Summer fucking sucks.

Sure it was great when you were a kid and you got to escape the prison of public education for three months, but once you're an adult and your full-time job becomes a full-time pain in the ass that one solace is now a complete non-factor. Now all you've got is the sun beating down on your ass with it's cancerous gaze, the sheer uncomfortableness of humidity and rainstorms sometimes blowing their wind so hard you have to constantly bring shit inside from the backyard lest they be lost forever. Obviously this is all my area and not everyone else's, but hey this is my case for why I fucking hate this season, and with climate change slowly turning the ocean into battery acid it's only getting worse.

The beach also sucks, I hate sand. Keep that shit away from me.

Anyways, California Games on NES is a compilation of six mini-games; half-pipe, roller skating, surfing, BMX, footbag/hacky sack, and flying disc/frisbee (I'm not capitalizing frisbee, fuck you spellcheck).

The Half-Pipe game is still completely incomprehensible to me. I'm sure there's a thing to it, but I'm allergic to reading guides on something this simple, so the only thing that happens is either my momentum goes away in five seconds or I fall down and the skateboard comes back down the pipe and smacks into the back of my head. Dumb game. -1/10

Roller Skating is funny. You unfortunately have to tap the button to accelerate, but you play as the world's clumsiest girl who trips over simple blades of grass in the sidewalk. I actually thought for a while that she'd also trip over the chalk writing in the sidewalk too, but that's actually not the case apparently. Dumb, but also funny. 4/10

Surfing is boring as crap. You try to make big jumps I guess? I dunno how competitive surfing works, but the judges are pretty damn ruthless. 1's across the board for my first session, that's gonna demolish my self-esteem for the evening. God damn. Dumb game. -7/10

BMX is basically the same game as roller skating, except instead of the clumsy girl you play as this doofus in a tracksuit and helmet on a bike. Everything feels more wonky here, but the bike guy can jump better than the roller skate girl for some reason. The remarkable thing here is the text that gives you a brutal tongue lashing anytime you crash. "Nice try hotshot.", screw you buddy I'm doing my best over here. Dumb, but again it's funny. 5/10

Hacky Sacka Footbag is more like a river dancing sim, because honestly it's more fun having the guy shuffle back and forth to the music. Otherwise all you're gonna do is spam the jester once you find it, 'cause it gives like two thousand million points, while everything else is paltry. There might be more, but I'm not dedicating that much time to this game. Dumb, but hilarious. 9/10

Flying Disc frisbee is probably the best game here, you're probably gonna get bamboozled by what the game wants you to do to actually toss the frisbee, but once you figure it out it's oddly entertaining. Even more funny is the other person you play as in the meantime who makes the most desperate dives to catch the frisbee. Everything is on the line for this game of frisbee! Don't miss that catch, you'll be the laughing stock of the entire state of California! Fantastic. 11/10

In general this game ain't amazing, but damn if it ain't some fine entertainment with some buddies.