Nintendo Entertainment System California Games USA
4DevelopmentSeveral members of the development team moved on to other projects. Chuck Sommerville, the designer of the half-pipe game in California Games later developed the game Chip's Challenge, while Ken Nicholson the designer of the footbag game was the inventor of the technology used in Microsoft's DirectX. Kevin Norman, the designer of the BMX game went on to found the educational science software company Norman & Globus, makers of the ElectroWiz series of products.
The sound design for the original version of California Games was done by Chris Grigg, member of the band Negativland.
Easter eggsCalifornia Games contains a number of easter eggs:
On some random occasions, there is an earthquake during the skateboarding event, causing the H of the Hollywood sign to fall down (The remaining "OLLYWOOD" might also be a reference to the ollie skateboarding trick.)
Players can hit the seagull (named 'George') in Footbag. Hitting the gull grants more points.
A shark or a dolphin or a seagull occasionally appears in Surfing after a player falls off the board. If the shark comes the iconic theme from Jaws plays briefly.
When practicing Flying Disc, if the player repeatedly fails in his attempts to throw the disc, a UFO appears and abducts the catcher.
PortsOriginally released for the Apple II and Commodore 64, this game was very lucrative for Epyx and was released for several other platforms over the years. It was eventually ported to 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.
More recently the game was released for mobile phones in the Java format, and current rights holders System 3 CEO Mark Cale has stated that the game will be available in future as both a retail product and an on-line product for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS.[2] The Commodore 64 version was released for the Wii's Virtual Console service in Europe on April 11, 2008 and in North America on July 6, 2009.[3]
EventsThe events available vary slightly depending on the platform, but include all of the following:
Half Pipe
Roller skating
Surfing
BMX
Footbag
Flying Disk
Sponsor TeamsTeam sponsors for California Games include Epyx, Costa Del Mar, Kawasaki, Santa Cruz, Ocean Pacific, Casio, Auzzie, Spin Jammer, Maxx-Out, Milton Bradley, Jetski and Ray-D-O.
Sponsors are pending on the platform.
Reception[hide] Reception
Review scores
Publication Score
Computer and Video Games 37/40[4]
CRASH 36%[5]
Sinclair User [6]
Your Sinclair 7/10[7]
Zzap!64 97%[8]
Micro Hobby [9]
The Games Machine 92%[10]
MegaTech 80%[11]
Mega 60%[12]
Awards
Entity Award
Zzap!64 Gold Medal
The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #129 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4½ out of 5 stars.[13]
Cultural influencesThe game was the focus of a comedy skit made by Mega 64.
The game was used in an episode of Captain N: The Game Master.
In the American Dad! episode "Son of Stan", Stan and Francine can be seen doing tricks like those in the BMX portion of the game.
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