Action 52

History

Early Advertising of Action 52

Action 52 is an unlicensed multigame cartridge made by Active Enterprises and released in 1991 for the NES and Sega Genesis. It is a 52-in-1 game cartridge that boasted its USA-made content and large amount of original games all in 1 cartridge as opposed to the 1, 2 or 3 in 1 cartridges programmed in Japan. The 52 original games (mostly clones of other games really, with a lot of spaceship games) are only available on the Action 52 cartridge and are all copyrighted.

Judging by the amateurish nature of the programming, I thought it might have been a compilation of games/programming exercises from a class of computer programming students that they thought were good enough for release. But as far as we know, these games were all programmed by the one person, from his home in Florida, USA.

The main game on the cartridge is The Action Gamemaster (a.k.a. Cheetahmen), which has three mutant (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle clone) Cheetahs fighting the enemies from the previous 51 games. There is a difference in the games between the Nintendo and Genesis versions, however, some are the same.

The cartridge came packaged with a Cheetahmen comic book telling the story of the Cheetahmen.

The original "suggested retail" of the cart was $199 US which was soon reduced when no-one wanted to buy. Many retailers could not afford the these games as Active Enterprises would only sell 500 at a time. Some stores did buy some for rental, and these stores were a good place to find the carts for sale a few years after.

You'll notice the instruction manual is written in six different languages. This is because the cart was exported worldwide. How they got past the country locks? No-one knows, but the cart uses "smart circuitry" to "set itself to your particular model or console" which involves the "picture resetting" which happens about "2 to 6 times before it settles", according to the insert that came packaged with the game.

Action 52 was advertised for Christmas 1993 at a price of $79.99. Active Enterprises went out of business that year. Action 52 is an okay cartridge, but not worth the amount they were asking for it. With an estimated 10 000 or less cartridges made, it's one that every collector should get, even if you don't appreciate the games.