Action 52: The Feature

Another Ooze, another title screen. I mean, Ooooooooooo, creepy!

Because man seeing that score glitch out is about eighty times more interesting than anything else that happens in this game.

If you played beyond this point in the game, you're a better gamer than I... or a dumber gamer than I.

So one of the golden boys of yesteryear returns - click here for what many will consider a horrifying trip through time. It's a tad surprising the powers that be would even acknowledge games found in the previous Action 52, but not really when you consider how delusional they must have been to release the first game.

First the good parts. Remember that interesting control scheme Ooze "pioneered", the 'reverse Belmont' jumping scheme referred to in the other Ooze review at this site? Well that's thankfully gone as you can now jump with reckless abandon and as much momentum as you can muster. The stages are also bigger and deeper: you can now scroll up and down, left and right. Ooze also has funky tunes and digitized sound effects. It's a relative technical success.

And now the bad... While the graphics are more pleasing to the eye than they were on the NES version, they're still crude and generally lacking in detail. You know that funky groove mentioned in the previous paragraph? It's the same one found in the second level of the first game on this pak, Go Bonkers. And those digitized voices... While at first they might be of an unfitting level of quality in such a shotty project, hear the same damn sounds (the same screaming sound effect is heard upon defeat of a bee by you and vice versa) every few seconds is quite irksome. And bigger stages simply means there is more to struggle through, more time spent trying to find that one choke point requiring pixel-perfect coordination that's just not worth doing. Bigger stages doesn't mean good level design either: let's say you die and are then revived: there's a chance an enemy will be occupying your respawn point.

And most importantly, Ooze has, what I will call in several Action 52 examinations after this, 'Action 52 scrolling', that is, when walking in one direction, the camera doesn't follow your guy until he's almost off the screen. When it does decide to follow your guy, the camera isn't centered around him, so if an enemy or obstacle is in your path, you won't have as much time to react as you should. No doubt, these guys consider this a fine innovation.

As stated in the previous review, that old time Active production method of 'easiest and fastest road out = best' is clearly back after a small hiatus.