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No longer just a dream of Californication.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication will always be a first-class earworm and, at the time of the song’s release, was so successful as to be ubiquitous. One adjacent element of its appeal was the music video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, which features a made-up series of videogame levels with each of the band members undertaking some sort of activity in a virtual California. It’s by far the group’s most popular video with, at the time of writing, just under 920 million views.
«I wanted to play that game so bad!» says developer Miquel Camps Orteza. «It’s 2022 and I haven’t seen anyone made the game so I challenged myself to create it. I have selected some epic moments from the video and turned into 7 levels each one with different game mechanics, I hope you like this game.»
The game in the music video does look rad, and Orteza’s attempt to recreate it is certainly a fun way to spend half an hour. For understandable reasons the download doesn’t include the music, but there are in-game buttons to play Californication or various covers in a browser while you’re messing about.
Yes this is fairly rudimentary, but actually controlling something I once watched on MTV is undeniably rad. I love the song, too, and the combination of nostalgia and that vague longing everyone had that the game might be real results in an enjoyable experience.
You can download the Californication game here for free, with PC, Mac and Android versions currently available. If nothing else, it’s great to finally play the most-anticipated title of 1999.
Rich is a games journalist with 15 years’ experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as «[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.»
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