.
- Flying disc: Throw a frisbee as far as possible and catch
it at the other end.
All events can be quite difficult when you first play them because
you have to find out how to play them first, luckily you can
compete or practice only one event. Even though you'll have
no idea what to do at first you'll quickly learn which tricks
you can pull off to gain extra points. My favorite is the footbag
where you have to figure out how to do all 11 different tricks
so you can get the maximum points for variation.
Ofcourse doing all events in one go is the way to show all your
friends who is the true winner. You can play it with up to 8
people, you'll take turns on each events and playing with a
couple of people is the best way to enjoy this game.
Because the game was released on such a large number of different
systems there is bound to a difference in graphic quality. Luckily
all the versions have colorfull graphics and they do their job
well. The Megadrive/Genesis version is the best graphically
mainly because it was released 4 years after the original. The
music is fairly good with my favorite being the tune from the
surfing event, it matches the setting of the event perfectly.
All versions of the game are very enjoyable but I have to mention
that the amiga version can be quite slow with loading despite
that I can recommend any of the downloadable versions.
Overal rating: 8/10
Erde Kaiser
California games was released for many different systems here are some
notes:
| Apple |
Released in
1988 developed by Designer software.
Game has been tested and completed with the ActiveGSapp R4.
Graphics and sound are top notch but sometimes the animations can be a bit
sluggish. |
| Atari
2600 |
Released in
1989 published by Milton Bradley.
Tested and completed with Stella 1.4.1.
The bmx stage is actually a downhill race instead of the flat obstacle course. |
| Atari
Lynx |
Released in
1989.
Tested but not complete with Handy 0.90.
This release is very popular dispite having only four events: the bmx, surfing,
halfpipe and footbag. |
| Amiga |
Released in
1988.
Game has been tested and completed with winUAE v0.9.91.
Despite being on a more powerfull platform this version is the slowest there
is. |
| C64
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Released in
1988.
Game has been tested and completed with CCS64 V2.0 win.
Very good with colorfull graphics and music. |
| DOS |
Released in
1988.
Game has been tested and completed with DOSBox 0.62.
For some reason the game does not work properly on any dos or windows machine.
On windows machines it locks up at the title screen and on dos machines
it locks up when you type in your name. With DOSBox you can play it however
load LOADFIX.com inside DOSBox first or it won't work either. |
Megadrive/
Genesis |
Released in
1991 published by Sega.
Game has been tested and completed with Wgens 2.11.
Graphically the best version however the flying disk event is missing.
They also added some little things like bonusses that can be gained during
an event, on the footbag for instance it's possible to get more time by
hitting a clock that appears at random. |
| NES |
Released in
1989 published by Milton Bradley.
Tested and completed with FCEU 0.98.12.
This version is pretty good, controls are very responsive. |
SMS
- Sega
Master system |
Released in
1989 published by Sega.
Game has been tested and completed with Dega 1.12. |
| ZX
Spectrum |
Released in
1987.
Game has been tested and completed with emuZwin 2.5.
This is the tape TZX version of the game.
Most of the graphics have only a few colors but this is more a limitation
of the system itself. |
| Others |
There are
still more systems that this game was released for however these are not
available here for download.
Amstrad CPC released in ?.
Atari ST released in 1989 released by US Gold. |
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Date added |
Nov-18-2004 13:52 |
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Name |
California games |
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Developer |
Epyx
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Publisher |
Epyx
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First released |
1987 |
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Genre |
Sport
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Download |
Apple, filesize: 475 Kb
Atari 2600, filesize: 12 Kb
Atari Lynx, filesize: 105 Kb
Commodore 64, filesize: 215 Kb
Commodore Amiga, filesize: 557 Kb
MS-DOS, filesize: 235 Kb
Nintendo Entertainment System, filesize: 91 Kb
Sega Master System, filesize: 174 Kb
Sega Megadrive, filesize: 329 Kb
ZX Spectrum, filesize: 93 Kb
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Links |
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Manual |
Download manual for California games
, filesize: 2469 Kb
This is the scanned manual for the C64. |
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Solve / Docs |
No solve available
Get manual in text format here
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Sitestats
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07-Sep-2010
Games: 405
Utils: 30
Manuals: 194
Solves: 83
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