There's a lot of things that can be said about Active Enterprises' Action 52 cartridge. Most of these things are derogatory. One thing that can be said is that most every entry on the cartridge is a shameless duplication of another, much better game. In today's example, "City of Doom", Active Enterprises targets an unlikely game -- "Crazy Climber".
Calling "City of Doom" a "Crazy Climber" clone isn't really fair. As far as I know, there aren't many any games quite like Nichibitsu's dual-sticked climber, and attempting to mimic the game play on an NES will never be accurate. "City of Doom" plays like a game made by someone who saw "Crazy Climber" in attract mode, never actually played it, and attempted to duplicate the basic idea of climbing a building and dodging the obstacles encountered along the way.
Alright, so what's happening here? Shirtless Paulie, armed only with his aerosol can and a lighter, is tasked with scaling the high-rise apartment building, dodging the giant killer pigeons and endless assault of bowling balls that people can't seem to stop tossing out their windows. Eventually, you'll break through the atmosphere into outer space, where you will finally fight off the insect overlords that, I guess, shit roaches into the inhabitant's bedrooms.
The good news is that you can skip through most of the levels by moving to a safe spot, dead center between the middle and far right window, and climbing straight up, firing forward as you go. When a glitch occurs and one of the enemies that is spastically drawn on the screen actually appears it on the playfield, simply stop climbing and either fight it off, or wait for it to move downward, then start climbing again to scroll it off the bottom of the screen.
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