Mash Man

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Screenshot of Mash Man

Mash Man is a side-scrolling action video game and was one of 52 games contained on the Action 52 video game cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Action 52 was released in 1991^[1] by Active Enterprises and sold for $199.99^[2]. Though Action 52 was initially touted by its creators for having 52 games on one cartridge, it was riddled with problems like programming errors and bugs, poor play controls, low-quality graphics and music, unfinished levels, and a host of other issues. Due to these issues Action 52 has gained a reputation as one of the worst NES games of all time^[3]. Mash Man is listed as game number 37 on Action 52. Mash Man is one of the more playable of the 52 games since it has a relative lack of programming glitches and bugs when compared to some of the other games offered on the Action 52 cartridge.

1 Story
2 Gameplay
3 Glitches
4 References

[edit] Story

The player controls Mash Man, a strange-looking man with a large nose and unusually large feet. The story, as taken from the game manual, is as follows: "Your [sic] a funny looking dude with a little head and great big feet. You've got to mash everything in sight before they somehow mash you.^[4]"

[edit] Gameplay

[edit] Controls

Mash Man's movements left and right are controlled by the player via the NES controller's directional pad. Pressing the B button will make Mash Man jump. Pressing "start" will pause the game and holding "start" and "select" will return the player to the game's main menu, from which the player can return to the Action 52 game select screen.

[edit] Environment

Mash Man consists of three levels. All three levels look similar in that they take place at night in a land with many odd shaped colored blocks. The game's levels scroll from left to right and do not contain the ability to reverse course since the levels will not scroll back once the player advances. The player finishes a level when they have gone a pre-determined distance in that level. Upon finishing a level the player is advanced to the next level.

The game contains several different enemies of two types: "sharp" and "not sharp." Mash Man can destroy "not sharp" enemies (like the one-eyed creatures) by jumping on them, or the player can simply jump over the "not sharp" enemies. "Sharp" enemies, on the other hand, cannot be jumped on without Mash Man taking damage and hence must be jumped over in order for the player to continue undamaged. All of the enemies in the game do not move, thus it is up to the player to decide to jump on a given enemy, or simply jump over the enemy.

Mash Man

If Mash Man touches any enemy (with the exception of jumping on "non-sharp" enemies) he takes damage. If Mash Man takes too much damage the game ends and the player is sent back to the beginning of the level. Though Mash Man does not have a life meter, nor does Mash Man show any visible sign of damage, the game engine is aware of damage taken. Mash Man can get hit three times without ending the game. The fourth time Mash Man gets damage from an enemy, the game ends and a life is used. The player gets three lives and if these are expended then the player must start the game over again from the beginning of level one. If the player manages to navigate Mash Man to the end of level 3, Mash Man will then return to the beginning of level 1 and gameplay will continue as normal. This cycle will continue until either the player's lives are exhausted or the player ends the game.

[edit] Main Character

Mash Man has an unusually large nose, enormous bare feet, and wears a green shirt with red pants and a green and red hat that masks his eyes. Mash Man's character design of a large nose and extremely large feet is very similar to the character design of Fuzzy, the main character in the Action 52 game Fuzz Power.

[edit] Glitches

Though Action 52 is known to have many glitches, Mash Man does not suffer from any major programming problems. The only main issue is that the game has trouble displaying multiple sprites at one time and thus Mash Man's sprites and the sprites of enemies will often flash between being visible and invisible, causing gameplay to be awkward at times.