Action 52 (1991). Play online

Summary

Action 52 promised “52 new and original games” on one NES cartridge, hinging its hype on the bizarre Cheetahmen franchise and a wild contest for the game Ooze – a contest that was impossible to win because Level 2 always crashed on the original hardware. The cart burst onto shelves for an eye‑popping $199, boasting a mix of vertical space shooters and platformers that all suffer from major programming flaws: freezing, unresponsive controls, endless or missing levels, and some games that simply won’t boot.

Even the opening drum break is a copy of the Rob Base “It Takes Two” beat, a strange Easter egg that many fans still recognize. One of the more infamous titles, Storm Over the Desert, lets you pilot an M1 Abrams tank against a caricatured Saddam Hussein, underscoring the hodgepodge nature of the collection.

Today the cartridge is prized by collectors as a legendary example of a “rush job gone wrong.” Despite being widely panned—AllGame gave it 1/5 and Destructoid called it “nothing worth playing”—its rarity and the lore surrounding the failed Cheetahmen franchise keep Action 52 a curious staple of retro gaming history.

Storyline

Action 52 is a notorious NES cartridge that packs fifty‑two distinct games into one. Its final entry, The Cheetahmen, serves as the featured title and brings back characters from the preceding fifty‑one games as hostile foes.

Another oddball inclusion, Storm Over the Desert, drops players into a crude top‑down Gulf War scenario. You control an American M1 Abrams tank, navigating a barren map while oversized caricatures of Saddam Hussein appear at random. The tank can either blast the dictator’s likeness with its cannon or simply run him over.