In 1999 I had long since discovered Metallica and for a few years I had enjoyed Thrash more than any other musical style. Before, I was more into Nirvana or Iron Maiden, and I've never been a fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers. I can say that a song that gave the name to an album caught my attention. It was 1999, and the song was softer than they used to do. But it attracted attention for two things: the first was the name, Californication, which included the word "fornication", and the second was a video game in which the members of the group appeared.
That video game wasn't real. It was an animation in which the Red Hot Chili Peppers faced all kinds of situations, such as flying through a city, skiing, or running away from a bus so as not to get hit by a bus. At that time the PlayStation 2 did not yet exist or had just been released, and games like that, with those graphics, were not yet common. Today, those graphics don't look like much, but what if one developer made it real? That has happened, and the developer is spanish.
Californication for Windows works with WINE
As soon as we start the game we see a puppy inside a tank and a name that has an at sign in front of it. It's Miguel's Twitter account (@commandgdev), and then we see a screen that tells us what music is going to play. Because yes, the game is one like any other, but whenever we've seen it, Californication has played in the background, so the full experience is achieved with that song in the background. The problem? It is obvious: copyright. But Miguel has thought of a way to avoid problems.
The song is not included in the game. The menu to choose what we play are links to YouTube, so it takes us momentarily out of the game until we start playing the song and we get back in. This is the only time I have noticed something strange about Linux, but it is not available to us. And why do we write it in Linux Adictos? Because works perfectly on linux.
The game is available for free at this link for Windows and macOS. It is a ZIP of less than 300mb that has an EXE and some other files inside, but the important thing is that, if we have installed WINE, we can play Californication without problems.
It's free and compatible with game controllers
The first time we start it, WINE is likely to tell us that you don't have any packages installed, but it is accepted and later we can play Californication. As I mentioned, it may be that when you choose the background music and go back in there is something that doesn't work, but you can close it, open it again and, with the music already playing, the second time choose not to play anything. It may also have something to do with my controller not working as well as it could.
The game uses the unity-engine to move around, and we have several levels to choose from. The mechanics are simple: we have to catch up to five Red Hot Chili Peppers logos before the bar of our lives runs out. It can be played with a controller or keyboard, and you don't have to learn much to start playing. At the bottom of the screen we have a map that will help us know where the logos, enemies and even obstacles are. Wow, you don't lack anything.
But the most important thing about this news is three things: the first, that the game Californication is a reality; the second, that it has been created by a Spanish developer, who has added it to his portfolio to promote himself; and the third is that it's available, well, we can play it on Linux just with WINE. We leave you with the original video from 1999 or 2000 (I have doubts when it came out).