Camp California

~ CAMP CALIFORNIA ~

ICOM Simulations / TTI

Super CD-ROM

1993

Never in a million years did I think I'd end up enjoying Camp California. Goofy animal characters... sunny days at the beach... crappy tunes like "Good Vibrations"... it all sounded rather hellish to me.

I tend to prefer stuff that isn't as lighthearted or Beach-Boys-plagued--stuff like, say, Shape Shifter. So it came as no small surprise when my open-minded brother Alexei told me that Camp California was reminiscent of SS in many ways--from how certain characters control to the usage of identical sound effects. (Indeed, Alexei's hunch that many of the men on the SS team were also part of the CC design crew proved correct.) Upon receiving this news, I quickly tracked the game down and gave it a go...

...and, lo and behold, I was quite happy with what CC had to offer. I expected the graphics to be good, as I'd already seen some of the wonderfully colorful backgrounds and enormous sprites in screenshots. But the controls held up much better than I'd anticipated; and while the vocal numbers are certainly awful, the in-level tunes are actually very catchy (and give way to badass riff-driven tracks when you reach the final area in most stages). And CC is not some simple jaunt on the beach, as there are actually plenty of different locations you get to visit, many of which are anything but "cheery."

Some of those locations will require that you make use of skills exclusive to particular characters--one guy can fly, one can swim, one can tornado his way through enemy lines. While I wasn't looking forward to meeting up with this silly-seeming animal crew, I actually had a lot of fun putting their many interesting abilities to good use.

You'll have to rescue your buddies before you can receive their assistance, however. And the path you'll need to travel isn't immediately obvious; you have no choice but to tour the area in your ol' jalopy and do a little experimenting to figure out the correct route to take.

You can't cruise around endlessly, however, as you have only so much fuel to burn. But if you put some time into exploring the surprisingly large levels, you can find lots of secret stuff, including recyclable objects to convert into fuel.

Of course, you'll run into some tough (and very odd) villains who won't allow you to roam around at your leisure.

So sure, the characters, visuals, stage tunes, and exploration elements all work in CC's favor, but I can't pretend that the game is flawless. Yes, it plays much better than I thought it would, but the controls are far from perfect. And when you take some hits due to those controls, you'll have to endure annoying screams of "Bogus!" or "Bummer!" from the otherwise likable characters. Also, it can be frustrating to march halfway through a long level only to realize the character you picked isn't cut out for the job. And while the length of the quest is a positive, the lack of a save feature is not. You may end up traveling quite a long way only for real life to intervene and force you to leave your console, allowing you no choice but to resume play another time at the very beginning.

But Camp California succeeds in so many areas that it shouldn't be very difficult for players who give it a fair chance to look past its issues and enjoy it.