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Active Enterprises was basically a guy in a basement somewhere in Florida releasing carts. The company only released two carts (Action 52 for NES and Genesis, and the unreleased Cheetahmen 2 for NES), and they both look and play like they were made in 10 minutes by someone on acid while coding (and not really good acid like Jeff Minter shoots up or something). Despite this, I have to admit that I like the company's spunk.... you have to admit it takes a lot of panache to create such a goofy effort and expect to become rich overnight on it.

Action 52 was released in 1991, and it was mostly advertised in really small print ads in the back of Gamepro and so forth, although the Christmas 1993 ad pictured to the left was a full-page one. The original suggested retail price was a mere $199.00 (at a time when you could get a used Genesis and several games for that price). Needless to say that they didn't sell too many of these at that price, and several months after its release they could be found in flea markets across the state of Florida for $99.99, as well as for rent in really sleazy video stores. Even later, in 1993, Active tried selling them in Gamepro again for $79.99, before they finally ran out of business. I've heard that most of their remaining stock was either shipped off to Europe to be sold for cheap, or fell into the hands of liquidators.

As a result, Action 52 is really hard to find, and when you do find one, chances are it's going to be from a silly flea market dude who'll charge you $2 per game for it. Until recently, Action 52 was thought to be the only Active release until copies of Cheetahmen 2, a "sequel" to one of the games on Action 52 that's not any better than its predecessor, started turning up.

This game was actually unreleased by Active, but copies started to be released a year or two ago by the distributor that manufactured carts for the company. Apparantly, the Florida based distributor was never paid for the 1000 carts he initially manufactured for Active, so he eventually gave up and sold off his stock to various retailers and collectors, making this probably the scarcest (in terms of numbers) NES game in existence.

Generally, there are believed to be less than 10,000 of each Active cart produced, so.. if you are truly insane.. try adding them to your collection before it gets too difficult.

Source:

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http://web.archive.org/web/19990220095052/http://atarihq.com/tsr/odd/scans/active.html

Postdates back to February 20, 1999

i remeber those being sold on hsn with the guy who was supposed ot be the nintendo world champ back in the early 90s i forget for how much ..... you know the other reason they didnt sell ?

According to my boss who sold used games at the time.....distruibitors didnt want them becuase of these countierfit carts that had like 100 hacked nes games and such on it (to this day they still sell these "systems" with them on it ... and most of the games are unplayable )and the fbi and such was warning used game sellers about it and a lot of people lumped action 52 with them

although from what ive read the game quality was about the same

Didnt someone try the same thing on the sega gen too ? i cant quite remeber but i heard there was some 50 game cart on it also ............

Sega Game Gear

Arcade Classics: - features Atari's Centipede, Missile Command and Pong.
Sega Game Pack 4 in 1

Sega Master System

Arcade Smash Hits: includes Atari's Centipede, Breakout and Missile Command
Hang-On/Safari Hunt: Dual cart bundled with Sega Master System sets.
Hang-On/Astro Warrior: Dual cart bundled with Master System "Base System" sets (those without the Sega Light Phaser gun).
Marksman Shooting & Trap Shooting: Contains two games for the Master System light gun, the Light Phaser. A third game, Safari Hunt was included in the European release.

Sega-released Master System multicarts were labeled "The Combo Cartridge" on the box, as opposed to the "Mega Cartridge" and "Two-Mega Cartridge" labels placed on single-game cart boxes.
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Arcade Classics: - features Atari's Centipede, Missile Command and Pong.
MegaGames 3 in 1 - Vol 1: Includes Columns, Super Hang-On and World Cup Italia '90
MegaGames 3 in 1 - Vol 2: Includes Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and The Revenge of Shinobi
MegaGames 3 in 1 - Vol 3: Includes Super Thunder Blade, Alien Storm and Super Monaco GP
MegaGames 4 in 1: Includes Flicky, Gunstar Heroes, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle and Altered Beast
Mega Man: The Wily Wars: Includes Mega Man, Mega Man 2, and Mega Man 3
Menacer 6-game cartridge: Included with Sega's lightgun accessory, contains 6 original shooting games
6-Pak: Includes Columns, Golden Axe, The Revenge of Shinobi, Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage and Super Hang-On
Sonic Compilation: Includes Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Triple Score, 3 Games in 1: contains Super Hang-On, World Championship Soccer, and Columns
Source : Wikipedia

niffty read crusty.