Turbo, Exp. Module 2 questions...

[atarilovesyou]

So I hooked up and played my first game of Turbo on original hardware in TWENTY YEARS...it was kinda a big deal! Yet, as it seems...I remembered the game to be a lot cooler back then.

 

My main issue with it is this...please tell me if this is a programming issue, or perhaps I have a buggy driving controller.

 

When you do nothing, ie, let the wheel go, the car, depending on the speed, will 'drift' to one side or the other. Usually, if it's on the right, it'll drift right...and vice versa. I'm using brand new batteries and a new old-stock wheel. The drift makes it a lot tougher to precision turn when the cars are oncoming at high speeds. It's not like Enduro on the 2600, where if you let go of the stick, the car stays in place (unless you're on a turning road).

 

I seem to recall this drift back in the day...we'd see how far we could get just by using the regular controller once the batteries died in the wheel...and that drift made you eventually run into the side of the road.

 

Does anyone else experience this? Also, I notice it takes quite a bit of turning to get that car to move! Then again, that could have been the case back in 85 when I first played this game.

 

Any advice, thoughts would be appreciated! I'm going to try it with a few other wheel compatible games, just to see if it's a Turbo-only thing. I don't think Destructor has this issue (ugh...Destructor!).

[Pixelboy]

When you do nothing, ie, let the wheel go, the car, depending on the speed, will 'drift' to one side or the other. Usually, if it's on the right, it'll drift right...and vice versa. I'm using brand new batteries and a new old-stock wheel. The drift makes it a lot tougher to precision turn when the cars are oncoming at high speeds. It's not like Enduro on the 2600, where if you let go of the stick, the car stays in place (unless you're on a turning road).

Yeah, I remember the drifting effect when I played the game as a kid. My steering wheel stopped working at some point and as I desperately tried to get it to work, I watched the car drift to the right when I pressed the gas pedal until it hit the side of the road.

 

Also, I notice it takes quite a bit of turning to get that car to move! Then again, that could have been the case back in 85 when I first played this game.

The Expansion Module #2 works more like an Breakout paddle than a real steering wheel. But I don't remember Turbo requiring a lot of turning to move the car left and right. Perhaps your Expansion Module #2 is starting to malfunction...

 

Any advice, thoughts would be appreciated! I'm going to try it with a few other wheel compatible games, just to see if it's a Turbo-only thing. I don't think Destructor has this issue (ugh...Destructor!).

I can't say if it's a software or hardware issue. Perhaps someone else here knows?

[else]

This is all just normal Turbo gameplay. I always figured it was a "cheap" trick by the programmer to add a bit more challenge to the game....

[Bill Loguidice]

It always happened/happens for me. It's a "feature".

[atarilovesyou]

Thanks for the info, guys! I just popped in Bump n' Jump today, and indeed there is no drift...it's a Turbo only thing.

 

The thing is, I really thought there was more of an analog feel to the wheel back in the day. You really need almost a couple revolutions to get that Bump n Jump car to move...not too bad, but makes things pretty tricky. As well as getting those jumps...you have to really plan ahead, I find!

 

If the wheel did in fact 'feel' like an Atari paddle....something like Kaboom!, let's say, then the precision would be quite amazing. But when you compare a title like Bump n' Jump using the wheel vs the regular controller, you can see that the car moves in a set manner...there is no 'real time' control of the car sprite. The wheel then simply seems to duplicate this control.

 

I guess when that's all you have, it's hard to compare! But I'm glad I've picked up these games as they truly are classic...warts n all!

 

I just hope that the Roller Controller I have coming my way does Centipede justice...I hear it does, but we'll see!

[else]

If you think you're disappointed with the steering wheel, wait until you find out that the "gas pedal" is nothing more than an on/off switch!

 

It's kind of disappointing to revisit our childhood sometimes, eh? Happens to me too -- things that seemed so awesome back in the day are kind of "meh" today. I especially find many of the tv shows that I thought were great back then to be almost unwatchable today.

[atarilovesyou]

I read about the pedal, but I don't think I'd even have realized what that meant twenty five years ago...lol!

 

This pedal arrived broken; those little posts that hold the screws just snapped somehow. With some crazy glue, teflon line and patience I managed to actually put it back together, and the gas pedal now works just fine! We'll see how long, lol. But yeah, it's just two wires and a contact switch!...lol.

 

PS, if anybody does this fix, make sure you only use ONE layer of teflon line before you soak it in crazy glue. Any thicker and you'll have to shave down the thickness to allow the post to slide through the bottom hole on the foot pedal...I made this mistake, obviously! Had to use an XActo blade to trim it up..but it works great now.

 

Now I wonder how long that optic will last on the wheel itself!...

[Bill Loguidice]

In the steering wheel's defense, it was the only such item available for quite a number of years, so the fact we had something like that at all was amazing. It is plasticky and of mediocre build quality like most of Coleco's stuff, but it was the only such thing available at the time for a programmable home console (other than Coleco's own Telstar Arcade from 1977, but that didn't feature a pedal).

 

Probably the best controller Coleco ever produced was the trackball, which I've always found to be exceptional. I can't imagine how that could have been improved. Someone above mentioned Centipede. Slither is the best game to play with it in my opinion. You won't be disappointed.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Bill_Loguidice