Mr. T (Fast Eddie Clone) weirdness

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

While trying some of the more obscure titles in my collection I just came across "Mr. T", which is a PAL Quelle variant of "Fast Eddie".

 

To my surprise I noticed that it was totally buggy: There was weird dots and dashes across the screen and the collision detection was more or less random, rendering the game totally unplayable.

 

Thinking that I'm just doomed with yet another bit-rotten version, I was even more suprised when I found that the available "Mr. T" dump behaves just like my original cartridge (See attached screenshot!)

 

I'm dead curious now wether all "Mr. T" cartridges are "like that" and if it really was sold that buggy?!?

 

Also I'm curious if anyone ever analyzed what's going wrong there?

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Simon]

Hi there!

To my surprise I noticed that it was totally buggy: There was weird dots and dashes across the screen and the collision detection was more or less random, rendering the game totally unplayable.

 

I'm dead curious now wether all "Mr. T" cartridges are "like that" and if it really was sold that buggy?!?

I checked my copy of "Mr. T" yesterday and the game shows the very same weird pixels here. When playing I remembered that the game looked that way years ago, too. I had a second and third copy years ago and compared them all back then - they were all the same.

 

The collision detection with enemies is working well, but somehow they managed to screw the collision detection between player and the collectible objects. Mostly jumping anywhere on the same line results in having collected the item.

 

After having collected an item, the item is not completely deleted after showing the score. One pixel of the item is always shown and keeps moving like the normal object until another objects is positioned.

 

I really wonder why the sold the game with these problems left, as they seem to be avoidable quite simple...

 

BTW: the game really gives too many bonus lives - you gain another life after every stage, if I remember correctly.

 

Best regards,

Simon

[Thomas Jentzsch]

:ide: The differences between Mr. T and the original Fast Eddie are very minimal.

 

The hacker only changed the timings of vertical blank and overscan (= 2 bytes).

 

And then there are four spots (all located at address mod 16 = 0) where the hack contains $01 instead of $00. Probably their dumper had a problem.

 

The most obvious pixels are caused by the $01 at $xd40.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

And then there are four spots (all located at address mod 16 = 0) where the hack contains $01 instead of $00. Probably their dumper had a problem.

 

That's amazing! It sounds just like what happened to my buggy brazilian Bank Heist copy! It also had only a small number of bits changed in a pattern like that...

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

And then there are four spots (all located at address mod 16 = 0) where the hack contains $01 instead of $00. Probably their dumper had a problem.

That's amazing! It sounds just like what happened to my buggy brazilian Bank Heist copy! It also had only a small number of bits changed in a pattern like that...

 

And thinking some more about it, Bank Heist and Fast Eddie are both from 20th Century Fox, so the Brazil "Bank Heist" and the German "Mr. T" probably originated from the same source!

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Xot]

I do not recall my copy of Mr. T exhibiting this behavior. I'll have to investigate further.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

And thinking some more about it, Bank Heist and Fast Eddie are both from 20th Century Fox, so the Brazil "Bank Heist" and the German "Mr. T" probably originated from the same source!

Or they where both dumped by using the same buggy equipment.

[Spirantho]

As a matter of interest you won't be at all surprised to learn that my 208-in-1 clone with Fast Eddie built in also exhibits this behaviour...! It's even called "Fast Eddie" on the clone's contents list, too - not even down as Mr. T....

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Hm... so is there actually an "official" PAL version of Fast Eddie available?

(And BTW: The Activision version is missing in the rarity guide?!?)

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Spirantho]

Don't know to be honest... if there is I've never seen it. I would imagine not, as the dump I have is the corrupted dump. No-one's reported one on the PAL database...

 

Interesting they left the words "Fast Eddie" on the title screen....