Huh? Couldn't the "CHEETAH MEN" just have told our apparently gaming guru their intent without laying their grubby, shitty paws on him? Also, why not leave him with his video game controller, where he has a better chance of aiding them in their quest. Of which, you would, by the way, have no knowledge before reading the comic book, which more people dumb enough to have played through this collection probably did so via their local Blockbuster, and that peripheral shit has quite a low percentage of survival in places such as this. And you're gonna have to sit through this lame, nonsensical introduction every time you fire this baby up, which should only be once. Actually, never, but once if you feel you threshold for pain isn't high enough.

And then the game starts. The manual is phrased in a way that promises you'll see all the enemies from the previous 51 games. All of them. Granted, the enemy cast for some of the games consists of one monster and palette swaps of it with no other differences. But then, some games have two enemies, and a few games even have three enemies! With an average of two enemies per game populating The "Action Gamemaster", you reach a total of over 100 enemies, something the skilled craftsmen who made Final Fantasy probably couldn't do. And here, Active arrogantly decides to take a stab at it. I'd say before packing your game with all sorts of adversaries, it's probably best to master simple gameplay commands like running and jumping. This is kind of like attempting to polka dance before developing legs.

This isn't the end of arrogance on this topic. All these enemies from all these games can only have one purpose: to give the gamer a whimsical feeling of nostalgia upon walking through the game. This comes with the implication the gamer has played all 51 games before it, like me, and well enough to appreciate these references (not generally like me). To prove that this melting pot of shitty game references has no other purpose, we reach the most infuriating aspect this revisitation of adversaries. What was obvious designed to be a glorious, nostalgic romp through nostalgia is actually a cringe-inducing mish-mash of ugly, lazily drawn graphics, clashing enemies and environment, and yes, recognition/nostalgia. And screen slowdown. You think you can squeeze a cast of enemies in your game without having moments where a dozen need to be on the screen at once? Of course, nobody <i>wants to remember Action 52 unless they're doing so for personal gain.

And then the game beings. It plays like a cross between Double Dragon, Super Mario Brothers, Slashers and Ooze. Much, much more of the last two than the first two. It admittedly doesn't suffer terribly from the exhaustively-stated problems exclusively found in Action 52 games, but they're here and lightly forgivable. The graphics are detailed for an NES game made in 1987 and stuff tends to make sense about 40% of the time. As far as gameplay is concerned, well, you control the three "CHEETAH MEN." Aries, the fast one, mans the first two stages. With him, the game is actually very playable, and you'll be making progress in a world of moderate artistic competence and marginally smooth gameplay. Aries moves regularly and smoothly. If you can get past all those cameos from other games without wincing to death, it's actually very playable.

Then we reach stage three and it all goes to hell. In stage three, you assume control of Hercules. Of course, there's no way to control a character named Hercules and not be the baddest ass ever, right? Well, he's a big (target) one, that's for sure. His main banes are that he has more jumping issues than that freak from Non Human (27) and that he can't attack at something unless it is two inches in front of his feet, which is Action 52 land, is nearly a foot closer than it has to be to score damage. He's also slow as sin: if Aries, the fast one, moved regularly, this lumbering lugnut moves like a slower version of Mount Rushmore.

If you play far enough to reach the fifth level and take control of Apollo, you either have imperviousness to offensively bad imagery or you're a massive idiot. I think I prefer to combine the two and say you're too dumb to notice when offensive imagery surrounds you.