Proto:Action 52 (NES)

This page details one or more prototype versions of Action 52 (NES).

While a prototype of Action 52 is known to exist, it is not currently fully available. What is available is two levels of a ROM that served as the original concept of game #52. The player had to complete the last level of all the other games to unlock this last game. (Interestingly enough, the Sega Genesis version of Action 52 did actually implement a mode like this as its 52nd game.) However, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage, so the original idea was (partially) scrapped in favor of the big yellow feline trio to try and capitalize on this craze. What remained of this early concept in the final product of Cheetahmen was the intro cutscene featuring a gamer by the name Action Gamemaster getting pulled into the TV, and the enemies from the rest of the games appearing, among other things.

This portion of the prototype was sold as a standalone reproduction cartridge in 2011 under the title Cheetahmen: The Creation. Only videos and reviews of the game in action (sorry for the pun) floated around the internet until it was finally dumped on November 27, 2023.

Download Cheetahmen: The Creation.zip File: Cheetahmen-_The_Creation.zip (37 KB) (info)

Unknown Game

Download Unknown Action 52 game (hacked, incorrect CHR) File: Unknown prototype action 52 game (incorrect chr).zip (40 KB) (info)

The first 32k of the PRG, inexplicably, is an entirely different game; this game does not 100 percent match any game included on the final Action 52 release. Since this is some terrible, cut-down reproduction cart sold for literally $200 USD, the CHR for the game is not present; with the game as a whole being inaccessible without hacking. To access the game - among numerous byte-cutting and iNES header adjustments - at addresses 32-35, bytes AD FF 07 must be replaced by A9 00 EA.

The game is a 2D, side-scrolling platformer; the player has some sort of kick or weapon-like attack. For whatever reason, jumping is mapped to "up" on the D-Pad, whereas every other Action 52 game uses B to jump. The game's music is similar to the song used in Evil Empire (game #34), though it is played with different instrumentation. There do not seem to be any further games built-in to its coding (as many other games on Action 52 have).

Action Gamemaster

Despite the title, the game still features the Cheetahmen: Apollo in Level 1 and Aries in Level 2.

Level 1 is a copy of Level 5 of Ooze with minor differences. This includes the lack of the blue blob enemy as well as different colored bullets fired by the stationary enemies.

Prototype	Ooze (Level 5)

Notably, the level uses a unique arrangement of the music from Ooze.

Action Gamemaster	Ooze

Level 2 is a copy of Level 3 of Robbie N The Robots. The enemy that is a palette swap of the player character in Robbie n' the Robots appears to be a scrambled version of Aries' sprite.

Prototype	Robbie N The Robots (Level 3)