Defender II 7800 compatibility issues?

[Rex Dart]

I've had this Defender II cart for a while and never could get into it, despite loving the hell out of the original arcade Defender. I don't own a 2600 so my only comparison is to play it in an emulator. After playing it emulated on my Wii, I'm suspicious that there's something going on with either my cart or the cart in conjunction with my 7800. When I play the game emulated, it behaves completely as I'd expect.

 

On my 7800, however, it's just weird. I start a game and am unable to move until a spinning enemy comes and kills me. I can shoot forward and behind me simultaneously(!), but can't move till I'm killed. I'm then able to move very slowly, with the little humanoid scooting across the bottom of the screen, always at a constant horizontal distance from my ship. All the while, it's very, very dark. Red objects (like the ship and ground, ouch) are nearly impossible to see.

 

WTF?

[+HammR25]

It's not a 7800 compatibility issue. I just fired up the game fine. Sounds like a problem with that particular cart.

[tz101]

clean the contacts and try again.

[Rex Dart]

Well, I figured it might be a known issue since different console revisions have different game compatibility. Never thought to clean this cart since it was in a sealed box, but I gave it a shot. No luck. Anybody want a bad copy of Defender II?

[Underball]

This game was never one of the known compatibility issue games.

 

Those would be:

 

Robot Tank

Space Shuttle

Activision Decathlon

Dark Chambers 2600

The starpath supercharger

Kool Aid Man

 

We really should have a stickies thread with the list, and the fix for it. The whole thing is overblown to begin with. 99.999% of the time it's just a bad cart.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Underball

[+Mitch]

Yeah, Stargate/Defender 2 is a game that may have compatibility issues similar to Dark Chambers. Usually it's not that severe though.

 

Kool Aid Man is not really a 7800 specific compatibility problem as it has problems on 2600s too.

 

Mitch

[phuzzed]

Maybe this is a particular issue on his 7800?

 

I know on my 7800, I can't play Burgertime correctly. And I've tried three different Burgertime cartridges.

 

Check out my video:

 

[Rex Dart]

Yeah, guess I'll have to hunt down somebody with a 2600 to test this cart on. Thanks, everybody.

[The_Laird]

Defender 2 plays perfect on my 7800, its my 2nd favourite game for the 2600.

[tz101]

Don't throw it away. Keep it in the event that you pick up a VCS for cheap someday. Or maybe you could find a Gemini for next to nothing.