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I guess you either like these sorts of games or you don't. And I, erm, don't. Not at £25 anyway - at just £7.99 on budget though, you can start to overlook their inherent slightness and enjoy them for what they are - silly, throwaway and fun.

So how does California Games work exactly? Well, it's a series of 'typical' Californian-type events, ranging from surfing (possibly the best) to the rather tenuous foot bag bouncing, where an extremely dodgy-looking geezer attempts to bounce a beanbag on, erm, his foot. Generally gameplay, which dates back years to an ancient C64 version, is of a fairly primitive learn-the-correct-joystick-movements-and-then-do-them-in-the-right-sequence sort - an improvement on the wagglers that prevailed at the time perhaps, but rather sad looking in 1991.

It's all rather jolly, and fun with a few of you gathered round the computer taking turns at each event, but the awkwardly animated graphics, limited nature of most of the games (the half-pipe skateboarding, the afore-mentioned surfing and the roller-skating perhaps have most scope) and, especially, the ridiculous disk accessing time between games spoil it being worth serious consideration.

Sounds a minor-league hoot, but the varying sub-games (average through to useless), dodgy graphics and ridiculous loading spoil the fun.