We’re in the midst of a raging pandemic, when else would some maniac review 52 different critically despised 8-bit games from 1991?
 Someone has to do it, right? I can’t believe I’m starting off 2021 playing this, but here I am. Let us begin.

1. Firebreather | The first and only game on this cartridge that is a multiplayer game. So right off the bat I can’t really play it. There’s two dragons. I control one, player 2 the other. I don’t have a friend to play with right now. It looks like it could’ve been competitive for a few minutes though.

2. StarEvil | Starevil says “fuck you” about 0.5 second after pressing START. You instantly hit a barrier and if the name hasn’t told you already your exploding carcass will - it’s a shmup. One of many on A52. You can hold down the button but then the fire rate is slower. The music is ok but repetitive. Bland enemies.

3. Illuminator | Four levels connected by ladders. Enemies on each level. After one second the light goes out. If you shoot enemy = light goes on for another second - and so on - and so on. I made it a few levels, but not a lot happened.

4. G-Force FGT. | Another horizontal space shooter. Not inspiring. The feel is just off and the music drives me nuts. After three levels it put me back on level one. Then I died. I was happy I died. Next.

5. Ooze | First game on A52 with a title screen. Maybe here’s some potential?
There wasn’t. Bad platformer with terrible jumping. Great combo, right?

6. Silver Sword | This game sounds fucking awesome.
It wasn’t. Top view “adventure” game. It sucks. The name fooled me.

7. Critical Bypass | This game is just straight up an insult. It spawns enemies ON you. You can take four hits, and the game wants you to take those as fast as you can. Fuck this game.

8. Jupiter Scope | Best game so far. Another space shooter. Through a flaw in its design it actually becomes quite and interesting game. When you shoot - enemies doesn’t spawn…It’s 100% designed like that to fuck with you, but instead you control the pace and you control how much you want to take on. Music and backgrounds are cool and fits the theme actually.

9. Alfredo | You’re a chef who is under attack from sausages in a kitchen. I’m starting to realise they’re just recycling the same handful of game mechanics, changing the visuals only. Let’s move on.

10. Operation Full Moon | You’re controlling a space truck on the moon fighting turrets and avoiding buildings. Reach a certain point and you advance one level aka the colors change. It got boring quick.

11. Dam Busters | I don’t know what damn buster made this game but it’s bad. You’re Winnie the pooh fighting trolls and running through mazes. The controller is atrocious.

12. Thrusters | Twelve down, forty to go. Another game where if you shoot, enemies are not spawning. You can literally play until the end of time and never see an enemy. The game is only fun if you don’t fire your thrusters at all. Who am I kidding it’s not fun…Trust Us…Thrusters…ok.

13. Haunted Hill | This one is a dungeon crawler, with very slow walking, so literally crawling. Your projectile sucks and enemies are annoying and the first one COME FROM BEHIND. Classic.

14. Chill Out | Ice Climber ripoff, but your character has a fucking shotgun. You climb ladders like in Donkey Kong but the hitbox on the ladders are made by a chimpanzee. Don’t tell me to chill out.

15. Sharks | My favourite game so far. You’re a diver who shoots sharks. The music is funky and backgrounds are nice, and controls are not half bad. First level has grey sharks, the second level adds white sharks. The game becomes unbeatable past the third level because you can’t hit the jelly fish. It was fun while it lasted.

16. Megalonia | I don’t know how many the hostages were that had to make this game, but I’m guessing each of them was forced to program a horizontal space shooter. Megalonia is bad, but it’s the first level that I’ve seen on here with a boss fight. Nice.

17. French Baker | Another levels-and-ladders game, and another game where the protagonist is a chef. You throw knives at kitchen utensils and food, and the game is not half bad. Just not fun for very long.

18. Atmos Quake | Yet another space shooter, but the controls are pretty good and it feels better than the other ones. Repetitive as hell however, but I like the name and the music is fine.

19. Meong | Mine sweeper ripoff where you basically have to memorise a certain pattern or just wing it and see how far you get. Fun for about 10 minutes at a time.

20. Space Dreams | Spaaace shoooter!! Attacked by paper clips, birthday candles, teddy bears and Chucky dolls you try to make it as far as you can. They recycled the tune from another game.

21. Streemerz | Listen, there’s bags of cash in this game, and IF YOU TOUCH THEM YOU DIE!!? What the hell is that? They’re not even moving around like an enemy, just bags of cash on the floor, and if you try to pick them up you lose a life. That’s cheap. Fuck this game.

22. Spread Fire | This one actually isn’t half bad. It’s a space shmup á la space invaders and the pace is kind of pleasing. The hitboxes are broken however. Some enemies can’t be killed. But Action 52s whole objective is just to kill you as fast as they can. I wish a fire spread throughout the offices when they worked on this shithole.

23. Bubble Gum Rossy | This game is an embarrassment to video games. The controls are so broke it’s an insult to you as a gamer. What programmer abandons their project in a state like this? Their budget was millions!! Unbelievable.

24. Micro Mike | Another insult to humanity. It’s flappy bird on meth but there are enemies too. Incredibly atrocious.

25. Underground | Oh my goodness I’m bored to tears. I have not even pressed Start yet as I write this. Ok, here we go. Underground sounds cool. I’ll be back in three minutes. Oh hi, this could have been good if it wasn’t designed by a douchebag that won’t let you pass the first level even. It’s design is actually pretty cool and climbing the ladders and shooting and handling feels good. But you can’t beat the first screen. Fuck off.

26. Rocket Jock | You’re a jock, on a rocket, flying, shooting, again. The music is provocative and enemies look weird. Like either cows or rhinestones, I can’t tell.

27. Non Human | Just like the programmers, this game is Non Human. Terrible platformer with mid air fall damage and slippy controls and your character looks so unfinished it’s a joke.

28. Cry Baby | A baby with a yoyo slapping detectives, fuzzy orbs and other babies. Reach score to advance, climb furniture between levels and listen to a lullaby on repeat. Next.

29. Slashers | Unfinished “beat-em-up” with ass controls. When an enemy enters the screen, you stop, dead in your tracks. Ridiculous. Punching is bad and it’s repetitive and boring.

30. Crazy Shuffle | Did they come up with the number 52 before they started? It’s feels like they just added stuff in to reach 52 games. This is not a game this is a children’s drawing simulator. Don’t play Crazy Shuffle.

31. Fuzz Power | This is a hobbit platformer with pretty fast pace and okay jumping. It’s designed to kill you after 4 seconds though, otherwise it could have been something. Still shit though.

32. Shooting Gallery | Twenty left. Hanging in there. Shooting Gallery for once is what it says it is. You shoot lizards, ferrets, birds I think, and other animals. Every 1000 points you advance a level. It’s OK for a few minutes.

33. Lollipop | Sci-fi platformer where you wield a lollipop against bacteria or bonbons and other candies. Jumping is actually tolerable and not as broken as in other games. Designed to kill you on level one though.

34. Evil Empire | Interesting idea and design. Too bad they didn’t spend a bit more time on this one. You fire on enemies between towers and try to climb up and grab the stones, or plums, before they spawn again. It’s too random for you to become good at it though, which is unfortunate.

35. Sombreros | Damn I made it to level 3 on this one! You’re a sombrero wearing person who hates sidewalk and refuses to walk off the road. Speeding cars hurt you (duh), as well as several gang members. I made it to the woods and then into the town, where I got killed. OK game. (Not really)

36. Storm Over The Desert | Another game with a title screen and it’s a basic tank game. The sound is good but the enemies are too flimsy and random and have no weight to them. Your tank has weight though. This game also sucks, don’t get it twisted.

37. Mash Man | It’s a revamp of Fuzz Man from before but they switched out the colors, and you’re not fuzzy any more. Just as shitty, just as frustrating, just as designed to kill you off within 15 seconds. The game wants you to move on and forget it. It’s kind of sad in a way.

38. They Came | Cool name for a space shooter, like an old sci-fi movie. The game is rushed, like the 51 other games on here. It’s “fun” for 45 second until you realise that the developer gave up after just as long.

39. Lazer League | Another revamp of one of the other shit shows on this cartridge, I can’t remember which one and I couldn’t care less. This is another insult to video games, a side scrolling, broken mess of a game. The first level actually has a boss, a vinyl record player shooting pellets. Fuck this.

40. Billy Bob | They spent so much time on the animation for Billy Bobs jumping, that they just left the rest to a random fate. It’s like stolen from Lester the Unlikely and the rest of the game is designed to kill you instantly so you don’t dare to play on any longer. No way they even actually designed more than three screens of this crap.

41. City of Doom | It reminds me of Crazy Climber or any old Spider Man game, you’re climbing buildings and dodging stuff thrown from windows above you as you try to reach the top. It’s terribly designed however and not fun at all, it’s cheap - and designed to fuck you over. Lovely.

42. Bits N Pieces | Ten left. God help me. Alright, this game’s enemies and design is actually sick. As a Universal Monsters fan this would have been enough as a NES game, if they put some more effort into the actual gameplay. You’re Dracula, and you’re just jumping over skeletons, wolf man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon or something. Too bad the game suck vampire balls.

43. Beeps and Blips | Looks like an updated version of ‘They Came’. It looks like a shitty Game Boy Advance game but it plays worse than the Tiger Electronic Games. It’s a shitty shooter thrown in to make it to 52 so they could just shut the production down.

44. Manchester | This might be the worst game I have ever played. I legit have had more fun with my calculator. I waited on bus stops in the nineties and all I could do was collect a spit pile in front of me, and I had more fun then than I have playing Manchester. Controlling the “character” hurts my body. He has no animation and the sound design is the worst in history. It’s on top of this broken and of course also designed to murder you four seconds in.

45. Boss | You’re a lizard in a suit with a shotgun, shooting Shreks degenerate kids while people throw bombs at you from buildings. It’s blocky and broken and shitty and I can’t believe I made it a few screens.

46. Dedant | You’re an ant shooting (??) other ants. This is actually playable, but it would be hard to fuck a simple thing like this up. If anyone could do it however; it’s these guys. You can shoot one bullet at a time. That says a lot.

47. Hambo | Another cheap, broken ladder game created to fuck with you. The enemies spawn at random and they can spawn on you or right in front of you. It gives you no chance to live. Like I expected otherwise…

48. Timewarp | You control two fingers walking walking around flicking magnifying glasses, worms, you know, obvious antagonists like that, right? The game sucks. Music is tolerable but you won’t be playing for more than 45 seconds anyway.

49. Jigsaw | You play as a psychopath carpenter with a nail gun, shooting tools and other utensils that attack you after a hard days work. Platforming is shite and the music could be used as torture tactics for wartime information.

50. Ninja Assault | Fucking fifty. Okay, Ninja Assault…so the jumping and controls are pretty detailed in this one, I quickly got the mechanics and I even made it a few screens and killed 8-10 bad guys. It wants you to lose, so after a few screens they send in the dogs that just maul you to death. This game needs WORK, but it’s not a total insult. But then again I’m just comparing that to the other garbage that’s on Action52.

51. Robbie N the Robots | Elton John is stuck in a purple cave with the golden gun and he has to get out. When you jump, it makes a weird sound. Enemies are wall mounted turrets and roller-cops. Puke Nukem would have been a better title. I made it a few screens but that means nothing.

52. Cheetahmen | Okay so holy shit, the last game on A52 has a story, fucking cut scenes and has way more work behind it. I guess the 51 other games was just a bonus huh? But then you press start. It’s still janky, there’s no hud, no animations to speak of or any weight to the characters. You don’t even fall in to pits, you just explode when you fail to jump over them. The tune playing is actually catchy and tolerable, but you won’t be hanging around long enough to listen to it. It looked promising when booting it up, but this also turned out to be a pile of cheetah shit.

Action52 was a cheap cash grab, but with a huge budget for some reason, that a lot of parents probably fell for - buying this game for their kids. This game retailed for 200$ !! but they probably thought it would last the kid a while since you get all of FIFTY TWO games. Oh boy were they wrong. They psychologically hurt their kid if anything. Just like I was hurt. I need to rest now.