A detailed look at each of the 52 games on the cartridge: Some good, others unplayable.
Like its infamous NES predecessor, Action 52 is a multi-cart collection of 52 mini video games. This version has some extra features, such an Action 52 Gamemaster "challenge" game which allows the player to play the highest levels of the other games in random order. The cartridge also featured a sound test mode and random game option where a game is randomly chosen. This title has new games as well as redeveloped games from its flawed NES counterpart. Like the NES version, the cartridge also features the infamous Cheetahmen franchise as one of its games.
Unfortunately, the presentation and gameplay of the 52 games on this cartridge combined just couldn't match up with the industry standard for its time. The video game market in Action 52's time included strong titles such as Mortal Kombat II, Link's Awakening, and Shining Force II. This cartridge, however, is not a complete hopeless junk heap unlike its NES predecessor. Yes, these 52 games can be classified as the poor man's version and most are just knock-off replicas from other classic games, but they are all not that bad.
1. Go Bonkers (5.0):
This game is a mini replica of the Macintosh game Diamonds. You control a colored ball which bounces around a field, clearing bricks of the same color. The object of each level in the game is to clear all of the colored and circular blocks, all while avoiding the "death" bricks and utilizing features such as paint brush bricks, keys, locks, extra lives, and other bricks. This game is presented fairly well and had responsive controls. It also starts off well, but the level design through the later levels causes this game to get very frustrating and repetitive. Such levels require extensive backtracking and worse yet, the final level cannot be finished due to flaws in the level design.
2. Darksyne (3.0):
This is one of several shoot 'em up games and is very similar to the Atari classic Asteroids. The object is to guide your ship through space and destroy the guns attached to purple blocks and space debris. This game had potential given a good presentation and gameplay features such as power-ups, shields, extra fuel, and extra lives, but the strong gravity pull starting on Level 2 combined with narrow corridors really mess up the play control; combine both of these with having to restart entire levels all over again when struck by a gun or touching a wall. These issues make, what could have been a good mini space shooter, very frustrating and almost unplayable.
3. Dyno Tennis (6.0):
This is a two player game where two kiddie dinosaurs play tennis with what appears to be a floating mini caveman as the ball. This game is just a restructured Pong game, except the playfield is vertical, has a junior dinosaur theme, and players must tap a button when the floating caveman approaches. This game has no serious issues, but its presentation has room for improvement and gameplay will get stale very quickly given its short nature.
4. Ooze (4.0):
This infamous platform game is back, with our green-haired hero out to collect keys while avoiding the ooze and shooting down monsters. That's all the gameplay has to offer. No bosses; no story line. This game's controls are not nearly as messed up as the NES version since you can make your character jump while moving and you can duck and crawl to avoid enemies. Nevertheless, the controls are still poor. Your character cannot shoot while in the air. When you progress, over 75% of the screen is behind you, which means that it is very hard to navigate, engage or dodge enemies in front of you as the screen scrolls. The jumping and shooting control buttons are also backward, like in the NES version. You do retain any keys you've collected if you die, but overall, this game was programed poorly. The presentation was decent, and if it were for better controls, better level design, and better gameplay, we could have had a good Ooze game to play. That didn't happen.
5. Star Ball (2.0):
Star Ball is a pinball game with fundamental flaws in its programing and table design. The game features a double-wide pinball table with five sets of flippers, several bumpers, and numerous rollover targets. The object is to roll over all of the rollover targets and advance through the nine levels (which are nearly identical). Sounds okay on paper, but this game is all glitched up. Whenever the ball comes in contact with a flipper (up or down), you must keep tapping on the flipper control buttons; otherwise the ball will go right through the flipper as if the flipper doesn't exist! This makes standard pinball tactics like positioning the ball with a flipper impossible, making almost the whole game based on luck. The table design with a wide outlane also doesn't help and the color and pattern choices for the table's graphics are also a bit of an eyesore.
6. Sidewinder (4.0):
This is a behind-the-view type of shooter where you control a military jet through a valley and must destroy a series of enemy jets through nine levels while avoiding missiles, much like After Burner. Like Star Ball, the levels are redundant; the only difference between levels are increased frequency of ships and more missile dodging. This game will get dull very quickly as After Burner offered much more variety and better gameplay. The game also suffers from the same scrolling problem from Ooze, but even worse. Nearly 80% of the screen is behind your jet as you navigate the valley, making head-on collisions with missiles very possible. The graphical presentation also appeared to be rushed.
7. Daytona (5.0):
Daytona is time trial racing game set in the same grass valley as Sidewinder. The game features 9 tracks. The object is to complete one lap around each track under the target lap time to obtain prize money while avoiding costly crashes. This game suffers with poor presentation with grainy graphics and lack of music, but is playable with responsive controls.
8. 15-Puzzle (7.0):
15-Puzzle features a 4x4 version of the n-puzzle game where the numbered frames are shuffled in front of you and you must solve the puzzle before time runs out. This game will satisfy fans of n-puzzles, but that's just about it.
9. Sketch (1.0):
This is a bare bones paint program, offering a mere fraction of what was offered by Art Alive and not even touching the features offered on Mario Paint. You control and sketch with a pencil on a white background, cycling through 15 colors, one flashing red color, and 5 strokes. That's your tool selection. The controls are also very poor: The D-pad moves the pencil at a high rate of speed, making it very difficult to fine tune. The game has no tool windows, no erasers (just a white color instead), no shapes, no fill buckets, and not even an undo, making basic tasks like changing a color, coloring, and correcting mistakes very difficult and frustrating. Worse yet, accidentally pressing the start button will also kill your art project without warning with no way to recover it. Another major problem is there is no way to hide the cursor; this makes presenting or recording artwork pieces not even possible. This application is unplayable.
10. Star Duel (2.0):
This two player game is almost identical to Spacewar, except the gravity well is positioned off screen, the ships have a force field feature, and there's no hyperspace feature. Also, the ships don't explode if they touch the edge of the screen. The graphics are identical to Darksyne. The limited features will cause this game to stale very quickly and the music can get annoying after awhile. A bad glitch also puts this game on an unlevel playing field to the point where the game is unplayable. If Player 2's ship is shot down, Player 2 can still fire bullets from the ship's void, potentially causing Player 1's ship to blow up and thus, unfairly turn a win into a draw.
11. Haunted Hills (3.0):
This evil platformer makes a comeback from the NES version. Instead of a lady throwing objects at giant spiders and ghosts in a hall, you play as an adventurer collecting diamonds from all around the spooky hillside in four levels while knocking out demons with a burning staff. Like Ooze, that's how short the gameplay is. No giant spiders to kill at the end of the level; no story line. On the bright side, ghosts aren't attacking you from all sides and you can fall a bit further without dying, which makes this game not nearly as impossible as the NES version, but this version has problems of its own. Your character has one of the worst attack ranges, he cannot attack while in the air, he cannot duck, 75% of the screen is scrolls behind him, and he looses his diamonds when he dies. To make things worse, gargoyle statues breathe fire at random intervals, making portions of this game based on luck. The presentation was also a bit rushed.
12. Alfredo (7.0):
This wacky culinary game staring a chef and his living Italian food is back. Unlike the NES version where you walk through a giant kitchen and smash the food, you watch over a gigantic pot of red pasta sauce (which is about 3 times the size of the chef) and you need to capture the faced pasta noodles that jump out of the pot, all while avoiding the faced meatballs, sausages, and tomatoes. This game is pretty funny at first and the flow of the game isn't bad as the game gets progressively harder. The presentation and cartoon theme were also decent and controls were responsive. The gameplay is very short, but Alfredo fares well as nice little mini game.
13. Cheetahmen (3.0):
The Cheetahmen franchise is back again. This time Dr. Morbis decided to capture cheetah cubs, hide them in cages in tall trees, and infest the trees with weak clones of bosses found in earlier Cheetahmen games together with characters from Ooze and Haunted Hills. The three Cheetahmen, one at a time, must venture out into these trees and rescue the cubs from Morbis' hands. That's the game: Three levels of the same gameplay with the three Cheetahmen. No boss fights and no final stage or battle against Dr. Morbis. To make things worse, going up and down a ladder requires pixel-precise placement of your character, or else he's not going anywhere. Two of the Cheetahmen have poor attack range, and you cannot attack while in the air or on a ladder. Also, like Ooze and Haunted Hills, 75% of the screen is behind you as it scrolls, making it very easy to walk or climb right into an enemy and die. This game had potential with sharp looking character sprites and fair presentation, but the short gameplay and poor controls messed up a golden opportunity to redeem the Cheetahmen franchise.
14. Skirmish (7.0):
This game combines elements from Stratego and Archon with modern military equipment on a 12x13 board. The goal is to reach your opponent's HQ. After both players position their pieces, the game takes off. When two opposing pieces land on top of each other, the game switches to a quick battle scene where the loser loses his game piece, much like in Archon to a much smaller degree of action. The battle scenes could have offered better gameplay, but that's really the only minor fault of this game. The game also features a selection of boards. If you and a buddy are into strategy games, you might like this one.
15. Depth Charge (5.0):
Much like Sub-Scan from the Atari, this game is a scrolling ocean shooter where you control a sea ship and drop bombs on enemy submarines while avoiding their missiles. That's it. Like Sidewinder and Star Ball, the nine levels are redundant; the only difference between levels are increased frequency of submarines and more missile dodging. The controls are responsive, you retain credit for the number of destroyed submarines if you die, and the game had good graphical presentation, but the gameplay is very bland and the music can get annoying.
16. Minds Eye (2.0):
This game is a replica of the puzzle game Minesweeper. Yes, Action 52 managed to mess up this classic game. The biggest problem is the gameplay. In Minesweeper, a player would be able to choose the difficulty level right from the start; instead, this game progresses from easy to hard, forcing Minesweeper experts to sit through the starting levels of the game. Also in Minesweeper, a player's first move would never be on a mine, but in this version, you can lose on your first move by stepping on one at the start. This wouldn't be so bad if you weren't limited to five chances per game! Another problem is that the board just disappears when you lose; Minesweeper would reveal the mine locations, giving you a chance to see where you made the mistake. The final problem is the narrow corridors in the later levels, especially the final level. Narrow corridors can only reveal a certain number of clues, forcing the player to guess where several of the mines are. Even though the game allows you to take a limited number of free guesses, this defeats the point of Minesweeper: Logic. Play Minesweeper on the computer.
17. Alien Attack (2.0):
This game's concept, controls, and gameplay are flawed. In Alien Attack, you play nine levels as an armed fighter in a spacesuit with the goal to make it to the other side of each level, while shooting down any aliens that get in your way. That's the game. No boss fights. Nothing to collect. Like the platform games, 75% of the screen is behind you as it scrolls, making it very easy to run right into an engaging enemy and die. The foreground graphics in some of the levels also block the characters, making it even more easier to run into an enemy without even noticing. Top all of that off with bland background graphics and no death animation. This is a game that needs to go back to the drawing board.
18. Billy Bob (5.0):
This game is nothing like Billy Bob from the NES version. Instead of escaping from an underground dungeon, your job is to have Billy Bob shoot down an entire gang of villains that have infested an 1800's western ghost town. This is a stationary FPS that takes place in the same part of town throughout the whole game, which will get very stale and boring before you know it. This game does have an issue where running out of bullets means instant death, but you do retain credit for your kills.
It's also worth noting that Billy Bob also seems to be the most defensive hero on this cartridge, since this is the only single player hero that can take some kind of damage before dying.
19. Sharks (6.0):
This infamous title from the NES version is back, but functions much better since the sharks actually spawn more frequently and the jellyfish engage fully across the screen. The presentation is fairly decent and the game controls well. Nevertheless, the gameplay is still extremely short. You play as a scuba diver and have to shoot down sharks and jellyfish under the clear blue ocean through nine levels.
20. Knockout (2.0):
Knockout is a two player boxing game set in boxing arena which doesn't even touch the features offered by other similar titles. Good luck trying to find a buddy to play this with you. Both attacks and defenses are restricted to the basic punch. That's it. And no, you cannot attack while in the air. Even the mini fight scenes from several ice hockey games released years before offered better gameplay. The presentation is also very 8-bit and the music just doesn't flow with the game type. The controls are fairly responsive, but this game is almost unplayable for two players.
21. Intruder (3.0):
This is an overhead maze game that appeared to be rushed, but had a fairly good concept. Your goal is to make your way through an overwhelmingly secure corridor without touching any of the electrocuting walls while avoiding the patrolling robots which can be shot down. Gameplay runs short since you don't actually steal or take anything, which are typical jobs for intruders. The main problem of this game, however, is the poor placement of the robots. Sometimes they are positioned in way where they are outside of your character's shooting range, but impassible due to the surrounding walls. Your character can also only shoot horizontally and 75% of the screen is behind you as it scrolls, making it easy to die. Like Knockout, the presentation is also very 8-bit.
22: Echo (2.0):
This memory skill game is a replica of the popular toy game Simon. Action 52 has managed to knock off and mess up popular games, but Echo is by far the worst replica on the collection. In Echo, each level has a fixed number of colors that flash randomly and you must repeat the sequence. The number of tones increases through the game, but each round uses a different sequence of tones. The problems occur in the later levels where huge sequences are rapidly thrown at your face all at once for you to repeat in one shot, unlike in Simon where the same sequence grows from one tone up to 31 per game. This makes progressing through the game without cheating very difficult. The lack of difficulty options combined with the dull and bland presentation don't help either. Do the right thing and play Simon instead.
23. Freeway (7.0):
The game's title is a bit misleading as this game is not a driving game nor a replica of the Atari 2600 game. Freeway is actually a pretty challenging mini game and worth a try despite its short gameplay. You play as man's best friend who collects play toys on the opposite side of a six lane freeway; your job is to jaywalk across the freeway and retrieve them all without getting hit through nine levels. As the game progresses, you deal with speeding cars, tailgating trucks, wrong way traffic, and other wacky situations as you cross over the freeway. The presentation is fair and the controls responsive.
24: Mousetrap (5.0):
This is another mini game with short gameplay. You play as a mouse which runs around and collects cheese in a home theater while avoiding numerous cats. The nine levels take place in the same room; just more cheese appears and cats run faster in the later levels. This game does have the problem of poor placement of cheese at the edges where you're forced to guess whether or not a cat will randomly pop out and catch you, making parts of this game based on luck.
25. Ninja (2.0):
Our ninja hero makes a comeback from the infamous Ninja Assault from the NES version, but this game is just as flawed if not worse. In Ninja, you play in ancient Japan through nine levels with the goal to make it to the other side of each level while dodging and shooting down enemy ninjas with shurikens. Like the other platform games, the main problem of this game is that 75% of the screen is behind you. This really messes up Ninja's gameplay because the scrolling makes it easy to run right into oncoming shurikens, which occur very frequently in the later levels. Again, this makes beating the game without cheating very difficult and staying alive based on luck.
26. Slalom (2.0):
This is another computer desktop game replica that's messed up. Slalom is a knock-off of the Windows 3.1 classic SkiFree, except the only obstacle you have to deal with are trees. Like SkiFree, the object is to guide your skier to the bottom of the hill. The screen just scrolls faster and faster as the game progresses and you score points just by dodging trees. And no, there's no snow monster to chase you. Besides the short gameplay, Action 52 further managed to mess up the gameplay with inaccurate collision detection and cliche "death" animation.
27. Dauntless (1.0):
This is an unplayable horizontal scrolling shooter set in WWII times over a very cloudy pacific ocean. Your job is to shoot down as many enemy planes as it takes to advance through each of the levels. Unlike most horizontal shooters, enemies engage and fire in both directions. What makes this game unplayable are the clouds in the foreground. Oncoming enemy bullets are often completely hidden behind these clouds, making it very easy to unexpectedly fly into one of these and die. What makes this game even worse is the very high rate of speed of the enemy bullets. Whenever you're unlucky enough to be in the line of enemy fire, you have extremely little time to react and get out, even in the first level. This makes beating this game without cheating very difficult.
28. Force One (5.0):
Force One is a vertical shooter set in space with very similar short gameplay as Spread Fire in the NES Action 52. Like Spread Fire, your job is to shoot down enemy ships that move in random directions while avoiding the red indestructible ones. That's all to it. As the levels progress, the enemy ships just cruise faster.
29. Spidey (4.0):
Spidey literally offers the same gameplay and has the same object placement problems as Mousetrap, except you play as a spider who goes around a web consuming the unfortunate captured moths while avoiding enemy spiders. Like Mousetrap, just more moths and faster spiders make up the difference between levels. Mousetrap's presentation and theme is a bit better than Spidey.
30. Appleseed (4.0):
This game plays almost like Alfredo, except your job is capture all of the falling red apples, while avoiding all of the falling green apples. It's very basic theme, gameplay redundancy with Alfredo, and 8-bit style presentation bring a dull impression.
31. Skater (4.0):
Time to have some fun at the beach! Well, not really. In Skater, you play as a skateboarding youth cruising along an obstacle-infested beach pathway collecting radios and jumping over everything else. Nothing much more is offered as far as gameplay. The presentation is very 8-bit and just more obstacles and faster speeds make up the difference between levels.
32. Sunday Drive (3.0):
This title is a bit misleading because this game is not about a relaxing car ride on the open road. You really play as an insane driver in a hurry while speeding pass traffic on a five lane freeway loaded with tailgaters, swerving trucks, and constant reminders that Segaville is the next exit. All you do is dodge traffic through nine levels. This could have been a good mini game, but Sunday Drive has a fundamental flaw. The main issue of this game is that the traffic is randomly generated, making situations such as impassibility possible. This makes luck the only means of avoiding several fender-benders. The game's presentation is a bit on the rushed side.
33. Star Evil (5.0):
This crazy space shooter is back from the NES version. This version has improvements from before but its gameplay was truncated to nothing more than dodging walls and shooting down ships through the same repeating corridor again and again. Unlike the NES version, you don't crash into obstacles at the start of the levels, the presentation is better, and the collision detection is more accurate. However, your ship's defenses are reduced to a one-hit kill, there's no boss fights, and the levels are all identical with faster scrolling speeds and longer corridors as the only differences from start to finish. Had Action 52 designed each level differently, retained and improved the boss fights, kept the health bar for your ship, and brought in the power up's from Darksyne, Star Evil could have redeemed itself on the Genesis. Not here.
34. Air Command (2.0):
This is another scrolling shooter, except this one has an abundance of design and programing flaws. Air Command is an inverted vertical shooter as you control a wide bomber facing downward as enemy ships engage upward. The main problems with this game are the very poor collision detection and very poor defensive range. Many times, your bullets should hit the other planes, but will just go right through them. Your bullet's firing range doesn't help since it only covers about 12% of the total width of your plane, leaving you completely defenseless to several enemy attacks. This makes passing the later levels a game of luck since the planes engage at very high rate of speed.
35. Shootout (6.0):
This mini game is a FPS at a shooting gallery. You'll be surprised to see Billy Bob is behind the trigger. The goal is to have Billy Bob shoot down all of the parading animals through the gallery without running out of bullets. As the game progresses the animals parade faster and Billy Bob has less bullets. The scoring system is a bit misleading, but the presentation is fair and it's also quite funny that every time you shoot a white dog, a car horn honks.
36. Bombs Away (4.0):
This is another war themed game which appears to be set in Africa or Asia. The gameplay is short and very similar to Appleseed. You play as an unarmed soldier (who can jump higher than the huts) running through an automatic scrolling village of huts avoiding falling bombs that don't seem to explode when they reach the ground. The presentation appears to be rushed and your soldier's death animation is very unrealistic.
37. Speed Boat (2.0):
This game plays almost like Sunday Drive, Skater and Slalom. You cruise along in your speed boat through an obstacle-infested lake with a goal to make it to the other side without crashing. The gameplay is very short in this game and the presentation appears to be very rushed. The music can also get annoying and nerve wrecking. The main problem with this game though is the awful collision detection. If you happen to go anywhere near the obstacles, you'll crash. Yes, the collision detection includes the waves behind your boat and the others. This makes the later levels very difficult with the increased scrolling speed.
38. Dedant (2.0):
The ant colony has once again declared war against the other insects. Dedant makes a comeback from the NES Action 52. Like the NES version, Dedant is an insect-themed shooter. The gameplay is almost identical to Force One. Your job is to shoot down enemy insects that move in random directions while avoiding the indestructible spiders which are twice as wide as you are. Unlike Force One, once a spider appears, it remains on screen until you pass the level or die. This could have been a good concept, but the enemies are randomly generated, making it possible to have unlucky situations where the screen infested in spiders early in the level. This makes the game nearly unplayable, even in the early levels.
39. G Force (2.0):
The very infamous G Force Fighter space shooter from the NES version makes a comeback, but this version is just as unplayable as before. The gameplay and flaws are very similar to Dauntless, except there's no clouds to block the view of the enemy bullets. Like Dauntless, enemies engage and fire in both directions with the same very high rate of speed of the enemy bullets. Like Dauntless, beating this game without cheating is very difficult.
40. Man at Arms (1.0):
This medieval themed shooter could have been a good mini game to exercise one's reflexes. Unfortunately this is a game of pure luck. Gameplay isn't too bad early in the game, but gets very unplayable later on. You play as a castle guard and shoot off all invading soldiers and monsters. If an enemy touches the castle, you surrender. The problems occur due to the pure randomization of enemies. Sometimes over half a dozen enemies will spawn from one end of the screen to the other at the same time, making it impossible to kill them all before one of them reaches the castle. Your arrows also don't pass through a dying enemy, making you helpless if an enemy spawns directly behind another one. Beating this game without any form of cheating device requires some quality luck.
41. Norman (3.0):
Norman is somewhat of an improvement from the controversial Storm Over the Desert game from the NES Action 52. The enemies actually spawn more frequently. Gone are the references to Iraq. Absent are the giant Saddam Hussein 1-up clones. You control a war tank with a mission to destroy the enemy tanks and soldiers which seem to be roaming around like chickens without heads. Running over a soldier or touching an enemy tank destroys your tank in one shot! This game is far from realistic but gameplay starts off fairly well. Later in the game, however, Norman suffers from the same flaws as Storm Over the Desert. The enemies roam around in random directions way too fast, making it way too easy to get hit. This makes Norman another game based on good luck.
42. Armor Battle (2.0):
This 2 player tank vs. tank battle game is basically nothing more than a series of battle scenes from Skirmish. The tanks shoot in awkward directions after the first level, but this handicap varies between each player, putting this game on an unlevel playing field and therefore unplayable.
43. Magic Bean (4.0):
Magic Bean follows a portion of the classic story Jack and the Beanstalk, but this is another autoscrolling game of simply dodging obstacles, much like Speed Boat, Sunday Drive, Skater and Slalom. You play as a farmer who climbs up a beanstalk nine times to reach the Giant's castle while avoiding falling obstacles. The fact that you climb the beanstalk over and over really shortened the gameplay of what could have been a good Jack and the Beanstalk mini game. Magic Bean should have taken the game into the Giant's castle after the first level and followed the story.
44. Apache (2.0):
This game really takes the laws of depth perception out of context which messes up the play control through the later levels. This is another overhead vertical scrolling war shooter. You play as military helicopter and fly through nine levels of what looks like a very narrow and steep canyon shooting down enemy helicopters, jets, and what appears to be flying tanks. What makes this game further unrealistic and annoying is that you can crash into the boulders at the bottom of the canyon, which appear to be nothing more than parts of the background. This makes control through the later levels very difficult as your helicopter appears to fly faster through the canyon than a Blackbird jet. Your high speed helicopter combined with the awkward placement of hazards makes this game nearly unplayable in the later levels.
45. Paratrooper (5.0):
Paratrooper is another war based game with similar gameplay as Spidey and Mousetrap where you collect what looks like scattered military machines while avoiding or shooting down the roaming robots through nine levels. Like Mousetrap, machines sometimes appear on the edges of the screen where you must guess whether or not a robot will randomly pop out and catch you, making survival based on luck.
46. Sky Avenger (2.0):
Sky Avenger is another horizontal scrolling war shooter set in the same village as Bombs Away. This game shares the same short gameplay and fundamental flaws with Dauntless and G Force. Moving your helicopter around to dodge the high speed enemy projectiles is a game of luck.
47. Sharpshooter (4.0):
Sharpshooter is an improved version of Shooting Gallery from the NES cartridge. The goal is to shoot down all of the aliens that appear in the shooting gallery. A small added challenge is that the enemies can come down to your level, but the gameplay is short and music on the odd numbered levels can get very annoying.
48. Meteor (5.0):
The problematic shooter previously known as Jupiter Scope is back from the NES version, but plays better. Nevertheless, the gameplay itself is just as short and excessively easy. In Meteor, you control a hovering spacecraft and your goal is to shoot down as many meteors as it takes to advance through the levels, much like in Jupiter Scope except that the meteors show up in masse, allowing you to finish the game much quicker. The presentation is also fair and the controls are responsive.
49. Black Hole (5.0):
This is the last of several shooting games on the cartridge. Black Hole plays almost identical to Force One, except the ships engage from top to bottom and the background consists of a blue background with a black hole that's just part of the scenery. Like most of the other games, as the levels progress, the enemy ships just cruise faster and more appear at a time.
50. The Boss (3.0):
This is another game brought back from the NES cart as a stationary platformer. Instead of going through an alien-infested city avoiding bombs and engaging giant frogs, you roam as the Boss through four stories of the front of a building connected with ladders, shooting down aliens and collecting money, similar to Chill Out and French Baker from the NES cart. Like the Cheetahmen, going up and down a ladder requires pixel-precise placement of your character; this chokes up the gameplay as you go from each ladder to a floor. Also later in the game, parades of enemies can randomly spawn at once, causing entire floors to be obstructed with monsters. Since you cannot shoot up or down, this makes it impossible to proceed without dying. Again, this makes the Boss a game based on luck.
51. 1st Video Game (4.0):
This is a replica of the all time classic Pong. To make it clear, Pong is not the very first video game invention but was the first video game to successfully kick off the commercial video game industry and Atari. Pong remains a timeless classic for many players, but Action 52 managed to mess up this masterpiece. Gone is the Pong scoring system; instead the best of nine plays wins. Gone are the variable physics and progressive speed increases; instead the ball starts off at a high rate of speed. The worst part is that the game can glitch causing the ball can get stuck on the upper or lower walls. If you and a buddy are into Pong, play the original classic.
52. Action 52 Challenge:
The 52nd game is actually a feature where you complete the most difficult level of the other single player games in random order on the cartridge.
Overall (5.0):
Action 52 is playable, but there is nothing really special about it. As you can see, there were both fairly good and unplayable titles on this collection. For what the 52 mini games combined were worth back in its time, players certainly fared better with other strong video game classics for its time that offered richer gameplay and much more stunning presentation. The era and market of simple games such as scrolling shooters and mini platformers were a thing of the past in the 1980's. Through the 1990's to present, mini games, like those on Action 52, were bundled or integrated into bigger titles.
Today, if you're in the mood to play some mini games, buying Action 52 is not worth your time. Play the bonus games now bundled or integrated in your existing video game collection, or just go online, search, and play one for free. We can only hope that one day, the Cheetahmen, the Ooze guy, and the other characters from Action 52 can co-star in a well done video game classic to come.