Contents:
The Intro
Title: California Games II
Release year: 1990
Developed by: Epyx
Genre: Sports
Platform replayed on: PC
Time to glide, slide, and ride your way around the sunny Californian coast—it’s time for California Games II!
I have to admit—I don’t have high hopes for this replay. At the time I first played this in the early 90s though? Well, that’s a different story. This game has a special place in my gaming history for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is the graphics. I played this on my home computer, which was an old IBM Personal Computer XT (I wrote about this in my first blog on this site: Old Beginnings). My enduring memory of that computer is without a doubt the CGA (Colored Graphics Adapter) graphics card. Here’s what California Games looked like:
Wasn’t it beautiful?
With that heavy dose of sarcasm out of the way, I will say I never quite came to accept the old cyan and magenta look…
One day, and I’ll never forget it, I took California Games II to a friend’s house, a friend with a new computer with VGA (Video Graphics Array)!
I’ll never forget seeing that home screen in all its colourful glory.
Wasn’t it beautiful? No sarcasm there, I can assure you.
The second reason California Games II has a special place in my gaming history is this game saw the creation of my gamer tag: AndyPro. This was the name I used when entering my name on the in-game leaderboard. I’ve stuck with it ever since, and it’s the pen name I use here on Present Perfect Gaming.
Well, that was about thirty years ago, and I haven’t played California Games II since. I suspect that once I’ve completed this replay, only the nostalgia value will remain. But before we get to that, let’s take a look at what’s on offer.
The Game
California Games II carries on where California Games (1987) left off, with another selection of sporting activities you can enjoy under the Californian sun.
This time around, you can try your hand at:
- Hang gliding
- Jet surfing
- Snowboarding
- Bodyboarding
- Skateboarding
Skateboarding also featured in California Games, in the halfpipe. Here, it’s trespassing along the California Aqueduct!
Epyx was known for producing sports simulations, including Summer Games (1984) and Winter Games (1985), which were based on the Olympic Games. My favourite from that time though, was World Games (1986) due to its quirky collection of sports—Caber Toss (Scotland) and Log Rolling (Canada) being standouts.
(Image by Trypticon via MobyGames)
(Image by Trypticon via MobyGames)
California Games II is the Epyx game I spent the most time with, playing it on PC in the early 90s. No controller here, it was all played on the keyboard with the trusty arrow keys and the spacebar.
Let’s take a closer look at each event, starting with hang gliding.
Starting on a cliff, you have two minutes to take off, perform some stunts, drop water balloons on targets in the water below, and land. Points are earned for successful stunts, hitting targets with the water balloons (the higher you drop from, the higher the points), and landing.
Maintaining altitude is the real challenge here—lose that, and you crash into the water.
Moving out into the harbour, and jumping on your jet ski, it’s all about speed. You select the course and the type of jet ski you want to ride. Ride fast and within the track, the higher the points reward.
There are also ramps to jump, and a nod to environmentalism with points for collecting bottles floating in the water.
From the harbour, it’s time to hit the slopes of Mount Epyx on your snowboard.
There are a few stages to this event, starting with dropping from a helicopter to start your run.
Once on the snow, there are two downhill sections where you need to avoid obstacles, and a halfpipe section in between. Performing stunts in the halfpipe earns you time bonuses at the bottom. A fast time is the goal.
Leaving the snow behind, it’s back into the water with bodyboarding.
Catch a wave, perform stunts, and see if you can hold on and avoid all the obstacles on the run into the shore. You earn points for completing stunts, with combos gaining bonus points.
Finally, the least-regulated event, with some (illegal) skateboarding.
The faster you get down the aqueduct, the better. You gain time bonuses for performing stunts in the halfpipe-like sections and in the tunnels.
With that quick tour of the events completed, it’s competition time!
California Games II features customisable competitions, selecting the events you want, for up to eight players. The winner of the competition is named the “Supreme Dude”. You can even get your name on the “Most Excellent Dudes” list.
And that’s what’s on offer with California Games II. Now it’s time for me to get out into the Californian sun and see if I can relive my glory days from the early 90s!
The Replay
I’m going to get this out of the way right now—the nostalgia hit was big when I started playing California Games II. A game I hadn’t played for about thirty years, and it all came flooding back to me immediately. I’m not sure how much I actually played this game, but I’m guessing it was quite a lot.
One immediate example of a nostalgia hit was from this screen, shown shortly after loading up, that many of us 80s and 90s gamers will be familiar with:
That’s right: copy protection!
I laughed, as I wasn’t prepared for this. Back in the day, I would have had my physical copy of the California Games II manual by my side. This time however, I’m playing a digital copy via Steam. So, I had to immediately quit as I didn’t have the correct answer in front of me.
I then had to open up the PDF copy of the manual, and situate it on my second screen so I could enter the correct code. Thinking about this later, I could also have just taken a photo of the codes with my phone to refer to.
Getting myself through security (phew!), it was time to check out the events and see if some of the moves would come back to me.
I started with hang gliding. I remember that this was the one event I never really figured out. It’s not complex to understand: take off, do some tricks, drop water balloons on targets below, and land. Simple, right?
Okay, maybe not.
There is a time limit of two minutes, so you need to try and score your points quickly and get back to the clifftop. Being a clifftop, it’s high, and gaining enough altitude after you’ve done your tricks and dropped your water balloons, is a tough challenge.
I was determined this time to try and get some tricks in, and managed to learn (thanks to the trusty game manual) how to do 540 degree turns and loops.
Overall, this is the event in which I felt the least control. Once you lose your altitude, it’s hard to get it back. I remember one competition strategy being to just take off and then turn around and land immediately, taking the 1000 points on offer for a good landing! Unless you can pull off loops, which gain you 1000 points as well, the other points on offer through tricks don’t come close to matching this. Water balloon scoring is high though, if you can hit them from height.
Upon reflection though, not only did I find this event the most difficult in California Games II, but I found it was probably the deepest. It requires a bit of practice to get comfortable in the air, but I never felt like I mastered it. Other events, as you will see, can essentially be memorised and repeated.
Moving on to some jet surfing now, I had an almost opposite experience than with hang gliding. It’s not difficult, but I didn’t enjoy it. At least with hang gliding, there was some enjoyment in getting slightly better, and learning tricks. Jet surfing is all about speed, and controlling your ride. There is a variety of courses and jet skis to choose from, but it’s all let down by the poor controls. The turns are very sensitive, so when you ease off the throttle to make your turns, it all becomes very jerky.
It then becomes very repetitive as you try to navigate around the courses. The only real variation comes from the course with ramps. However, this is let down by the controls as well—it’s very hard to line up the ramps!
It almost feels like this was the least developed of all the events. It is different from the other events though, not being about tricks and obstacle courses. It’s a racing game, but the engine behind it lets it down here.
Hitting the slopes in California Games II brings back better memories than hang gliding and jet surfing. The combination of speed, tricks, and obstacles makes for a fun ride.
Starting from the top, it’s all about speed, with some obstacles and jumps to navigate before you drop into the halfpipe.
It’s fairly forgiving, where you’re allowed up to four falls before you fault the entire run. I needed these, as I never quite worked out when I was supposed to jump on some of the edges.
The halfpipe section is the most enjoyable, as you try to earn time bonuses. There is a time limit, so once the alarm goes off (or you bail), it’s time to jump out and take on the obstacle course and try to make it to the beach.
The final obstacle course section is the least fun part of the run. Avoid falling more than four times, and you’re back home on the beach.
I like the event overall, and you can approach your run in different ways. You can go for pure speed, and not spend time in the halfpipe, or you can use the halfpipe to try and make up time for mistakes in the top section. If you’re playing head-to-head against others, you can approach it tactically, depending on how previous riders have gone.
Back to the beach with bodyboarding, this event is quite similar to snowboarding: performing tricks, and navigating an obstacle course. The only difference here is, bodyboarding is completely unforgiving.
Before you get to the obstacle course though, it’s time to ride the wave, and try to combine as many tricks as possible together to gain those combo bonuses.
I usually resorted to repeating the same trick over and over until the wave died. I mentioned above how some events could be memorised and repeated. Bodyboarding and snowboarding fall into this category. Once you have memorised the obstacle courses, they’re the same every time, so the challenge is gone. I found bodyboarding more frustrating than snowboarding, as you only get one chance to get it right, as you have to make it to the beach to register your score.
Finally, I found my way to the California Aqueduct for what I remember being the most popular event amongst my friends when we would play together. I’m not really sure why that was—it’s not easy! It’s very high speed, and the margin for error is high.
The tricks are not too difficult to perform though, making this one of the most accessible events in California Games II.
You get up to four falls, but you can also be taken out instantly if you faceplant into the pipe sections, or fly out of the course all together.
The high risk, high reward nature makes for quite a thrilling ride. You can build up an amazing amount of speed, but you need to balance this with staying on your board, and making it into the next tunnel section alive. It’s a long run, and I found myself inching along towards the end of a run just to register a time. Like with snowboarding, you can play this quite tactically, depending on how previous riders have performed.
And with that, my tour of the Californian coast came to an end. But was it as much fun as my first tour, all those years ago in the early 90s?
Let’s take the nostalgia goggles off and find out.
The Verdict
I’ll get this out of the way right now: California Games II doesn’t hold up well, and it’s not a game I’ll be replaying again any time soon. There are games from this era which do hold up, such as some other games I’ve featured here on Present Perfect Gaming.
Back in the early 90s though, I loved playing California Games II. Reflecting on why that was, I’ve come up with a few reasons. First, it looked amazing on a VGA-capable PC (watching and living the increases in graphical power and quality in the 90s is one of my favourite gaming experiences from that era). Second, and a common reason back then, was that I just didn’t have the gaming library I have had access to in modern times; I inevitably played the games I had, for better or worse, a lot. Third, I quite enjoyed sports simulations (particularly this one, featuring extreme sports). Throughout the 90s, I was an avid NHL and FIFA video game fan. Finally, California Games II provided a great hotseat (even before I knew the term) experience. I had a lot of fun playing head to head against my friends. As young gamers, we were exploring the social aspect of video gaming. It wasn’t just taking turns playing, it was also playing against one another. It was most likely my first experience with “trash-talking” too!
One aspect I still appreciate in California Games II, is its edginess and irreverent humour. As it features extreme sports, I guess this counter-culture vibe should come as no surprise.
As we’ve seen in a couple of images above, you can get seriously hurt in these events.
You can even…die!
While this dark humour may not save California Games II from being relegated back to the 90s where it came from, I think it does give it some lasting charm. It definitely brought a wry smile to my face, remembering my younger self laughing my head off when one of my friends “failed” at one of these more deadly events.
If you played this in the 90s like me, you might get a couple of hours of nostalgia value out of California Games II. Now that I’ve revisited it though, this was definitely my final ride with these California Games.
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