Action 52

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Action 52
NES version cover art
Developer(s) Active Enterprises (NES)
FarSight Studios (Genesis)
Publisher(s) Active Enterprises
Platform(s) Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis
Release date NES version
NA 1991
SMD/Genesis version
NA 1993
Genre(s) Various
Mode(s) Mostly single player
Media 16-megabit cartridge (NES)

ACTION 52 is a multicart consisting of 52 individual and original video games, released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and in 1993 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis consoles by Active Enterprises. It was initially sold for the comparatively high price of $199 USD (or "less than $4 for each game"), and became notorious among gamers for the abysmal quality of its games. Many video game collectors value Action 52 for its notoriety and rarity.

The cartridge states that it contains 52 "new and original exciting games". The games cover a variety of genres, although the most common are scrolling shooters and platform games. Examples of scrolling shooters include Star Evil, G-Force, Thrusters, and Megalonia. Some of the platform games available are Ooze, Alfredo, and Bubblegum Rosie. All but one of the games are single player, the exception being Fire Breathers, a simple two-player fighting game.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Vince Perri of Miami, Florida created Action 52. He showcased the game at the International Winter Consumer Electronics Show.[1]

The majority of the titles included on the cartridge have major significant glitches. Some games start on a real NES but fail in many emulators, while some actually only work on an emulator. Some freeze or crash for no apparent reason, and some levels exist only in incomplete and impassable forms. Many games have severe design flaws, including unresponsive controls and level designs leading to frequent instant deaths. Each game gets a one-sentence description in the manual, some describing completely different games--in particular, games reported as puzzle type were not--Jig Saw is a surrealistic platform side-scroller and Bits and Pieces is a horror-themed side-scroller. More complete manuals were supposedly available for $1 each according to the main manual.

While the original NES collection was developed internally by Active Enterprises, the Sega version, released two years later, was developed by FarSight Studios, who had also developed Color a Dinosaur for the NES. The Sega version featured a somewhat different lineup of games, slightly more professional graphics, and a number of technical problems. Plans for a Super NES version of the cartridge were announced, but Active Enterprises withdrew from the video game industry shortly thereafter, and no copies are known to exist. Action 52 may have originally been designed to include 60 games as evidenced by eight menu templates present in the ROM, as well as many unused tiles[1]. However, this may have been cut due to the large size of the cartridge (two megabytes) and a probable increased production cost.

The Cheetahmen was the "featured" game on the Action 52 multicart, and there were grandiose plans for a line of merchandise including action figures, t-shirts, a comic book series and even a television cartoon based on the characters (an advertisement for Cheetahmen action figures, displaying prototype sketches, was included in the aforementioned comic book). These plans quickly fell through, however, when bad word-of-mouth and scathing reviews of the game began mounting up in earnest.

[edit] Games

[edit] Nintendo Entertainment System

Haunted Halls of Wentworth
Haunted Halls of Wentworth

A sample of Rob Base's song It Takes Two is used in the beginning sequence of the NES version. The sound generated for moving the select cursor on the NES version was used for the Power Player Super Joy III's menu. Of note is that Active Enterprises advertised a competition in which anyone who could complete level 5 of Ooze (NES version) would be entered into a prize draw to win $104,000. It was soon discovered that the game would crash on level 3, making the prize impossible to win.

[edit] Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Spidey
Spidey

The Sega Genesis version of Action 52 was developed by FarSight Studios, since Active Enterprises was unable to develop for the system. Each game is color coded on the main menu screen. "Beginner" games are displayed in a green font, "intermediate" games are displayed in a purple font, "expert" games are displayed in a yellow font, and multiplayer games are displayed in a blue font.

In addition to the fifty two games listed above, the Mega Drive/Genesis version features a music test mode, and a "randomizer" option. If selected from the main menu, the randomizer will randomly choose and start one game from the fifty two available on the cartridge. The fifty-second game, Challenge, is an endurance test to see how long the player lasts in a random series of the highest levels of the other games.

Several new games were introduced for the Sega version. A number of these have the same name as games on the NES cartridge, although they are not the same game: the Sega Haunted Hills, for instance, is entirely different from the NES Haunted Hills. Other games feature other changes, including a version of The Cheetahmen which completely deviates from the original NES platformer, and is replaced with a game where the Cheetahmen rescue captured cheetah cubs from monsters. The bosses from the NES version appear as enemies.

[edit] The Cheetahmen

Released on the Action 52 cartridge, the Cheetahmen were Active Enterprises' attempt to compete with the success of franchises such as Battletoads and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Action 52 was released along with a twelve page comic book providing the Cheetahmen's backstory. The game is noticeably superior to most of the other games on the cartridge, and contains considerably fewer glitches.

Further levels in the game reveal that like many of the titles before it, "The Cheetahmen" was not completely finished before release: One of Apollo's stages, level 5, is very hard to complete due to poorly programmed enemies. It is made worse because many of Apollo's foes can not be lined up with the limited areas the player can shoot his arrows. The game consists of six levels, each of the three Cheetahmen getting two levels, the second of which includes a boss battle. Other than the bosses, all of the other enemies in the game are characters from the other games, including Saddam Hussein parody Satán Hossain from Storm Over the Desert, a simple overhead tank game where running over Hossain, who appears very frequently, causes one-ups.

[edit] Plot

The backstory of the Cheetahmen was given in a 12-page comic book included with Action 52. Mad scientist Dr. Morbis kills a mother cheetah while on safari in Africa, then takes her three cubs for his genetic research. Subjected to his experiments, the cubs grow into half-cheetah, half-human creatures. Once they learn of Morbis's evil plans, they turn on him, and he in turn creates an army of half-animal humans (known as "Sub-Species") to stop the Cheetahmen once and for all.

The NES version of the game had an intro sequence that told a story as well, where a boy called the "Action Gamemaster" is at home playing a video game when a robotic arm reaches through the screen and pulls him into the game. He meets the Cheetahmen, who then run off. The Gamemaster does not appear in the rest of the game, although the manual summary implies that he transforms into the Cheetahmen one after another.

[edit] Characters

Opening The Cheetahmen cut scene
Opening The Cheetahmen cut scene

The three Cheetahmen are:

  • Hercules, named for the Hercules the Greek god, son of Zeus and a mortal woman. He is by nature a pacifist, but will fight with deadly force when the situation demands it. He doesn't use a weapon, but has great physical strength.
  • Aries, named for the astrological sign Aries that is believed to dictate impulsive behavior (as the group's combat expert he was probably intended to be named after Ares). Aries learned martial arts from movies shown to him by Dr. Morbis. He wields two wooden clubs.
  • Apollo, named for Apollo, the Greek god. He is the leader of the Cheetahmen, and was the first to question Dr. Morbis's intentions. As his name suggests, Apollo is an archer and a scholar versed in many fields. He uses a crossbow.

The Cheetahmen's enemies included:

  • Dr. Morbis, an evil geneticist. His ultimate goals are never made clear.
  • Cygore, Dr. Morbis' assistant with a robotic arm. Sketches of him showed a number of weapon attachments, including a hammer and buzzsaw.
  • White Rhino
  • Scavenger, a Sub-Species based on a vulture.
  • Hyena
  • Man-Ape (or Ape-Man), allegedly the most powerful of Dr. Morbis' Sub-Species.

[edit] Cheetahmen II

There were plans for a sequel to The Cheetahmen. Although completed, Cheetahmen II was ultimately left officially unreleased. However, in 1997 all 1,500 known copies of the game were located in a warehouse, and eventually put on sale on the secondary market. All copies of the game were reused Action 52 cartridges with some having a small gold sticker reading "Cheetamen II". The cartridge is very hard to come by, though numerous ROM images exist on the Internet.

In Cheetahmen II the player assumes the role of one of the three Cheetahmen (Aries, Apollo and Hercules), and upon defeating an enemy boss at the end of the second level, they switch to the next Cheetahman for the following two levels as in the Action 52 version. Due to a bug, it is impossible to gain access to the levels in which one assumes the role of Cheetahman Aries without altering the ROM image or being the lucky recipient of a glitch that very rarely starts the game on these two levels.

Cheetahmen II is famous for its lack of quality; it is reputed by many in the gaming community to be nearly unplayable, and was rumored to have been produced extremely quickly, with no debugging attempted. Like Action 52 it was not licensed by Nintendo.

[edit] Reception

Among NES fans, the two Cheetahmen games are renowned for being among the all-time worst games ever made for that system, though the characters themselves gained a huge cult following afterwards, much like the SWAT Kats. Cheetahmen II in particular is buggy, incomplete, and widely regarded as virtually unplayable.

However, the Cheetahmen series (especially Cheetahmen II) has gained some popularity in Japan since a movie file was posted to Nico Nico Douga, a streaming video website, because of its extraordinarily poor quality and disproportionately high quality music. Many users are arranging Cheetahmen II's in-game BGM for various kinds of music.[2] These postings on the website amounted to more than 100 works within a few days after the first one.

[edit] References

  1. Action 52. MobyGames. Accessed on September 15, 2005.
  2. "Jay Obernolte Interview." Cheetahmen Corner. Accessed on September 15, 2005.
  3. FarSight Studios. Accessed on September 15, 2005.
  1. ^ "Cartridge has 52 video games." Austin American-Statesman.
  2. ^ 伝説のクソゲー『チーターマン2』が15年ぶりに復活！ ニコニコ動画でブーム, livedoor News

[edit] External links

  • Cheetahmen Corner - A site dedicated to Action 52, Cheetahmen and other Active Enterprises information.
  • List of all Action 52 games A comprehensive website detailing all 52 of the games in the collection
  • [2] - A website with information on both Action 52 and Active Enterprises.