Action 52 Review
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FUZZ POWER Another game that might sear the brains of children from its unholy graphics. You are a barefoot hairy guy that fights the demonic, tyrannical power of... hair dryers. What's worse, these hair dryers don't make you look like you just stepped out of a salon - they blow all of the hair off of your body, then kill you. You also have to avoid the coconuts that scatter the landscape. How did this game ever make it here from Japan?
Action-52 Rating: 40
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SHOOTING GAL You're a somewhat woman-shaped woman at the bottom of the screen, shooting up at adorable ponies, lizards, and rabbits that race around harmlessly above you. I'm not sure why you're bound and determined to kill these precious popkins, but that's what you do. That's ALL you do. You can't die, and nothing ever tries to attack you. Just fire and fire, until you get sick of it.
Action-52 Rating: 45
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LOLLIPOPS You look a lot more like a tennis player with a tennis racket than an angered lollipop weilder. I wonder if the people who designed the games were not the people that named them? Whatever the case, you jump through a land of surprisingly colored trees and whack things with your lollipop. When you die, it leaves a smudge that looks like a bunch of balloons on a piece of poo. That's worth a few points right there.
Action-52 Rating: 39
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EVIL EMPIRE You're a very tiny man in India, fighting to free the Taj Mahal from carpet men. This game has one noticeable feature - a surprisingly 16-bit-sounding audio sample when you pick up the little blue potions. Nicely done. It also controls a little easier than most of the other games on here.
Action-52 Rating: 18
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SOMBREROS Now this one just made me laugh. SOMBREROS! You're a dude running around, collecting vaguely hat-shaped sombreros. Trucks and bandits try to kill you. Why are there sombreros everywhere? It's a mystery, and that's why so is SOMBREROS.
Action-52 Rating: 24
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STROM OVER D The first politically charged game on the list! This one, STORM OVER THE DES(ert), surprised me with a surprisingly well done intro screen - one that looks like it could almost go with a real game. It's obviously fueled by gulf-war-era suspicions, as the noble looking US soldier frowns at the fat, dumpy foreign leader (who seems to be holding a whip.) The game itself it equally crazy, and that's why it earns TWO SCREENSHOTS, an Action 52 first! In the game itself, you control a badly drawn tank fighting bright red tanks and little soldiers. What's odd is that the little soldiers are the only ones that shoot at you (at least in the first level or two.) The amusning part comes when a GIANT (twice the size of your tank) Saddam-look-alike runs across the screen. He can't hurt you, and the only way to kill him is to ram him with your tank. Shooting him does nothing. Some subtly veiled political propaganda? Play it and find out! Action-52 Rating: 4
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MASH MAN You're a shifty-eyed pervert with a huge nose and even more gigantic feet hopping through a brick-covered wonderland. Nothing moves in this game except for... you, mash man. You have to cruelly crush the life out of gooey eyeball monsters and de-limbed baby torsos (in diapers) in order to advance to the next level. Don't land on the flesh-spikes or tacks or it's all over! Perhaps the only thing of note is that some of the blocks in the second level appear to spell out the word Mango. Yummm... mango.
Action-52 Rating: 44
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THEY CAME Here we are, bravely marching into the territory of actual game! You control a reasonably rendered spaceship fighting other acceptably drawn spaceships. Various gas tanks with "P" on them appear, and you must scoot over them to... well, I couldn't really determine what flying over them did. If they had decided to strip out 51 games, and turn this shooter into a multi-staged shooter with power-ups and a barebones story, you *might* not feel bad about laying down $10 for it in a bargain bin. As it is... well, I did have a tiny urge to play to Level 2... that's something. Plus... They Came. Talk about a cool title for a game. Many modern games (this edit in May of 2007) could take a lesson from simplicity. Colons are bad! Looks at some good game titles; System Shock. Bioshock. Fallout. Syberia. 'They Came' gets not only concise points, but philosophical points as well. Just like 'We Tried' for the last words recorded from civilization, 'They Came' could be regarded as an equally substantial entry. Action-52 Rating: 16
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LAZER LEAGUE A league should at least try to get whatever it's basing its name on correct. LASER. Anyway, this one is one of the better titles - your flying rocket man controls well, and there's not as much flicker. There's even a boss at the end of the stage! A rotating tank monster that spits out strangely attractive red circles. It repeats after the end of the second level. The flying style and the somewhat lazy movement remind just a bit of the last stage of Kid Icarus with about a half pound of suck added. LAAZZZEEER LLLEEEAAGGUEEE!
Action-52 Rating: 22
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BILLY BOB Oh, so close! This one has the best animation in the pack by far - a very prince-of-persia-esque jump animation. You have to dodge blocks and arrows as you pass through a tomb. The thing that brings it down is the terrible jump controls. In the second screen, there's a long jump you have to make. The jump timing is so unresponsive that I failed to make the jump - even after 20 attempts. While the first screen does hold its share of delights, not being able to play more than twenty seconds sort of hampered its replay value. Action-52 Rating: 17
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CITY OF DOOM Climbing up the building higher, ever higher! Why are you climbing this building? Nobody knows. There are bowling balls falling down on you, angry wasps that buzz around, and hats that fall to get you. You can fire bloody globs out of your body to knock these things down. If you touch the windows you die, just as in real life.
Action-52 Rating: 47
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BITS N PIECES Have you ever wondered about the original inspiration for the Resident Evil series? Well look no further! BITS N PIECES features a hunchbacked high-jumper who leaps on werewolves and green mouth monsters in order to escape the cemetary. You can't do much besides jump on them. At the very least, his death animation is better than most. Action-52 Rating: 41
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