Secret Quest "glitchy"?

[Room 34]

I just got a like-new copy of Secret Quest and was playing it on my 7800. I found that the graphics seemed kind of "glitchy." The colors (particularly in the room walls) seemed off a dull green-yellow-off white color and there were "warped" bands at the edges of the walls, such as in the doorways.

 

I am not explaining this well, but what it reminds me of is some of the visual glitches you get on dirty 7800 games, and which were always common on Colecovision or NES. But I have never, ever seen an Atari 2600 game do this.

 

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Any ideas why it happened? I am wondering if it has to do with the special chip in the game. There's something about the gameplay in general that makes this game just "feel" different from most 2600 games.

 

I haven't tried the game on my 2600 yet.

[Ze_ro]

I don't think there's any special chips in Secret Quest... at least, nothing that wasn't included in other games of the time (eg, bankswitching and stuff). Have you tried cleaning the cartridge really well? I know this used to fix similar problems with ColecoVision stuff.

 

--Zero

[Room 34]

The cartridge was totally pristine when I got it, but I went ahead and cleaned the contacts with rubbing alcohol anyway.

 

Since I posted the first message, I have tried the cartridge in my 2600A and my Sears 6-switch, and it doesn't have the problem in them. It still gets a bit of a "bending" effect on the edges of the room walls though... kind of like what happens on an old video tape. Weird.

 

I wonder why the 7800 has so much trouble with it...

[+-^CrossBow^-]

If you look in the 7800 forum you will find that Atari made some board changes to the 7800 to correct issues with later released games like Dark Chambers and Secret Quest. The exact issues I am not aware of...but these fixes in actualality...broke many earlier Activision released games from working on those later 7800 units.

 

Seems plausible that perhaps this glitching your referring to...is the reason the extra circuit was put into place on the later 7800 systems.

 

too bad you can't take a screen shot of that...would be interesting to really see what your talking about.

 

[Room 34]

If you look in the 7800 forum you will find that Atari made some board changes to the 7800 to correct issues with later released games like Dark Chambers and Secret Quest.  The exact issues I am not aware of...but these fixes in actualality...broke many earlier Activision released games from working on those later 7800 units.

I know of the Activision troubles... my Space Shuttle cart "rolls" on the 7800. Strange, though, if the 7800 mods were done to help games like Secret Quest, that I should be having problems with that title!

 

I bought my 7800 "new" from Telegames in 1997, so I have always assumed it is a later model. Maybe I'm wrong. I'll have to open it up and inspect the innards, I guess.

 

too bad you can't take a screen shot of that...would be interesting to really see what your talking about.

Actually, I can rig up a way to do this... I can use my digital camcorder as a "VCR" connected to my TV to capture the 7800's output, and then use FireWire to transfer the digital video into my computer. If I have some time tonight I will work on it.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Well...again, I don't know exactly what the incompatibilities were with Dark Chambers especially...but perhaps those games simply failed to load up on the older 7800s. So the modification may have allowed the games to at least be playable...albeit with some glitching? I actually haven't got a copy of Dark Chambers or Secret Quest for the 2600 to test with on my 84 made 7800. I thought I was gonna have at least Dark Chambers until I screwed the pooch on Moycon's screenshot contest...hehe..

 

:oops: