Action 52

Action 52
NES cover art
Developer(s)	Active Enterprises (NES) Farsight Technologies (Genesis)
Publisher(s)	Active Enterprises
Director(s)	Vince Perri Jay Obernolte (Genesis)
Producer(s)	Vince Perri Raul Gomila Jay Obernolte (Genesis)
Designer(s)	Mario Gonzalez
Programmer(s)	Albert Hernandez Cronos Engineering, Inc.
Artist(s)	Javier Perez
Writer(s)	Mario Gonzalez
Composer(s)	Mario Gonzalez (NES) Javier Perez (NES) Ed Bogas (NES; uncredited) Nu Romantic Productions Mark Steven Miller Jason Scher (Genesis)
Platform(s)	NES Sega Genesis
Release	NES NA 1991 Sega Genesis NA 1993 SNES Cancelled
Genre(s)	Various
Mode(s)	Single-player Multiplayer

Action 52 is an unlicensed multicart video game compilation developed by Active Enterprises for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Farsight Technologies for the Sega Genesis. The NES version was released in 1991, followed by the Genesis version in 1993. A Super NES version was advertised in magazines, but never released.

Action 52 consists of 52 "New and Original" games that cover a variety of genres, with the most common being scrolling shooters and platformers.^[1] One of the more notable games is The Cheetahmen, Active's attempt at creating a franchise similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The NES version of Action 52 became notorious among gamers for the poor quality and functionality of its games, and is often considered to be one of the worst games of all-time. The Genesis version is widely considered superior, though still of subpar quality. Many video game collectors value Action 52 for its notoriety and rarity, as it initially retailed for the comparatively high price of US$199, or "less than $4 for each game".^[2]

Gameplay

NES

Gameplay of Haunted Halls of Wentworth from the NES version (1991) of Action 52.

The games on the NES version cover a variety of genres, the most common being vertical shooters set in outer space and platformers.^[1] The games have major glitches, some of which cause them to freeze or crash due to programming flaws; there are also incomplete or endless levels, confusing design, and unresponsive controls. In the manual, each game has a one-sentence description, with some being described as completely different games and others incorrectly described or categorized.

The "featured" game of Action 52 was The Cheetahmen. There were initial 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).^[3][4] However, these plans quickly fell through as negative word of mouth and reviews mounted.

A Yeah! Woo! drum break sample from Rob Base's song "It Takes Two" is used in the opening sequence of the NES version.^[5]

Active Enterprises advertised a competition in which anyone who could complete level 8 of Ooze would be entered into a prize drawing to win $104,000 ($52,000 cash, and a scholarship of same value). The game was reported to crash on level 2, making this prize impossible to win^[6] without the use of emulator or an in-game exploit, rendering the contest a failure.

Sega Genesis

Gameplay of Spidey from the Genesis version (1993) of Action 52.

The Sega Genesis version of Action 52 features a largely different lineup of games, some with more effort put into design and fewer technical issues than the NES version.^[7] Each game is color-coded on the main menu screen; "Beginner" games are green, "Intermediate" games are purple, "Expert" games are yellow, and multiplayer games are blue.^[7]

Several new games were introduced in the Genesis version, a number of which share their names with games from the NES cartridge, but are different in terms of content. The Genesis Haunted Hills, for instance, has a male protagonist and is set outside a haunted house, while the NES Haunted Hills has a female protagonist and takes place inside a haunted house. A new rendition of The Cheetahmen was included, in which the Cheetahmen rescue captured cheetah cubs from Dr. Morbis and his minions.

In addition to the 52 games, the 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 52 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.

Development

The creator of Action 52 was Vince Perri, a businessman from Miami, Florida and the owner and founder of Active Enterprises. The breakthrough came by accident; "I happened to see my son playing an illegal product made in Taiwan that had 40 games on it. The whole neighborhood went crazy over it", Perri said. "I figured I'd do it legally. It's obvious when you see something like that, you know there's something there".^[8] In 1993, he showcased Action 52 at the International Winter Consumer Electronics Show.^[9]

For the NES version, Perri raised $20 million from private backers in Europe, South America and Saudi Arabia. He and Raul Gomila employed three college students (Mario Gonzalez, Javier Perez and Albert Hernandez) to do the game design, music, graphics and programming on an Atari ST, with a three-month deadline. Technical work was contracted out to Cronos Engineering, Inc., a Boca Raton company that had done work for IBM.^[8] Action 52 has 8 extra game templates, since the distributor had the carts come with 60 games by default, as well as many unused tiles; this has been confirmed in an interview with Gonzalez.

Also, according to Gonzalez, the development team was flown to Sculptured Software to develop the game. While Mario does not remember the name of the game company, he recalls them both being based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the company was developing an NES adaptation of Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. This, along with the game using Sculptured Software's sound engine, proves that the game was developed at Sculptured Software, but not by Sculptured Software staff.

Several of the songs from the NES version of Action 52 were plagiarized from example tunes included in Activision's The Music Studio for the Atari ST. The games with plagiarized music include Fuzz Power, Silver Sword, French Baker, Streemerz, Time Warp Tickers and Ninja Assault. Those songs were composed by Ed Bogas.^[10] Additionally, programmer Kevin Horton analyzed the music code of Action 52 and found that it matched a music engine programmed by Sculptured Software,^[11] featured in all of their NES games.

The Sega Genesis version, released two years later, was developed by Farsight Technologies, under the direction of Jay Obernolte.^[12] Farsight was also set to develop a version of Action 52 for the Super NES, but Active Enterprises withdrew from the video game industry shortly thereafter, and no copies are known to exist.

Prototypes

In 2010, a prototype cartridge of Action 52 surfaced, owned by movie and video games distributor Greg Pabich.^[13] Originally, Vince Perri had proposed a deal with Pabich asking him if he would be interested in working for Active Enterprises as a business partner. At this time, Perri only had a few prototype cartridges and not the final product. For various reasons, Pabich turned down the offer, but not before leaving with one of the prototypes in his possession, which was stored in his warehouse for over twenty years before it was "rediscovered".

The prototype itself contains numerous differences from the final Action 52 cartridges. It contains minor text differences for the game titles as well as different color backgrounds for the game selection menus. The final version contains the words "Action 52" in its header and copyright information in its footer. The prototype simply contains section numbers in each menu screen's header. The code for Action 52 appears to be heavily based upon the pirate multicart 52 in 1. This is evident due the menu template in the Action 52 prototype being identical to that of 52 in 1. However, the biggest difference between the prototype and the final game is that the final version contains the game Cheetahmen, whereas the prototype does not. In its place is a completely different Cheetahmen game titled "Action Gamer" (presumably taken from the name of the main character, the Action Gamemaster, in Cheetahmen). Action Gamer features only two levels, one of which is incomplete.^[14]

On November 11, 2011, Greg Pabich publicly released reproductions of Action Gamer, calling it "Cheetahmen: The Creation".^[15] This special package contains a sealed version of the game for collectors, an unsealed copy, a reproduction of the original Cheetahmen comic book, a Cheetahmen music CD, special edition T-shirts, and a poster.

In August 2012, one of the four original Action 52 developers surfaced, presenting their original boxed Action 52 NES prototype cartridge, one of only two known to exist. They have since created a blog documenting their part in the development of the Action 52 NES cartridge.^[16]

See also

• List of commercial failures in video gaming
• List of video games notable for negative reception
• Caltron 6 in 1
• Cassette 50
• Don't Buy This

References

External links

• List of all Action 52 games — A comprehensive website detailing all 52 of the games in the compilation.
• Active Enterprises exposed — A website with information on both Action 52 and Active Enterprises.
• Cheetahmengames.com — Official website of The Cheetahmen.
• Action52Prototype.com — Action 52 Developer #4's firsthand story of the development of Action 52 and the rare Action 52 prototype NES game cartridge.