Action 52
Action 52 is a 1991 role-playing game developed by Active Enterprises and published by LJN for the NES and Sega Genesis. It contains 52 "New and Original" games, each renown for their unconventional gameplay, technical prowess, and high standard of quality. Konami is currently working on a remake for the Wii U.
In 1994, Action 52 was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It is the only game in existence to be added to this prestigious list, putting it in a premier category as THE pinnacle game of the modern era. It is listed as the 1st most popular game at the Awesome Amazing Games Database as of right now.
Plot[edit | edit source]
The game is about an 18-year old high school Virgin, Scorpio Vavalis (voiced by Sean Connery) and his classmate, Virgo Thyme (voiced by Britney Spears). The story begins when the duo began probing into the mystery of the disappearance several Hentai Anime High School cohorts connected to the circulation of an occult Super 9999999-in-1 Family Game cartridge being circulated among the juniors.
One fine aftertoon, after school, when Scorpio and Virgo were about to do their thang in the Student Body room, they found the cartridge in a Fitness First backpack. Curious, they ran the cartridge to investigate. The games on the multicart, despite being cheesy repeats of Super Mari 7, Road Fighter, Contra 99, Brush Roller, Joyvial Race and Mappy with the copyright messages removed, proved to be extraordinarly engaging, the loving couple forgot about their divine consummation. The two played till exhaustion, falling asleep in front of the television with the controllers still in their hands. When they woke up, they found themselves in the shrine of the Uncolored Dinosaur, said to be the centre of ruined Mars.
They met the Triune Cheetahmen: Hercules (Bobcat Goldthwait), Ares (voiced by Abber Miller) and Apollo (voiced by Mark Hamill), who told them that they were the Video Gamemasters that could revive the world from ruin. Together, the five-strong force began on their long arduous journey to find a way to recolour the Dinousaur, thus finally restoring Earth from its destruction, saving humanity, rescuing the Princess of the World, and finding back their dear deported friends.
Screenshots[edit | edit source]
 CG Sequence of The Birth of Astrology. |
Artistic Innovations[edit | edit source]
Action 52's enigmatic presentation of the multi-faceted plot was a first in the entire history of Computer Role Playing Games. It was the first game to offer multiple endings based on what actions the player took within the course of the game. Incorporating an exotic mix of Tolkien fantasy and traditional mythologies from a myriad of ethnicities, its visual artwork, designed by renowned illustrator Nina had a rich, dynamic style to it which would inspire later famous works, namely Astro Boy, Bible Black, Chrono Trigger, Contra, Daikatana, Divi-Dead, Dracula, Dragon Quest, Fetish Fantasy, Nocturnal Illusions, Raid 2020, The Ring, Rockman, Street Fighter II, Xenogears, Zelda and the Sistene Chapel.
The soundtrack was the combined effort of multi-award winning composers Ludvig Von Beethoven, Richter Belmont, Falco, Celine Dion, Adrian and Vlad Tepes Dracula, Macy Gray, Captain Jack, Koji Kondo, Micheal Jackson, Yasnouri Mistuda, Wolfgang Amedus Mozart, Maria Renard, NAOKI, Nobuo Uematsu, Michiru Yamane and Zorro. Being the most powerful arrangement of musical notes ever attempted, the masterpiece set the standards for the composers' later works, Hollywood cinema and many of today's mainstream Baroque, Goth, Radio Pop and R&B styles.
The gameplay introduced many new concepts to the realm of video games, such as the first-person perspective, the real-time battle system and the 8-button controller. Action 52 was the first game to make use of pressure-sensitive buttons. Because the NES's two-button controller was severely inadequate for use in Action 52, Active sold the game together with the Boomerang of Apollo controller. The gamepad's design was licensed to Sony for use on the first two PlayStation consoles.
Action 52 has been officially recognised the Most Influential and Best Game of all time by the ESA.
The Cartridge[edit | edit source]
Under the condition which they would produce the best game in the world, Nintendo decided to let Action and Color Dreams design their own cartridge. The gamble paid off. BIG TIME. The cartridge contained the famous Color Dreams SHICHIIRO Mapper, which was over a thousand times superior to the NES itself in terms of mathematical performance. The cartridge identical in size besides being slightly longer than any regular NES cartridge. The mapper in the cartridge had an embedded GPU which allowed the game to render remarkably detailed giga-polygon 3D graphics in 24-bit colour at 1040p high-definition resolution realtime on the NES. The mapper also had enough processing power to sample 24-bit 5-channel PCM audio at 96KHz. Because the NES did not have support for external sound channels, the cartridge had its own RCA analog and PCM Optical audio out ports. It was able to address up to 2048 Gigabits of ROM, far exceeding any computer until recently. However, despite its detailed visuals unfathomable complexity, the game data and code took just under 16 Gigabits and loaded seamlessly, due to the highly efficient programming and storage methods employed. The cartridge had to carry much less ROM than the mapper could handle. The SHICHIIRO was noted by the Guinness Book of World Records through the 1980s and 1990s as the most powerful domestic CPU. The cartridge case was as specially made frosted translucent clear plastic with a translucent rainbow and accent. This design is said to have inspired the design of first few generations of Apple's iMac. Each cartridge had a serial number embedded within it together with the autograph a key production staff for each different run.
Marketing Problems and the Nintendo Incident[edit | edit source]
Due to the extensive features of the cartridge and that it had to ship with the Boomerang of Ares controller, the game sold at an inevitable high price of US$200, with the next most expensive game being Ice Climber selling at only US$89. Despite its price, it sold very well, and was extremely well appreciated by the gaming community; its first two production runs of about 140,000 units sold out within hours of each issue. However, corporate politics between Color Dreams and Nintendo caused the revocation of Color Dreams's development licence. As a result, the game never made it to its third run. The sudden refusal of Nintendo to allow Color Dreams to continue producing games for the NES resulted in the hallmark Color Dreams vs Nintendo of America case, one of the most important episodes of American political and legal history. Color Dreams accused Nintendo for preventing further production of Action 52 in order to allow Super Mario Bros. to become the best-selling game, thus letting the best-selling game on a Nintendo system be a Nintendo production. Active Enterprises, in a fit of rage voluntarily gave up their NES license and made public, with patriotic overtones, their transfer to Atari. Many Americans at that time accused Nintendo for being "a Japanese second attempt at Pearl Harbour," bringing forth the inevitable Nintendo Conundrum.
Action 52 Today[edit | edit source]
Even nearly 20 years after its release, the game continues to be followed by a strong fan base comprising mainly of its original purchasers, celebrating it as a turning point in the history of modern art and media. Outside the United States, however, the game is known much more for the political uprising it caused than its artistic achievements, as less than 10 of all the cartridges ever made are to be found outside America. Due to the complexity of the mapper and its vast difference in operation from conventional CPUs in use today, Action 52 is not likely to be able to be successfully emulated on a most home computer systems yet. A copy of the game from the first production run along with the development systems and hard disks Active and Color Dreams used to work on the game are being kept at the Smithsonian Institute.
Remake[edit | edit source]
Action 52 was remade in 2010 for the Chintendo Vii. It was even better than the NES version, featuring games such as Ultra-Ooze, Cheetahmen II 1/2, and Jupiter Scope II: Now there's not even any meteors!. Despite the even higher price of $1,999 to support the advanced Vii-enhancing nanotechnology embedded in the disc, over 2 million copies have been sold. Where the hell are people getting that kind of money from??