Action 52

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Action 52
Studio Active Enterprises (NES)
FarSight Studios (Mega Drive)
Publisher Active Enterprises
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 NES: 1991
Mega Drive: 1993
platform Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Mega Drive
genre Game collection
Game mode Single player
two players
control Controller
medium Cartdrive
language English

Action 52 is an unlicensed game collection that was first published in 1991 by Active Enterprises for the Nintendo Entertainment System and in 1993 by FarSight Studios for the Sega Mega Drive . The collection has been listed several times among the worst games of all time because of its poor quality. The title The Cheetahmen , which was accompanied by a twelve-page comic booklet and whose protagonists were used as mascots, attracted greater attention from the pool of games included. Through a crowdfunding campaign in 2012, The Cheetahmen received a sequel that had already been planned in the 1990s but initially remained unpublished.

description

Scope and background

Action 52 contains 52 different games on a so-called multicart ( cartridge with more than one game), mostly from the genres of shoot 'em up and jump' n 'run . The collection was released for both the Nintendo Entertainment System (1991) and the Mega Drive (1993), with differences in the games included between the two versions. Another version for the Super Nintendo was advertised, but never published.

The development was initiated by the American businessman and former investment banker Vince Perri from Miami. Perri, himself the father of a son who loves computer games, said he was dissatisfied with the high cost of this hobby, as the purchase price of a licensed game was usually 55 to 60 US dollars. The idea for the game collection came to Perri while watching his son playing with an illegal game module from Taiwan that had 40 game titles on it. After the collection also met with great interest in the neighborhood, Perri looked for a legal method to implement such a game collection himself. Therefore, according to his own statements, he raised five million US dollars from investors in Europe and Saudi Arabia in order to found Active Enterprises Limited, which is registered in the Bahamas and operates from Miami.

Creation and publication

Perri shared his office with a recording studio. An employee of the studio, the young sound engineer and college student Mario Gonzalez, heard about Perri's plans and offered to help him develop it. Together with two friends, the programmer Albert Hernandez and the graphic artist Javier Perez, he submitted a demo. Perri then hired all three as developers and sent them to Salt Lake City to familiarize themselves with the NES development software. The subsequent development timeframe was three months. During that time, the team of three was supported by another friend. Further technical work was outsourced to Cronos Engineering Inc., an IBM partner company from Boca Raton .

The starting point of the development apparently formed a multicart composed of black copies with the designation 52-in-1 . Action 52 not only has the same number of games, but also uses an almost identical selection menu for the presentation of Active Enterprises self-produced titles. The games were developed on the PC; the games were programmed in assembly language . The graphics were created with the help of the programs dPaint and dPaint Anim. Some pieces of music in the NES version are plagiarism originally composed by Ed Bogas and originating from the Atari ST software The Music Studio . Analyzes of the game's music code revealed that it was developed with the help of a music driver from the Salt Lake City-based development studio Sculptured Software (found in Day Dreamin 'Davey , Monopoly and Metal Mech ). Sculptured Software, which among others developed the game Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for LucasArts , was probably also the training company for the three programmers. Another plagiarism is the melody of the selection screen, which is the song It Takes Two by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock , which itself is based on samples of the song Think (About It) by Lyn Collins .

Action 52 sold on NES at a price of $ 199, which it said was less than $ 4 per game. The advertisement spoke of 52 "new and original exciting games". Active Enterprises also held a competition for the game Ooze , in which any player who successfully completed all five levels of the game should have entered a prize draw of $ 104,000. However, programming errors prevented the game from even ending.

Active Enterprises no longer took over the development of the Mega-Drive version internally, but transferred it to Far Sight Technologies. The result was a wider range of game forms (including sports & puzzle games) with improved technology and graphics, but without reaching a competitive level. January 1993 Perri presented the Mega-Drive version at the International Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The price of this version was between 99 and 119 US dollars, depending on the provider.

The Cheetah

The most famous game in the collection was The Cheetahmen (literally translated: The Cheetah People ), which was based on an idea by Perri himself. The three hybrid beings with the proper names Aries, Hercules and Apollo were used as anthropomorphic mascots, as they u. a. due to the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (turtle people) had come into fashion at the time (see also Battletoads (toad people)). Among other things, Active Enterprises had a television commercial produced and a costume made for appearances at trade fairs. Merchandising articles such as t-shirts, comic books and an animated series should also be realized around the characters . Due to the negative reviews and the word of mouth that came with it , these plans were dropped.

An enclosed, twelve-page comic story told the background of the three hybrid beings: The mad scientist Dr. Morbis killed a female cheetah while on safari in Africa to use her babies for genetic research. This gave rise to the Cheetah, a mutation between humans and cheetahs. With his newly acquired research knowledge, Dr. Morbis created a cheetah army, which is why the cheetahs decide to stop their creator. The player takes on the role of the "action gamemaster" who was drawn into the game while playing video games. When he meets the Cheetahs, he runs away from them. The Gamemaster himself does not appear directly in the game, but takes on the role of the respective Cheetah according to the instructions. In the NES version of Action 52 , the game consists of six levels. The content of the NES and Mega Drive versions differ from one another.

Active Enterprises planned a sequel titled The Cheetahmen II for NES but was no longer officially released. In 1996, a total of 1500 pre-produced modules appeared, which were sold to dealers and collectors in a liquidation sale. The game was obviously not finished because the program crashes after the fourth of six levels. However, collector sales of the game reached four-digit amounts.

Versions

NES prototypes

A prototype of the game came into the possession of Greg Pabich, who ran a distribution company for used films and games in Dallas in the early 1990s. Active Enterprises approached Pabich to win him over as a potential US distributor. When Pabich visited the company in Miami, Vincent Perri gave him one of the unfinished prototype modules. The partnership did not materialize and Pabich's prototype was forgotten before rediscovering it 20 years later. This prototype differed in some points from the published version of the game. The game menu was completely different from the official version, the 52nd game was not called Cheetahmen , but Action Gamer , had a different story and only two levels. The original concept for Action Gamer came from Mario Gonzalez, was the working title Boss and should consist of an ongoing boss fight against all bosses of the previous 51 games. Perri eventually came up with the idea of ​​anthropomorphic action heroes. The version of the prototype already reflects this change and consists of two levels that were published in 2011 as Cheetahmen: The Creation .

A second prototype came into the possession of the fourth developer. It became popular when it was put up for sale on ebay . In contrast to Pabich's version, this prototype still lacks the iconic intro ("Lights! Camera! Action 52") and the intro story by Action Gamer .

Game list
  1. Fire breathers
  2. Star Evil
  3. illuminator
  4. G-Force Fighters
  5. Ooze
  6. Silver Sword
  7. Critical bypass
  8. Jupiter scope
  9. Alfredo and The Fettucini
  10. Operation Full-Moon
  11. Dam busters
  12. Thrusters
  13. Haunted Halls of Wentworth
  14. chill out
  15. Sharks
  16. Megalonia
  17. French Baker
  18. Atmos Quake
  19. Meong
  20. Space dreams
  21. Streemerz
  22. Spread fire
  23. Bubblegum Rosie
  24. Micro Mike
  25. Underground
  26. Rocket jockey
  27. Non human
  28. Cry baby
  29. Slashers
  30. Crazy Shuffle
  31. Fuzz power
  32. Shooting Gallery
  33. Lollipops
  34. Evil Empire
  35. Sombreros
  36. Storm over the desert
  37. Mash Man
  38. They came ...
  39. Lazer League
  40. Billy Bob
  41. City of Doom
  42. Bits and Pieces
  43. Beeps and Blips
  44. Manchester beat
  45. The boss
  46. Dedant
  47. Hambo's Adventures
  48. Time Warp Tickers
  49. Jigsaw
  50. Ninja Assault
  51. Robbie and the Robots
  52. Action gamer

NES version

The NES version of Action 52 was developed and released in-house by Active Enterprises. The selection menu is preceded by an intro consisting of three still images, with the often quoted words “Lights! Camera! Action 52 ". The music to be heard is a plagiarism of the song It Takes Two by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock . All games can be played in pairs, but only one after the other. Only the first title Fire Breathers is a simultaneously played multiplayer title. Many games contain glitches in which some games do not even start or the respective game stops in the middle. Some other games are incomplete or suffer from endless levels. Another point of criticism was that many games are difficult to control and have a complicated design. A peculiarity of the collection is that the jump command was assigned to the B button and the shooting command to the A button of the NES controller, although the reverse assignment had become a common convention. The song Think (About It) by Lyn Collins can be heard during game selection and on the start screen .

In The Cheetahmen , the player controls one of the three Cheetahs, which differ in their fighting style, for every two levels. Aries uses clubs, Hercules is taller than his two brothers and seeks close combat, Apollo uses a crossbow. The opponents consist, among other things, of recycled figures from the other games. This also includes the character of Satán Hossain , who is a parody of Saddam Hussein and originally appeared in Storm over the Desert .

A total of about 6000 copies of the module were made.

Game list
  1. Fire Breathers :
  2. Star Evil
  3. illuminator
  4. G-Force Fighters
  5. Ooze ^
  6. Silver Sword
  7. Critical bypass
  8. Jupiter scope
  9. Alfredo and the Fettucini *
  10. Operation Full-Moon
  11. Dam busters
  12. Thrusters
  13. Haunted Halls of Wentworth
  14. chill out
  15. Sharks
  16. Megalonia
  17. French Baker
  18. Atmos Quake
  19. Meong
  20. Space dreams
  21. Streemerz ^
  22. Spread Fire
  23. Bubblegum Rosie
  24. Micro Mike
  25. Underground
  26. Rocket jockey
  27. Non-human
  28. Crybaby
  29. Slashers
  30. Crazy Shuffle
  31. Fuzz power
  32. Shooting Gallery
  33. Lollipops
  34. Evil Empire
  35. Sombreros
  36. Storm over the desert
  37. Mash Man
  38. They came ...
  39. Laser League
  40. Billy Bob
  41. City of Doom
  42. Bits and Pieces
  43. Beeps and Blips
  44. Manchester
  45. boss
  46. Dedant
  47. Hambo's Adventures
  48. Time Warp Tickers
  49. Jigsaw *
  50. Ninja Assault
  51. Robbie and the Robots
  52. The Cheetah
* cancels before the game starts.
^ suddenly stops during the game.
: simultaneous multiplayer

Mega Drive socket

The version for the Sega Mega Drive was developed as a commissioned work by FarSight Technologies . In contrast to the Nintendo version, the games have been significantly revised and changed, and this collection also partly contains other games in other genres, which has led to a different listing in the selection menu. There was also a color coding system. Games marked in green are considered to be easy, purple as medium difficulty, yellow as difficult, and blue stands for titles with two-player mode. In some cases, new games such as Haunted Hills were added, and Pong was used as the 51st game , under the title First Game . Mind's Eye , in turn, corresponds to a slightly modified form of Minesweeper . In the 52nd game Challenge , the players are confronted with the hardest level from a random selection of the previous games. In addition, games such as Cheetahmen have been completely changed. Here the Cheetahs had to free some baby cheetahs from the clutches of monsters. The end bosses of the NES version only appeared here as simple opponents.

Game list
  1. Bonkers
  2. Darksyne
  3. Dyno tennis
  4. Ooze
  5. Star ball
  6. Sidewinder
  7. Daytona
  8. 15 puzzles
  9. sketch
  10. Star Duel
  11. Haunted Hill
  12. Alfredo
  13. The Cheetah
  14. Skirmish
  15. Depth Charge
  16. Minds Eye
  17. Alien attack
  18. Billy Bob
  19. Sharks
  20. knockout
  21. Intruder
  22. echo
  23. Freeway
  24. Mousetrap
  25. Ninja
  26. slalom
  27. Dauntless
  28. Force One
  29. Spidey
  30. Appleseed
  31. Skater
  32. Sunday Drive
  33. Star Evil
  34. Air Command
  35. Shootout
  36. Bombs Away
  37. Speed ​​boat
  38. Dedant
  39. G fighter
  40. Man at Arms
  41. Norman
  42. Armor Battle
  43. Magic Bean
  44. Apache
  45. Paratrooper
  46. Sky Avenger
  47. Sharpshooter
  48. meteor
  49. Black Hole
  50. The boss
  51. First game (= pong )
  52. Challenge

reception

reviews
publication Rating
NES Mega drive
GamePro k. A. 1.5 / 5

The games collection was known in the reception for the poor quality of its games, which repeatedly earned the product listings among the worst games or the biggest game flops of all time. The game Star Evil , a vertical shooter , was named as an example from the NES version . As soon as the game starts, the program confronts the player with an obstacle that he has to avoid in a fraction of a second, otherwise the game will be over immediately . Other examples are the Jump 'n' Run Bubblegum Rossie , which traps the player between insurmountable obstacles if a small mistake occurs during a jump, the Ooze that crashes in the middle of the game or the Alfredo and the Fettucini and Jigsaw programs that do not start . In terms of fun, titles such as Streemerz , Meong , Dam Busters and The Cheetahmen were rated more positively, even if not as good . The ability to return to the main menu using a key combination was also rated positively, while other collections required a console restart.

In retrospect, Hardcore Gaming 101 called Active Enterprises a “ gold-rush developer ” and Action 52 as a prime example of the problem with inexperienced developers. Active Enterprises have shown the ability to develop a largely functioning product, the necessary knowledge to position it on the market and the will to implement it, but in the hope of easy money and ignorance of the realities of the business, it failed to meet the requirements of the market. The idea of ​​offering more games for the same money is plausible from an economic point of view, but at the same time the makers did not understand that the quality of the games in particular makes the difference between good and average products. After all 52 games did not even meet the most basic quality requirements, the project was doomed to failure from the start. Was compared Action 52 for the NES case with the flood of bad cheap productions for the Atari 2600 , the 1983 to drastic Video Game Crash contributed, and a wave of cheap also produced mini-game collections for the game console Wii . Action 52 is “nothing less than a complete disaster”, but one can learn a lot from its poor quality. The mega-drive version was technically and playfully more sophisticated, but at the same time lost a lot of its " camp appeal ".

"Action 52 provides over four dozen reminders that some programmers should never be let near a development kit."

"Action 52 offers more than four dozen reminders that some programmers should never be allowed within the reach of a development kit."

- Gamespy, retrospective 2002

Active Enterprises did not make an appearance in the game industry after the release of Action 52 for Mega Drive. Both the announced SNES version, the franchise products and the planned sequel to The Cheetahmen , as well as the portable game console Action GameMaster, which should be compatible with NES Mega-Drive and SNES modules, never came onto the market. Action 52 became a rarity and collector's item.

In 2010, the programming project Action 52 Owns produced several freeware games that were remakes of the original title of Action 52 . The aim of the remake project was to fix the technical and content-related deficiencies or criticisms of the original games and to turn the concepts into entertaining games. The remakes Streemerz , Rocket Jockey and Sombreros received media attention .

A small cult developed around the figures of the Cheetah. In 2007 a video with scenes and music from a prototype of the never-released game Cheetahmen 2 appeared on the video website Nico Nico Douga , and later on YouTube . The theme song became an internet meme and evoked several remixes. Furthermore, the game Cheetahmen: The Creation was published on November 11, 2011 by Greg Pabich , which is a reproduction of the two action gamer levels of Pabich's prototype. In August / September 2012 a crowdfunding campaign was successfully financed by Greg Pabich, which should enable the completion and publication of Cheetahmen 2: The Lost Levels as a NES module. The games iCheetah and Cheetahmen: Ultima were also announced .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c James McNair: Video Creator Plays 52 Games to Win . In: The Miami Herald . July 12, 1993, p. 9BM.
  2. ↑ a b c Adam Erickson: My Quest Is Over
  3. ^ A b Action 52 The Prototype: The Past
  4. ↑ a b Mark Weber: The Evolution of Action 52 . In: The Video Game Museum . Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  5. ↑ cf. Statements about the training company of the developer Mario Gonzalez in: Adam Erickson: My Quest Is Over
  6. ↑ a b c d Oliver Jia: The Game Archivist: Action 52 - Introduction & Part 1: The Beginning ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (December 29, 2013) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / thepunkeffect.com
  7. ↑ Post on NESDev forum by Kevin Horton . April 5, 2011. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  8. ↑ Vincent Chiucchi: The Hall of Shame 17/01/08: Action 52 . In: 411mania.com . January 17, 2008. Archived from the original on May 21, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jave: Action 52 - NES (1991) / Action 52 - Genesis (1993) / Cheetahmen 2 - NES (unreleased) . In: Hardcore Gaming 101 . Archived from the original on May 12, 2015. Retrieved October 4, 2010.
  10. ^ A b c Andrew Harris, Dave Allwein: Jay Obernolte Interview . In: Cheetahmen Corner . 2003. Archived from the original on February 15, 2009. Retrieved on October 4, 2010.
  11. ↑ Cartridge has 52 video games . Austin American-Statesman. January 30, 1993. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  12. ↑ Destructoid: Cheetahmen commercial was a 'failed expirement'
  13. ↑ a b Kirstin Norling Walker: Single Game Cartridge Keeps You In The Action 52 Ways . In: Chicago Tribune . June 25, 1993.
  14. ↑ Active Enterprises exposed . atarihq.com. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
  15. ↑ Action 52 - th 'Stuff . Arkfullofsorrow.com. Archived from the original on September 13, 2011. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
  16. ↑ Brett Weiss: Classic Home Video Games, 1985–1988: A Complete Reference Guide . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-6937-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  17. ↑ Cheetahmen 2 -The Lost Levels: Now on Kickstarter
  18. ↑ Mark Weber: What's Rarer: A Prototype Action 52 Cart or a Person Who Met Vince Perri? . In: The Video Game Museum . Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  19. ↑ a b Cheetahmen Lost Prototype Reproduced In $ 499 Deluxe Edition
  20. ^ Action 52 The Prototype
  21. ↑ Cheetah Games: History
  22. ↑ a b Manny LaMancha: ProReview: Action 52 . In: GamePro (US) . No. 56, March 1994, p. 52.
  23. ↑ a b Top Ten Shameful Games . In: GameSpy . December 31, 2002. Archived from the original on April 14, 2009. Retrieved on November 14, 2009.
  24. ^ The Worst Video Games of All Time . In: UGO . June 1, 2010. Archived from the original on June 6, 2010. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
  25. ↑ Web.de: Flops in games history
  26. ↑ Kotaku Australia : One Guy Is Trying To Sell More Video Games Than You've Ever Seen ( Memento October 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  27. ↑ The Rarest and Most Valuable Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Games
  28. ↑ The Rarest and Most Valuable NES Games
  29. ↑ a b Rock, Paper, Shotgun : “Vaguely Racist” - Sombreros
  30. ↑ Gamasutra : Best Of Indie Games: Streaming to Your Screens Live
  31. ↑ Mike Rose: 250 Indie Games You Must Play . CRC Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4398-7575-9 , pp. 115 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  32. ↑ Gamasutra : Best Of Indie Games: Lights, Camera, Action!
  33. ↑ Know Your Meme: CheetahMen II
  34. ↑ Mark Weber: Cheetah Fever! . In: The Video Game Museum . Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  35. ↑ Kickstarter: CHEETAHMEN II: THE LOST LEVELS
  36. ↑ Cheetah Games
  37. ↑ Greg Pabich wants to make Cheetahmen games for Ouya and iOS