A cartridge based miracle!

[Lokkenjawnz]

Alright so a while back I made a thread concerning three NGPC games that I picked up that simply wouldn't work. No matter what I did, how I cleaned them, they wouldn't boot. I had basically given up on them, figured it was beyond my control.

So fast forward to tonight. My NGPC is sitting on my table, so I figured I'd play some Metal Slug 1st Mission for a bit. I turn on the system, it starts to load the game, and I realize that it's already past 3:30 AM and that I should go to bed. I turn off the system, but just before I put it away I see that copy of Samurai Shodown 2 staring back at me, mocking me! So I pop it in for shits and giggles, knowing it won't work. The NGPC intro plays, then suddenly the screen goes black and "SNK" appears in big blue letters. The damn game is working! It loads up, and I play a round or two of Samurai Shodown, in complete shock. Giddy from this miraculous event of spontaneous cartridge magic, I rush over to my videogame bin and pull out the other two games: Fatal Fury First Contact, and an unlabeled game. I pop in Fatal Fury, and it doesn't work. Spurred on by my previous success however, reseat the game a couple times, and voila! It works! Then I put in the unlabeled cartridge, and it works too! Turns out to be Pac-man. So basically I now have three new working games for my NGPC, and I couldn't be happier. Now if only the damn thing had a backlight!

So this whole thing has got me wondering, does anyone here have any similar stories of otherwise non-working videogames or systems spontaneously coming back to life when you least expect it?

[DaGamingMonkey]

happened to me with a ps2 I used to have, but at the time I already had a new one so I wasn't as excited.
Congrats all the same though

[GamerMON]

That happened to me with my brothers NES and SNES. They both stopped working properly by the time I turned 12. Then one summer I was bored as hell. I was Jonesing for some SMB3. Plugged it all in and magically it all worked. Played for like 2 hours turned it off. Next day tried it again and it didn't work (even after all the cartridge blowing and junk). The next summer same thing happened (except with MM2).

[sevin0seven]

so the morale of the story is never give up.

yeah, this happened to me once or twice with my N64 rom carts.

[aaron]

the only game i've ever had die on me was sonic spinball. i dunno what happened to it, just showed the sega license screen then black. never did get it to work again. i think i sold it to funcoland or something.

[Niode]

Sounds like your cartridge slot had a bit of dirt/corrosion on it, that's why the games were working intermittently. Clean the contacts on the NGPC cartridge slot and you shouldn't have any more problems.

[alienjesus]

My Sonic 3D cart has died, which is a shame, but its because of the level select 'cheat' I discovered in the game which involved bopping the SEGA logo on my mega drive while the game was playing. Worked every time XD.

Most of the games I got with my Dreamcast don't work properly, luckily Chuchu rocket did. Unfortunately, Rayman 2 is very hit and miss, and Bass fishign and Ecco are completely dead. Rayman 2 worked randomly after failing over and over though, much like in the OP

[Niode]

That's probably more to do with the DC than the games. The dreamcast can be really finicky sometimes. Look in the hacks and mods section for fixes you can do on your DC to make it start playing games better.

[Lokkenjawnz]

Sounds like your cartridge slot had a bit of dirt/corrosion on it, that's why the games were working intermittently. Clean the contacts on the NGPC cartridge slot and you shouldn't have any more problems.

That was actually what made the whole thing so bizarre, is that I'm certain it's not my NGPC. I picked up an NGPC with the three games off of craigslist and none of the games worked with that NGPC. My NGPC worked perfectly with my copy of Metal Slug, booted up every single time, and so did the NGPC that I got. It was purely the games causing the problems, thusly my confusion.

I'm loving there stories, this is a real thread of hope for those of us with malfunctioning games!

[alienjesus]

That's probably more to do with the DC than the games. The dreamcast can be really finicky sometimes. Look in the hacks and mods section for fixes you can do on your DC to make it start playing games better.

Pretty sure its the games. Chuchu Rocket and Space channel 5 play perfectly every time, and the other discs are scratched to all hell and back. Got ripped off by that eBay seller, thats for sure.