let me go ahead and whip up my first one. i played an NES classic (not to be confused with the NES Classic) for the first time recently and i walked away a changed person. which one, you ask? why, none other than
Action 52. i am very interested in UFO 50 so i decided why not play one of its most direct inspirations first.
for those of you not in the know, which i assume to be very few of you since this is a video gaming forum after all, Action 52 is the grandaddy of them all, where "them all" refers to those 300-in-1 shovelware CDs that opt for quantity over quality. Action 52 is a bootleg compilation of games with a troubled development history, an investor who thought it would be able to spin off an entire media franchise, and some randomly rockin' tunes.
when you boot this bad boy up for the first time, you are greeted by a Yeah! Woo! sample (as heard most famously in It Takes Two) that for sure was not legally used. one screen says LIGHTS. the next says CAMERA. and then you are greeted by one of the cheetahmen (more on them later) as the screen proudly says ACTION 52. a man tells you to Make Your Selection Now. and then you are given a list of 52 games across 3 pages to pick from. i played all of them in order and am here to report back to you.
1.
Fire Breather. this the only traditional two-player game on the cart, i.e. the only one that actually allows both players to play against each other at the same time. the other games just alternate if you choose two player. my wife and i tied after eight rounds on eight different maps. it was the kind of game you would play in a dream. it wasn't good. which sets the tone!
2.
Star Evil. sounds badass. is not badass. is one of several games that are piss-poor attempts to ape Xevious. as soon as the first level starts, if you don't move within the first second you immediately hit an obstacle and die.
3.
Illuminator. a platformer! you're fighting vampires! it's dark! you can only turn on the lights when you shoot a vampire with a flashlight! or something!
4.
G-Force Fighters. where star evil was trying to mimic xevious, here we have a horizontal space shooter and therefore one that is desperately trying to take after Gradius. it didn't work. on the main menu screen they only hav eenough room to render the title of this game as
G-FORCE FGT. my wife and i had a good laugh over that. see! this game can bring you mirth! by the way Action 52's original retail price was $199 which is over $460 when adjusted for inflation
5.
Ooze. the game with the worst jumping mechanics i have ever encountered. there was a contest at the time to win money if you were able to finish all the levels of ooze. it crashes after level 2. classic
6.
Silver Sword. this one is trying to be legend of zelda. i think. it didn't work.
7.
Critical Bypass. i gotta be honest with you folks. i was never really able to figure out what the fuck is happening in this one.
8.
Jupiter Scope. so, imagine space invaders, except it's meteors, and there's no danger of them destroying the city.
music is a banger though. a broken game is good twice a day
9.
Alfred n the Fettuc. known as
Alfredo in the main menu. i really wanted to play this one. it crashes when you try to play it. awesome.
10.
Operation Full Moon. another vertical shooter except this time it's a moon buggy. god i wish there was more to say.
11.
Dam Busters. one of the more...unique ones. you play as a character who looks an awful lot like winnie the pooh. and you have to go sidescroll and do something. idk. none of these games allow you to backtrack because of the way the scrolling works so this one was hard to get very far in
12.
Thrusters. another scrolling space shooter. you might be noticing a theme.
13.
Haunted Halls of Wentworth. apparently this had a full-ass title in the manual? anyway this is one of a couple of games in this pak where you're playing as a woman and good god is she about as titted up as i have ever seen any NES sprite be. this is where i noticed that almost every enemy not just in this game specifically but across the entire multipak has enemies that constantly hone in on the player character's present location, making the difficulty curve very stupid.
14.
Chill Out. something trying to pass as a snowball fight.
15.
Sharks. oh fuck! sharks! if only i had an eye laser that could disintegrate them!
16.
Megalonia. scrolling space shooter #458020
17.
French Baker. it's like burger time but worse and french, which i know is redundant.
18.
Atmos Quake. another space shooter. this one also crashes so bad it's unfinishable!
19.
Meong. kind of a. puzzle one? it's like minesweeper plus a maze. it is one of the more playable games.
20.
Space Dreams. okay we have another vertical scrolling shooter but this one is inexplicably baby themed. you are a pacifier and you shoot lasers at such things as safety pins and raggedy anns and the letter A. anyway i'm using an action 52 wiki as reference for the order of these games and the article for this one has uh
View attachment 26335
i believe all of this wholeheartedly
21.
Streemerz. no this isn't about twitch. you're a clown or something. balloon dogs will kill you. dogg i am not even halfway through these
22.
Spread Fire. shooter.
23.
Bubble Gum Rossie. the second game to feature a female protagonist. there's even a driving sequence! i did not make it that far.
24.
Micro Mike. maybe it was a bad idea to review all of these individually
25.
Underground. but the thing is that i am nothing if not willing to commit to the bit
26.
Rocket Jockey. especially if the bit is stupid. oh wait i should be reviewing these. this one's a side-scrolling shooter. you're a cowboy on a rocket. also if you don't move within the first couple of seconds of starting you die. it's so fun that there's multiple games here where that's the case
27.
Non-Human. one of my favorites of the whole bunch, in whatever sense the word "favorite" applies here. just look at this
this kicks ass. i don't even need to know what's going on or be able to play it to completion. i fuck with whatever they were trying to do here
EDIT: seeing the sprite this big makes it evident that the player character is intended to be a guy in a walking mech rather than a geometric baddie with lidded eyes, which is what i thought. i have chosen to accept my reality as the truth
28.
Cry Baby. you play as a baby who i guess doesn't want to go to bed. boring. bring back the sea of evil green bald elton johns
29.
Slashers. finally! a beat-em-up! the funniest part is that you don't even need to fight any of the enemies. they just walk right by you after trying to hit you once
30.
Crazy Shuffle. i deadass don't remember this one and the page on the wiki has no screenshot so oops
31.
Fuzz Power. i hate the guy you play as in this one
32.
Shooting Gallery. it's a sidescrolling shooter that doesn't scroll. you can't die or be attacked and you never run out of ammo. we are stretching the limits of what makes a "game"
33.
Lollipops. platformer where you are a kid bashing pieces of candy with a lollipop. again i wish there was more to say. or maybe i don't
34.
Evil Empire. oh i wonder who the evil empire is. oh wait the background is a bunch of minarets. well time to exit this game. i sure hope there arent any other weirdly racist or xenophobic games in this collection
35.
Sombreros. ah jeez
36.
Storm Over The Desert. hey wait that sounds a lot like
well shit
37.
Mash Man. remember the guy i hated in fuzz power ? well here he's back and he stomps on guys unless he can't in which case he dies. thank god
38.
They Came....
39.
Lazer League. another one i don't remember at all. probably a shooter.
40.
Billy Bob. platformer. indiana jones attempt i think? can you tell i'm running out of steam at this point
41.
City of Doom. we're so far away from the cheetahmen
42.
Bits and Pieces. platformer. you're a zombie? i have no idea
43.
Beeps and Blips. well if i'm running out of steam so are they. this is shooter #5802402052
44.
Manchester Beat. this one tries to be both a platformer and beat-em-up and fails at both
45.
Boss. yet another one i have no memory of and no screenshot on the wiki to help me. yes i could google it but i don't feel like it i'm so close to being done
46.
Dedant. you wish this was SimAnt and so do i
47.
Hambo's Adventures. fuck yeah! hambo! this one is a donkey kong clone kind of and also you only have one life. good luck!
48.
Time Warp Tickers.
View attachment 26336
me too man
49.
Jigsaw. like alfredo this one is also broken. sad!
50.
Ninja Assault. one of the more playable ones, kind of, unless you get too far in which case the sprites just completely break down lol
51.
Robbie N the Robots. ok platformer shooter whatever it's time for the mother
fucking
52.
CHEETAHMEN. this is probably the thing that most people are familiar with from action 52. this is the media franchise that some random investor thought would be a huge hit. clearly it wasn't. remember earlier how i said a broken game is good twice a day? and i posted a song that was actually kind of good?
well of course they had to give another inexplicable banger to the cheetahmen. also saddam shows up in this one too for some reason
anyway that was stupid. hope everyone liked it!
