Action 52

"52 ways to kill off your sanity......."

Warning: This is a long review, as I tested every game to make sure there I didn't skip out on any hidden gems or somehow give this game collection an unfair rating.

Note: I don't mention sound at all. Well, that because the music is uniformly disappointing in every single one of these 'games'. And if there are any sound effects, they just serve to make the game that much worse.

1. Fire Breather - Mindless 2 player action. Fly around and shoot eachother in different stages. Fun?
2. Star Evil - First of many, many, many shooters. You start off a centimeter from a block that will kill you if touched. Terrible level design..hell, terrible GAME design.
3. Illuminator - Imitation of old, ladder-filled one-screen arcade games. Run around & throw glowing hot charcoal at people, setting them on fire and lighting the stage for a second. Kinda fun, until the bats come after you in stage 3 or 4.
4. G-Force FGT - A different type of shooter, horizontal scrolling...although there are NO obstacles or anything to dodge. Basically a bunch of...things...fly at you, and you may or may not want to attempt shooting them with your pea-shooter. Only three stages, then it repeats.
5. Ooze - My hatred for this cart builds. This, I guess, is supposed to be the highlight of the 52, since it has it's own title screen. You control a leprechaun with green pajamas & a green hairpiece as you attempt to shoot green blobs. The horrible jumping control shows it's horrid face - if you hold the jump button down, you can't move left or right. So to jump over a gap you jump, then push your guy across as he falls. Fun?
6. Silver Sword - This time you control a purple guy as he shoots twigs out of his stomach at giant insects. I don't know if there's a boss or more than one stage, but I'm trying to limit damage to my brain here.
7. Critical BP - WTF?!? You're an amoeba, and you have to shoot boxes & gall stones that come at you from all directions. Impossible, vomit inducing....why am I DOING THIS?!?!???!!?
8. Jupiter Scope - This is like Missle Command, only you're defending a city from meteors with a space ship. And no matter how many hits the city takes, nothing happens. God help me.
9. Alfredo - A super cheap ripoff of Panic Resteraunt, with Ooze controls. Nuff said.
10. Operat. Moon - Dodge buildings & destroy gun turrets that AREN'T EVEN AIMING AT YOU.
11. Dam Busters - Controlling a beaver, you run around shooting other beavers. Why? Dunno.
12. Thrusters - Basically Star Evil(#2) without the claustraphobic atmosphere.
13. Haunted Hill - Control a redhead hooker with a crappy gun as she tries to kill floating things and jump platforms at the same time. Were they even trying?
14. Chill Out - Like Illuminator, only with hunchbacks. Oh yeah, and you can die by falling between platforms. No, not because there's a bottomless/spiked pit there, or that it's a long drop down, your guy just dies. Mindboggling.
15. Sharks - Play as a scuba diver in the most still and boring underwater scene ever. Sharks periodically come your way, and you have to disintegrate them with a backpack laser. After 15 minutes without even coming close to being hit, I killed my character and...there isn'e even a death animation! Your scuba diver just turns into a jumble of pixels.
16. Megalonia - G-Force with slightly better graphics.
17. French Baker - If you thought the gameplay & graphics couldn't get any more boring or worse, this game is here to prove you wrong.
18. Atmos Quake - Somewhere between Star Evil(#2) and Thrusters(#12).
19. Meong - What the hell is this? I won't describe it here cuz I just CAN'T.
20. Space Dreams - A shooter like Thrusters. Only your ship is a pacifier. The enemies are baby toys & diaper pins. What the hell is going on here?
21. StreemerZ - This one had promise. You're a clown, and instead of jumping you use a..uh...wire or something to shoot up onto the next platform. Unfortunately, I can't tell what you're supposed to do apart from climb. You can't touch money, or people, the rabbit in the hat doesn't do anything, and I got to the top
22. Spread Fire - You are a lobster shooting stuff. It's most like Jupiter Scope(#8) only enemies can go sideways. Tricky!!
23. Bubblegum Rosy/Rossie - This looked playable. Ends up having the same damn control scheme as the other sidescrolling games
24. Micro Mike - Do the words UNPLAYABLE CRAP mean anything to these guys?
25. Underground - Guide the stick figure through a cave whilst shooting giant diamonds or something.
26. Rocket Jockey - Guess what, this is a shooter. You ride a rocket & swing a lasso over your head, so I thought maybe there was a secret purpose for the cows to be in this game. I also forgot this is the worst thing to ever be massproduced other than NSYNC CDs & Mary Kate & Ashley anything. Hey, I'm halfway through this.
27. Non Human - Forget Resident Evil or even Totally Rad, this game is NIGHTMARISH. And I'm not just talking about the 'Ooze' controls, the graphics are messed up, man.
28. Cry Baby - A one-screen arcade game type, this one tries to imitate Konami's Upa or something. Anyways, you crawl around and pee on stuff. Besides that, you crawl up & down things insead of ladders, and if you fall more than a centimeter off you die.
29. Slashers - Something different this time. Here you're a guy walking across the top of a building, and gang members run up to you and compete with you. See, instead of fighting, you flex your biceps by mashing the B button.
30. Crazy Shufle - I don't understand how to play this, and I don't want to. I think it requires doing a coupla shots of '4 horsemen' first though.
31. Fuzz Power - Ooze controls in an Adventure Island...thing. You're a fuzzball with feet dodging living hair grooming products.
32. Shooting Gal - This is basically a shooter in which you can't die.
33. Lollipops - Looks like...um...something I've played before, but anyways, you run around and hit things with a big green lolipop. If you die, you turn into lollipops. It makes sense, really. It all ties into communism and those flying elephants somehow....why is the room spinning?
34. Evil Empire - You are an ant, and you must defeat an evil empire. Or something.
35. Sombreros - You are a guy wearing a sombrero in Mexico and you're shooting everything in sight. And if you get hit by cars you turn into a skull & crossbones
36. Storm over the Desert - Oooh, a title screen!!!!!! Apparently this is about Desert Storm. But when I start it I'm put in command of a tank slow enough to be from WW2. And this has to be the greenest desert ever. And why is there a giant invincible Sadam-zombie appearing every once in a while?
37. Mash Man - Well, I'll say this, at least these aren't Ooze controls. I'd rather be scraping my face off with a slab of pavement than look at this game for more than two seconds though
38. They Came - ...and I honestly don't know why.
39. Lazer League - A shooter I don't feel like describing right now.
40. Billy Bob - Not Thorton, either. Well, this game had quite a bit of promise, if only there's a way to get past the first screen. Think 2d Tomb Raider.
41. City of Doom - You're climbing up the side of a building Spiderman style, and there's all kindsa stuff falling down your path. This might've been kinda fun if it weren't for the fact that you die if you touch anything, even windows, which take up 3/4 of the screen.
42. Bits n Pieces - You are an undead birdman and you have to walk to the right whilst avoiding other undead who don't like you. You do that by jumping over them. Almost as fun as sharpening pencils!
43. Beeps n Blips - A shooter. Surprise, this time you can touch the walls without dying!!
44. Manchester - I think a better title would be 'Man my chest hurts', cuz after playing this bullcrap for more than a few minutes I couldn't stop laughing & crying.
45. Boss - The game designers must've thought that kids would be so mesmerized with the fluid animation they wouldn't notice just how ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE this sack of **** is.
46. Dedant - Another shooter. This time you're a pink ant. Getting attacked by other multicolor ants.
47. Hambo - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaa, HOOHOOHOOHAAHAA!!!!!!!!! Oh, excuse me. This is just too good. I guess the developers thought their other games were too easy, so they only give you one life here.
48. Timewarp - *shivers* They're after me. Those smiley faced red things....AAAHH! Geez..ah, anyways, this is a wipeass game that has a new control scheme than Ooze. Somehow or other they made one even more unplayable!
49. Jigsaw - ...and there was this one time, at band camp, we played a game, it was called Action 52, so we nailed it to some wood & soaked it in kerosene and lit it on fire, it was SOO FUNNY!
50. Ninja Assault - You know, I remember playing the Ninja Gaiden Tiger Handheld game. It was a heck of a lot better than this. Which is sad, and very funny at the same time.
51. Robbie Robot - Run to the right & mash the B button, oh yes, I think my eyes are bleeding
52. Cheetah Men -

The Action Game Master was at home playing his video game when suddenly...
An arm reached out of the TV and pulled him inside...
When he looked up he saw three gigantic yellow bodies. It was the Cheetahmen...
He began to explain....
the Cheetahmen told of the enemies here in the game world. Don't worry we will fight for you...
The Cheetahmen ran off...
....and now...
The Cheetahmen!

Thus began my last hope for this cartridge. All 51 'games' before this one tore away a day of my lifespan every minute I played. However, if this one game, the Cheetahmen, turned out good, my day might not be wasted....as it turns out, this game is almost worse than Ninja Assault(#50).

Bottom Line? What a waste of time. There's a lot here, but a whole lot of NOTHING. I've never seen such a collection of pure unadulterated filth.


Fun: 0
Graphics: 0
Sound: 1
Replay: 0

Annoyance: Um, THIS ENTIRE FRIGGING CARTRIDGE!!!
Great Moment: Finally being able to breath a sigh of relief once this review was finished.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/02, Updated 01/22/02