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Action 52

Franchise Information

Early Advertising of Action 52

The Action 52 franchise consists of two unlicensed multigame cartidges developed by Active Enterprises and released in 1991 for the NES and Sega Genesis. As the name suggests, the cartridges contain 52 original games, many of which are similar. There are a lot of simple shoot-em-up spaceship games. The NES and Genesis versions contains some of the same games and some different. The game boasts that it is "Made in the USA" and it is believed that the games were produced by just one person from his home in Florida, USA. The instruction manual is written in six different language because the cartridge was exported worldwide. The NES cartridge came with an insert indicated that it 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", a method for bypassing the NES region lock.

The feature game on the cartridge is Cheetahmen (a.k.a. The Action Gamemaster), which has three mutant Cheetahs (like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) fighting the enemies from the other 51 games. The cartridge came packaged with a Cheetahmen comic book telling the story of the Cheetahmen. As part of the franchise, Cheetahmen action figures were planned, with illustrations on the back cover of the comic book, indicating that they were "coming soon to a toy store near you".

The original "suggested retail" of both cartridges was $199USD which was soon reduced when demand was lower than expected. Many retailers could not afford the commitment of purchasing the games as Active Enterprises required a minimum order of 500 units. Some video stores purchased the cartridges for rental purposes and these stores were a good place to find the ex-rental cartridges for sale a few years after. Action 52 was advertised for Christmas 1993 at a price of $79.99. Active Enterprises went out of business that year. With an estimated 10 000 or less cartridges manufactured, the cartridges are now highly sought-after by collectors.

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