Vince Perri, a businessman working in international banking in 1989, didn't know that much about
video games.
But his son, who was nine years old, certainly did.
The kid had an NES, Nintendo's popular home console.
He may also have had a Sega console too, but it's unclear - because when talking about
his son's game habit it's clear Perri doesn't understand the difference.
"I had to buy a lot of video games", Perri said in an interview, "a decent Sega or Nintendo
costs 55 to 60 dollars."
Yes, this man called a video game for an NES a 'Nintendo'.\h
And bear in mind this interview took place when Action 52 was gearing up to be released
- I think that will set the tone for the rest of this guy's video game story to be honest.
Anyway, back to when Action 52 was just a twinkle in this guy's eye.
Vince Perri noted that his son's gaming habit was costing him a fair pop.
But being a good dad, of course he got his kid the games he wanted when he could.
But one day, he noticed his son had got hold of a 'Nintendo' that didn't look like the
kind of thing the Japanese video game giant would be on board with at all.
His son was playing a multicart.
"I happened to see my son playing an illegal product made in Taiwan that had 40 games on
it.
The whole neighbourhood went crazy over it."
Perri said.
Yes, a cart with a whole bunch of games on it was sure to keep gaming kids occupied for
far longer and far cheaper than getting games the legit way, from a local video store.
Honestly, can you blame parents of that era for wanting to save themselves a bit of cash?
Let's take this supposed 40 game cartridge.
now the average price for a game like say super Mario bros for NES would have been about
$25 at the time.
40 games at that much would set you back $1000.
This is a no-brainer, even if it is a bit cheeky.
Unauthorised cartridges like this were a real problem for Nintendo in the late 80s and early
90s.
They are still being made today, although you're not likely to easily find any that
include games beyond the NES library.
Some have some absolutely insane claims, with labels stating hundreds of thousands of games
on one little cartridge.
Of course that would be absolutely mental even if they were the small size that NES
used to be, those cartridges take the piss because they are just the same small handful
of games listed again and again.
Damn it, I was hoping to spend the rest of my life playing 99,999 games and avoiding
all my other responsibilities.
Now exactly which bootleg cartridge Vince Perri's kid had is up for debate.
Although he says it was a 40 in 1 in most interviews, it seems more likely he meant
a 52 in one cartridge.
specifically, this one - the supervision 52 in one.
This seems to have released, again without Nintendo’s permission, around 1989 which
would make it quite a new kid on the block when Perri’s son was playing it.
it actually only contains 50 games, with the last two being hacks of to others on the cartridge
- circus Charlie, renamed circus troupe, and a super Mario bros hack that is incredibly
glitchy but makes up for that being delightfully called fancy brothers.
so fancy.
We will be seeing the menu screen of the supervision 52-in-1 again in this video; it's was very
obviously grabbed and used for Perri's mad lad gaming idea, to the point where the prototype
of action 52 used the exact same menu.\h
In any case, confident with his idea, our man set to work to take the gaming world by
storm.
Perri founded Active Enterprises specifically to produce his 52-in-1 idea.
That's right - this lad was absolutely not mucking about.\h
But he needed a lot of money to start up the business - and despite leaving a career in
banking, he'd need more cold hard cash to pay for his plans.
Because his plans were...intense.
This was going to be far more than just a video game - as far as Perri was concerned,
his idea was all about the kick off.
But if there's one thing Perri was good at, like a lot of bankers, it was bullshitting.
As we are going to find out.
To secure funding, he'd need to found a business.
But doing that is expensive; that is, unless you can dodge around the kind of things the
government wants you to spend that startup cash on.
Things like, you know, taxes.
Luckily for Perri, in 1990 The Bahamas made a move to increase its already considerable
reputation as a leading financial hub of sorts for businesses worldwide.
They passed the International Business Companies Act in January 1990, significantly reducing
the cost and complication of incorporating an offshore business on the sun-soaked collection
of islands.
And thus Active enterprises
Some sources online have the Active Enterprises company founded in 1989.
It seems far more likely that Perri, a shrewd businessman, incorporated it after that Bahamas
business companies act passed, although it does seem that 1989 is the year Perri and
his business partner got together with their big ideas for taking the video game world
by storm.
Going offshore with the business rather than registering it in America brought with it
a bunch of benefits; the main one being, of course, dodging tax.\h
And Perri did manage to silver tongue his way into the chequebooks of a whole bunch
of investors worldwide.
Thanks to his overseas banking connections, his private backers came from the likes of
Saudi Arabia and all over Europe - and by the end of his quest for startup cash he had
a cool 5 million dollars to play with.
It was all go now - time to get together a team to make Action 52 into a reality.
And hopefully make an absolutely bobbin load of cash.
Now the team behind what would become the infamous Action 52 weren't exactly some crack
team assembled by virtue of their skills.
In fact, they got the gig by chance.
Apparently Perri bumped into one Mario Gonzalez while at a Miami recording studio.
Gonzalez, a young man working as a sound engineer at the studio, couldn't help but overhear
Perri chatting about his plan to make a legal NES multicart.
In a ballsy but none the less impressive move, Gonzalez recommended himself and his two friends
Javier Perez and Albert Hernandez as potential candidates to make that game a reality, as
the three of them were keen to make games.
After presenting Perri with a Tetris-esque game they'd made, Perri was impressed enough
to take them on board.
Remember, this man couldn't tell the difference between a Sega and a Nintendo console, so
honestly that Tetris game could have been one of the worst games ever made and he'd
probably have chucked money at it.\h
The team set to work, coding the games on an Atari ST.
Perri had the team flown out for an intensive week-long course to learn how to use an NES
development kit.
They were then given three months to make 52 video games.\h
Now even by modern standards, that's a huge ask.
There's no doubt the team were eager and had the capacity to be competent game creators
- they certainly had the passion.
But even the most experienced developers would be hard-pressed to get that amount of games
out there in such a short time for a system they had recently learned how to code for.
These poor lads had their work cut out for them - and corners were about to be very much
cut to get this legit multicart out to the public.
According to the fourth developer, another friend of Mario Gonzales who would join the
team later on, they used Deluxe paint and deluxe paint animator to make the game.
It was programmed in assembly.
The games would be made in a corner of a recording studio where absolutely no sunlight could
get in.
All four developers would spend ridiculous hours working in this soundproofed cell for
three months.
And I do mean ridiculous hours – these young men were putting away upwards of sixty hours
a week and Vince Perri would occasionally pop in and maybe bring them coffee.
He didn’t even pay the fourth developer, and it’s not clear if he paid the other
three – they certainly had some share of the profits written into their contracts but
it’s hard to tell if they were even being compensated for their time while their boss
was swanning around all over the world and schmoozing.
Now most sources online record Action 52 as being released in 1991.
And that is what the copyright says on the title screen of the game.
However, it doesn't appear to have been shown until at least the tail end of 1992 when Active
Enterprises demonstrated Action 52 at the International Consumer Electronics Show in
Nevada.
In this article for Game Zone issue 5, game journalist Jeremy Daldry writes that he's
not at all convinced by Active's big idea - writing "I’ve heard some tall tales in
my time, but this one from active enterprises just about takes the biscuit."
According to him, the NES cart was going to cost 80 dollars and there was only the one
game on show.
In addition, the only magazine review I was able to find of the game was for N-Force magazine
in February 1993.
Of course that doesn't mean it wasn't covered elsewhere - but remember, it's not like gaming
magazines commonly covered lots of unlicenced games.
That being said, it's surprising a cartridge full of legally made games wasn't getting
more of a buzz about it - it seems Perri spent his marketing budget on newspaper articles
and stopped there.
Perri was keen to make sure that the creation of the cartridges would happen on American
soil as much as possible.
The plastic for the cartridge was produced by one M&M plastics in Hialeah, Florida.
The production of packaging was handled by Caribbean Box Co in North America, and over
in Orlando American Technologies was manufacturing the electronic internals for the game.
When it was finally released, the recommended retail price for this thing was $199 dollars.
that works out at less than 4 dollars a game.
that is dirt cheap for the time - 52 brand new games for price of a meal deal!
don't mind if I do.
Let's have a look at this.
Now why does the title screen plays 'it takes two', the 1988 hit, is anyone’s guess.
Theres not a chance it was used with permission.
Is it used because technically all the games are two player?
Not at the same time mind you, only by taking turns and competing for a high score.
So..it doesn’t even really take two, you can still play this game if you have no friends.
And if you had them in the first place you wont have them after getting them to play
this bullshit.
Because yes, spoiler alert, everything about every game on this cartridge is godawful.\h
The problem is, there's 52 of them and I'm not sure I can handle playing through each
one for you.
I need someone who is so tempered by self-hatred that they can tell us about what Action 52
truly has to offer.
A real miserable bastard.
Alright, fine.
I’m not about to go show you each of the games because I already covered every single
one in my own video about action 52 which I will get Peter to link in the description
do watch it if you want more details about every individual game.
if I have to write about each game on this godawful cartridge again I'm going to murder
the first person I see, and that wouldn't be great because I would not do well in prison.
I would be everyone's bitch.
So technically action 52 can be two player.
51 of the games let you take turns to get the highest score.
The
only solely two player game on this cart is the very first game.
fire breathers.
two dragons frying each other.
you cant play a one player version.
Theres no CPU.
so right away this is a waste of time.
Why is the only game that can only be played with two players the first in the entire massive
list?
I can only think its because logically you and a friend will play it together before
you both realise how much of a pile of garbage the whole thing is.
The sprites for the dragons are cute though.
This is one of the games that looks like effort was put in.
But that’s all I’ve got here.
and yes, its only going to get worse.
like, a lot worse.
For a start, the second game Star Evil just straight up kills you right off the bat.
For gods sake!
How are you supposed to know you need to avoid something as soon as the game starts?
I don't have the reflexes of a jet fighter pilot, sometimes I don’t even realise milk
has gone off until I’m halfway through a bowl of cornflakes.
Look at level two.
Absolute troll!
Come on!
Every time you get taken back to the title screen, the cursor will be on game five.
This is probably because that's how the bootleg cart active enterprises totally nicked the
title screen from was set up.
Impressive laziness, I’m not even mad.
Remember the three lads and eventually the fourth who were making this had three months
to make 52 games, im not surprised they had to cut corners like that.
I’ll let you off lads.
Vince perri though?
No.
Bad Vince.
Bad marketing minded vince.
Ggame number five is ooze and it's disgusting.
You're a guy jumping around on snot, the monsters are snot.
the background is snot, even the title is snot.
yes this is one of the very few games that has a title screen.
I did want to blow this game into a tissue and never talk about it again but I have to
mention it because theres some interesting facts about it, if this kind of thing is interesting
to you I donth know.
One, this is the game used in the promo material for a proposed Action 52 competition.
Apparently, completing the game would enter you into a prize drawer.
the hilarious thing about that is the game crashes somewhere in level three and can't
be completed.
Second, the last game on the cartridge was originally called action gamemaster.
After the cheetahmen were made up to replace that slot, action gamemaster was apparently
reworked into Ooze and another game on the cartridge, Robbie N the Robots.
The music is ooze also came from the originally planned action gamemaster.
And finally - Active enterprises put a flyer in with some distributions of Action 52 saying
that complete the incompletable Ooze would unlock two secret extra games.
Here’s said flyer.
No, that doesn’t mean theres actually 54 games on action 52.
The flyer is referring to the games Jigsaw and Alfredo and the fettucinis, which is shortened
to alfredo in the fettuc on its title screen.
That’s not the only misspelling by the way, there’s loads of them.
Both of those games are here, in the game selection list.
That’s because they were meant to work but for some reason select them and action 52
will crash.
So what did Active Enterprises do to hide the fact two of the advertised 52 games you’re
paying for don’t even sodding work?
Chuck in a flyer lying about them being only accessible by secret means.
Even if that was believable, why then have these “secret games” listed on the game
select screen like an absolute pricktease?
You know, I’m furious about this blatant lie.
You just know some poor kids spent hours of their precious childhood pricking about on
this snot-covered game trying to find a way access two games that their parents had sodding
paid for.
Also, the flyer says ooze is game number 6, correcting itself in the next paragraph.
The spelling errors are rife not just in the game but in the damn instructions.
Well due to the wonders of emulation, we can play those games now.
and they are not worth it.
Jigsaw is a terrible, terrible game.
alfredo and the fettuccines is a terrible, terrible game.
both are lazy side scrolling platformers with dinky enemies and barely any actual action.
If I was being nice I’d say Alfredo and the fettuccines is better because its cuter.
Look at these angry pastas.
Look at this chef getting levels by macaroni.
There’s something to be said for that, that is funny.
By the way, that other flyer there?
It tells you how to exit a game without needing to reset the NES.
It literally makes out that a standard feature is some kind of excting secret tip.
Again, its because they forgot to put that basic instruction in the instruction book,
so they were trying to save face.
The obnoxious marketing bullshittery is off the scale at this point.
Look at the enemies in Overground.
What is going on here, these lads are going absolutely mad.
It’s an utter party of franticness in there.
I wanna join in.
Nope, dead.
By spinning around like a propellor.
This guy survives a massive fall at the start of the level but not by being buffeted by…these…things.
Non human.
What?
Sorry, what?
This guy in the game Fuzz Power is the only playable character that shows up more than
once.
In Fuzz Power he's bouncing along avoiding hair-related paraphernalia, because he likes
looking like a bonsai Truffula tree thank you very much.
State of him.
Then later on in the game Mash Man he pops up clean shaven with his hands in his pockets
as he bounces along some weird woodblock world avoiding more...things.
Things that are sometimes obscured by the background, which is bullshit.
It’s nice to see hes cleaned himself up a bit though, I hope his life gets better.
On to Time Warp Tickers.
Alright fine, I'll play some of the games.
Time Warp Tickers is just...bizarre.
I'm not happy to play it.
You’re a pair of fingers strutting along in some insane budget Alice in wonderland
with god knows what flinging itself at you.
You defend yourself by jumping over them or doing this dinky little flick which makes
the enemies turn into the word 'time', complete with an almost nervous question mark.
I don't know what's going on.
I'd say it's got obvious the small development team were struggling with ideas when they
made a literal pair of fingers into a video game character, but honestly you could say
they were struggling way before this.
Time warp tickers is game number 48.
by this point you've already played as an Action 52 logo, a tiny guy on a carpet, a
nondescript spec, a man who is 60% foot, various poorly-drawn space ships and whatever the
hell the thing in non-human was.
Time warp tickers is one of the games made by that fourth developer who joined the team
later.
He has a small blog website which I will link in the description.
This lad started out just hanging around with the three Action 52 developers while they
were working, taking them snacks and just generally chilling.
He was fascinated by the process and ended up learning how to use Deluxe Paint.
This lad started working insane hours for absolutely no pay on Action 52.
He was eventually paid, he reckons, about 1500 dollars.
That’s for more than two months of 60+ hour weeks helping to make Action 52.
Now obviously, that’s bullshit.
He was very young, and thus taken advantage of.
Yet another reason to be a bit miffed at Vince Perri.
Anyway, the reason it says “time?”
when an enemy is killed or our playable…fingers…are hit, is this fourth developer made a Miami
dance song with Action 52’s first developer Mario Gonzales.
In the song, there was a sampled voice saying the word “time”.
This fourth developer was also, as he says on his blog post, “just into a time theme
at the point in my life.”
There you go.
Mystery solved, let’s get the fuck out of this game.
Most of the games are either a side scrolling shooter - usually set in space - or a godawful
platforming game.
The standout space shooter has got to be Operation Moon, which is the most offensive-looking
game the Action 52 has to offer.
I challenge anyone to look at this putrid mess of a colour pallet for more than five
minutes and not come away with the top layer of their corneas hanging off.
It's enjoyable to see how much these meteors look like flaming condoms, like it's raining
especially aggressive STDs.
Octavius said I could use that joke from their video and I'm quite pleased.
Aside from Not Human which is, as Octavius said, and absolute horror party, the standout
platformer would probably be Billy Bob.
It's the only one with any fluid animation that might remind you of early prince of Persia
games.
The problem is getting across some of the screens is insanely difficult because you
need to time your jump so precisely and usually from the previous screen.
if you don’t you're falling into a pit and yes like most of the other platforming games,
billy bob can't take fall damage.
It’s a shame because this one starts off looking almost promising...but that might
just be because all the other games so far have been utter bobbins.
There's only really one puzzle game on this cartridge, although calling it a game is a
long stretch.
Meong, where you move an A52 logo around (which by the way, is never seen elsewhere on the
cartridge so calling it a logo is also a stretch) on a load of squares.
Some of the squares blow you up.
How do you know which squares?
You don't.
So that's fun.
Then there's Crazy Shuffle, which the instruction book calls an educational puzzle game.
Is this a puzzle game?
The music is frantic and you're running around a maze picking up what look like crucifixes.
The instructions say this is a picture matching game, and it could be if the picture you're
matching to this screen is an especially troubled child's drawing.
Actually, that's another point - the instruction book very often says stuff about the games
that either isn't true, or sounds more like it's about another game entirely.
For example, Fire breathers, which is that two player dragon game I refused to play with
Octavius earlier, features just two dragons one played by you and your long-suffering
friend.
the instructions says 'you must kill the dragon riders', plural.
Unless it's inviting you to kill yourself, which at this point is tempting, there's been
a mistake here.
Instructions for Alfredo and the fettuccines says you’re racing against the clock and
you get the runaway pasta back into a pot - but all the chef does is slam the carby
bastards into the floor which would suggest, if he's wanting to keep that hygiene rating,
he's not going to serve them.
And also there isn't a clock anywhere, the level just ends when it feels like it.
Instructions for French baker are not relevant to the game but sound like a euphemism: 'you
may try to keep the cookie patterns pounding, and the bread rising but its not as easy as
it sounds.'
Heh, no it isn't, especially not as you get older but there's things you can take to help
with that.
Shooting gallery promises quick draw and a final shootout with bad guys, but in the game
itself you're just popping shots at various panicking animals and that's it.
Bits and pieces is meant to be a game where you make 'solid lines out of various sizes
and shapes', so obviously Tetris, but the actual game is a jump suited Nosferatu jumping
over a short-wearing werewolf and humanized snot blobs.
There's plenty more examples but this video has already gone on long enough.
All the games really are a barely-functional chore.
And the worst thing is there's 52 of them.
Active Enterprises were all about quantity, not quality.
And they certainly got quantity right.
It's very obvious not a single game on this cartridge was play tested.
The guys making it didn’t have a chance to – to get that deadline met, they slapped
on that lights camera action intro and called it a day.
As a result, you’ve got glitches, inconsistent play mechanics, random instances of things
that normally kill you not killing you, random instances of the scenery being in the way
as soon as a level starts and killing you, boss battles where the boss just forgets to
show up, whatever this bullshit is, and characters so poorly drawn its hard to know where they
start and end.
Even if they were functional, none of these games stand alone as games in their own right.
They all have at best a few minutes of play time – so it fails even as a multicart.
The supervision 52 in 1 was shady, but it had games that could occupy a kid for hours.
And at about 4 dollars a game, not a single one is worth it.
I wouldn’t pay you 10p for a single title on here.
I’m in a really, really bad mood now.
Action 52 was planned for the SNES too, but thankfully that never happened.
However, in 1993 a version was made for the Mega Drive and released in America only.
An actual development company did this one, and it’s noticeably more functional.
Octavius did a video covering every single game on that version.
The game is no where near as bad, or even as charming, as this NES version but if you
want to watch Octavius torture themselves the link is in the description.
But there's more we need to talk about - game number 52.
Yes, the infamous cheetahmen.
And we'll be talking about that in another video, because it really does need its own.