Action 52: Alfredo and Jigsaw are now "playable".

Yesterday I made a post on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nensondubois_/status/1246483734217609217  about researching and accessing the lost two games Alfredo and Jigsaw and how I decided to look into the game's programming to find out why they refuse to work in the first batch revision A cartridges of Action 52 for the NES. I also felt like researching a slightly more obscure limitation presented by the hardware limitations of the console.

I think we all know about Action 52 so I'm not going to waste your time by reviewing the notoriously awful compilation. Here is a picture of the REV A cartridge that has the "broken" games. A small amount of green REV B carts do exist and the issues were fixed in that release as well as a few other "glitches" because in this case that's not a bug, its a feature!

 

All green PCB revision A cartridges of Action 52 will crash upon attempting to load either Alfredo and Jigsaw. This is the result of an erroneous branching instruction that was implemented probably because of an oversight and the code was rushed (really, I don't know how much testing went into the development and I'm really afraid to ask). All black cartridges, including the one I own. Here is a picture of my cart that has both games working by default.

 

 

 (I can't believe I spent $199.99 on this pile of dogsh*t, I guess I'm a dumbass)

 

Accessing both games is possible using a Game Genie code; if you actually own a revision A cartridge, a Game Genie adapter and an NES. I'm not sure why you would want to for any reason. Alfredo and Jigsaw work OKOZETNN.

 

Secondly, there is a bonus item I wanted to show. Now you can hear the ... intro music in it's true quality (why would you want to is beyond my understanding?). Your curiosity has been answered for a question you never asked. Took about 2 minutes total. The game streams digital audio sampling at a bit depth of 7-BIT via constantly writing $4011. unfortunately this requires a lot of frames and because other game logic is running, resources are split between game logic and constantly writing to the DAC, this causes noticeable "garbling". This will work using actual Action 52 cartridges and a Game Genie with an NES console. Normally it is not possible to hear the full quality. I have no idea how the word "quality" was formed into that last sentence.

Action 52 (all revisions).nes

Clear intro audio

GZVAZPAX

 

 Clear intro audio "Make Your Selection, Now!"
GZVAZPAX
ZAUAIAAA

 The cart disabled the reset button on my NES at lease twice. That is definitely not a good sign. YEAH... WOO... YEAH... WOO... YEAH... NO