Console games that crash

[Zaxxon]

Anyone here ever play any console games that would frequently crash/lock up the system? Burning Rangers would freeze all the time after a while. Doom on Jag could be made to crash if you wanted. Headhunter on DC would either completely crash or it would erase/corrupt my save game files. I'm not 100% sure if it was just the game or because I was using a Code Breaker but it didn't do that on any other DC game. Others?

[Sniderman]

Four words: Grand. Theft. Auto. III.

Five words: Grand. Theft. Auto. Vice. City.

[ashbourn]

my gta3 works fine but my friend has the same problem.

any old nes

[Raedon]

The original Tomb Raider does not work in a PSOne or PS2.

[Bratwurst]

Doom 32X locks at random points during the game.

[Tempest]

I've had probalems with Burning Rangers and Magic Knights Rayearth on the Saturn (skipping and locking up), and Knuckles Chaotix on the 32X locking up or just not starting.

Tempest

[Tritoch]

Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage for N64 BSOD'ed on me all the time...first time I've ever seen a console game actually get the blue screen of death.

And yet I finished it. LOL

[ManekiNeko]

Way of the Warrior on the 3DO has a nasty habit of freezing in the middle of battles. It's especially annoying since the on/off switch on my system is broken and almost impossible to push down... you have to unplug the damn thing or turn off the power strip to get it going again.
Also: as everyone else pointed out, nothing on the 32X is reliable. You don't just get crashes and freezes from games on this system, but discolored graphics as well. There's nothing quite like a Virtua Fighter battle set against a pale green sky and ocean...

JR

[stonecutter]

I could not get a Sonic Adventure to work on my DC. Only when I got the Sonic Adventure LE would it work. I tried about 8 different discs as well.

[Alex Kidd]

I've had many games lock up due to physical reasons (old rusty pins, bump the console, scratched CD,etc) but I've NEVER played a console game that would lock up due to shitty programming (tho I have heard bad things about Doom on the 32X).

However I HAVE had the WEIRDEST thing happen to me, and I made it happen a few times, I think I remember how I used to do it, I'll have to try again soon...
Anyone who's beaten X-Men on the Genesis knows about that FUCKED up puzzle where you have to actually RESET the console to finish the level. When you hit reset you get a screen full of green 1's and 0's and then the "Danger Room Computer Reset Screen"
Well in Spider-Man / X-Men: Arcade's Revenge on the Genesis, when you play Cyclops' level and reach the second sentinel, reset the game. You'll get a screen full of 1's and 0's JUST like on X-Men only they're bright blue, almost cyan. And that's it, you have to turn it off and back on again to make it restart.

The latter is by Flying Edge, so I can't even consider it to being an easter egg that relates to an earlier X-Men game becuase X-Men was by Sega...

Alex Kidd

Once again, the point may be hazy, I was just indicating a "freeze up" that I know of.

[Goblin]

I don't know if it was unique to my copy or not, but the original release of Battlesphere would crash my Jag a lot (tried on 3 different consoles). This was the reason why I sold it, figuring it was just a programing bug that I wanted no part of.

[Eternal Champion]

Hey Alex Kidd--

Tell me more about X-Men on Genesis...My friend and I have been trying for bloody YEARS to figure how to turn off the bloody computer after you beat Mojo. Recently I saw a walkthrough that said to reset the Genesis. Is that right after you beat Mojo????!!!! When do you do that in relation to fighting Mojo??? :beaten:
I can't believe that!!! :bad-words: Why the hell would they program the game that way?!?! How the bloody hell are you supposed to know to do that?!?!

Anyway, now that I've gotten that out, thanks.

[Zaxxon]

I don't know if it was unique to my copy or not, but the original release of Battlesphere would crash my Jag a lot (tried on 3 different consoles). This was the reason why I sold it, figuring it was just a programing bug that I wanted no part of.

No, it wasn't unique to your copy. I read that the game would crash at around level 91. That part of why they released BS Gold, to include fixes.

[Eternal Champion]

(whew) ranting about Genny X-Men takes a lot out of me...

In relation to this thread, I recently got BIONIC COMMANDO ELITE FORCES for Game Boy Color. As I've said on another thread, It will NOT work on GBA!!!
Try to enter level three, it freezes. It then froze on GBC!!!
It's a common problem--there is a review on Amazon.com that points it out.
Nintendo will repair it for free. I wonder how they can repair it...you have to send the cart AND your GBC. Oh well, we'll see what happens. I'll keep y'all posted.

[Alex Kidd]

Hey Alex Kidd--

Tell me more about X-Men on Genesis...My friend and I have been trying for bloody YEARS to figure how to turn off the bloody computer after you beat Mojo. Recently I saw a walkthrough that said to reset the Genesis. Is that right after you beat Mojo????!!!! When do you do that in relation to fighting Mojo??? :beaten:
I can't believe that!!! :bad-words: Why the hell would they program the game that way?!?! How the bloody hell are you supposed to know to do that?!?!

Anyway, now that I've gotten that out, thanks.

1. Beat Mojo, continue on
2. Get to the end with the fading compyter terminal and 3,2,1, coutning down on monitors like old film reels
3. Destroy the fading computer, the 3,2,1's chould turn into Prof X's face
4. Hit reset

However, it's just as well you warp to the last level with the level select trick cause even if you get to the end of Mojo's Crunch with only one x-man and an inch of life left, you start the last level with all 4 x-men and they all have full health/mutant power.

So it's not like you have to try to conserve anything for the last level.

Alex Kidd

EDIT
I was stuck there myself for SOOO long, untill one issue of GamePlayers pointed out that fact... I even used to love the game so much, I'd get to the end and reset and play all over again (still do) and of ALL the time I reset I must have ALWAYS done it BEFORE smashing the fading computer cause I never got to the last level. What luck 'eh?

[Eternal Champion]

Thanks!
Do you know the X-Men level select trick by chance?

[dodsworth]

I have had problems with these games crashing
serious sam for the xbox
NHL 2001 for the ps2 when 2 people are playing
ready to rumble and bang gun ship elite for the dreamcast
never had a cart based system ever give me any trouble though.

[MankeyMan]

Donkey Kong 64. All. The. Fucking. Time.

[Achika]

Final Fantasy VII would freeze 3/5 times on my old Refurbished PSX. Usually only during the FMV on the first disc. Then end scene when the port city blew up (IIRC) and during another one, but I can't remember which.

[zektor]

Well, Ikari Warriors for the NES had that crappy habit of freezing your character at a certain point late in the game. It wouldn't really freeze or lock up, but you just couldn't move. That pissed me off.

[Arrrhalomynn]

Morrowind for the XBOX is the only game I have that has crashed more than ones. Sometimes the image would just freeze and other times it would stop stating the disc is dirty and then restart. While the disc is perfectly clean.

[Retsudo]

Oh thats real easy

Ghost recon- PS2, Game Cube

[Tritoch]

Morrowind for the XBOX is the only game I have that has crashed more than ones. Sometimes the image would just freeze and other times it would stop stating the disc is dirty and then restart. While the disc is perfectly clean.

Yeah, that one crashed nearly as much as Aidyn Chronicles did for me too. Never got the BSOD with Morrowind though...just the errors you described. :)

[Alex Kidd]

Thanks!
Do you know the X-Men level select trick by chance?

It can only be done in one player mode

At the title screen hold DOWN (yes the D-PAD DOWN) + A + C
While holding these 3 buttons press and HOLD START
Now keep holding all 4 buttons untill the difficulty select
then relase them all (doesn't have to be simultaneously)
Choose any difficulty and any x-man
When you appear in the danger room, walk to the right
You will see 8 things that look like old computer chips (like chips in Chip's Challenge)
Each one represents one of the levels
Stand in front of the level you want and press DOWN + C

The next two tricks work in both modes:

When using Gambit, as you jump into the Danger Room system to start the level, hold A as the screen fades to black, you'll skip the level, but this only works as you enter the Savage Land, The Shi-Ar Empire, and the Exaclibur Lighthouse, but not the area outside, you'll have to go thru that, but when you ENTER the light house, hold A to skip it.

Or if you don't like Gambit that much and have a game genie use THIS code
PZ1A-DAXO
and any time you press A you'll skip the current level

Alex Kidd

And yes, I've played the hell out of X-Men, I LOVE that game.
Tell me, do you cross the falls in the Savage Land the hard way or the easy way?

[Strato]

The worst for me was the SNES version of Might and Magic 3. The game would constantly lock up. There was even an interesting glitch associated with this that would sometimes grant millions of gold to your party. After one lockup, the game simply stopped working for me. It would always freeze up when attempting to load a game or even create a new game rendering it unplayable. I ended up returning the copy to the store where I bought it for another one but of course the same things continued to happen and I just gave up on it.

[digitalpress]

Allow me to go "old skool" on you.

If you hop on up to the secret kingdom of Mountain King for Atari 2600, it's almost impossible NOT to crash the game. Of course, this is the CHARM of the game itself.

More about this secret kingdom:
http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26mountainking.htm

[YoshiM]

Legends of Wrestling (PS2): Character would sometimes fall through the mat and "wade" through it as if it was water. Game would soon lock after that.

Legends of Wrestling 2 (GC): see above.

Definitely code problems.

[IGotTheDot]

I crashed the PS2 version of Balders Gate during the final boss fight. It wasn't actually a crash, but the code waiting for an event that would never happen. In the end I had to reset and start the fight over.

[BIGMIKE]

i've almost never came across a game that locks up on me console wise until i recently purchased wonder boy in monster land for the genesis. i will just be chuckin along when bam it happens. i had just got the trident and was swimming and fighting got a lot of loot and the 6th or seventh heart. oh i was pissed. now i got to go thru that crap again.

[Chunky]

every Jelaco game for the NES.

[The Unknown Gamer]

I got an old one for you...

Kung Fu Master for the Atari 7800. That game would not only lock up the
system but color shift everything on the screen. It took me 10 years before
I found out why...and if you have the same problem and won't tell anyone,
simply because you won't admit to anyone you own a 7800...just read on.

One day I went to Windy City Games here in Chicago. The guy who runs it,
seemed to know Nolan Bushnell and he told me he once worked at Atari.
I was just seeing what he had for sale (no plug here). When I happend
to told him of the problem I had with the 7800 version of Kung Fu Master
and he told me what was the cause of all my problems. To my surprise
it seemed to be my 7800 console. In fact there are 2 models of the same
model. If that is confusing let me explain in order to get better gameplay
out of the 7800 some programmers used a slightly different program
language for some 7800 games including as it seems Kung Fu Master.
As it also seems Atari had to make a modification in the 7800 so this
language would not cause the system to lock up. I bought a 7800
from him and you think Shea is cheap for 7800 games you should
try him. Anyway I brought my newly purchased system home and it
worked Kung Fu Master didn't lock up

[B00daW]

All 3 Discworld games for PSX.

[YoshiM]

Gauntlet Legends for the N64. Cool game, but when there were too many explosions or too many special attacks happening at once, the game would lock. This happened on two different copies.

[Anonymous]

I can crash the Pokemon games, Starcraft 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Perfect Dark, Excitebike64 and one or two others on demand. At least I used to be able to, I can only remember how to crash Mario, PD and pokemon anymore. I'm pretty sure just about every game ever released can be crashed or locked up if you know how to do it.

I also had Xenogears lock up on me GRRR.

[cheesystick]

Have any of you ever played Serious Sam on the XBOX???
I bouhgt one for myself and one for a friend, considering that they were only 20 bucks a pop. Mine worked 'ok' for a while, except for the horrendous load times. After about 4 hours of gameplay, it stopped working all together. Now, it refuses to go past this one level. My friend was not so lucky, his never got past the first level. I lost the receipt, so it looks like I'm out of luck.
-crispy

[Bratwurst]

My grandmother had a penchant for buying RPGs during the SNES/Genesis heyday right when they came out, finish them and resell 'em. Secret of Mana would constantly lock up on her, corrupt save data and even lost the main character to the point that he couldn't be resurrected. A call to Square informed her that the early runs of the cartridge were prone to this problem, not sure if this information was spread around too much.

[badinsults]

Lockups suck...

Paper Mario glitched up on me on several ocassions when wandering through the desert

I continually had lockups in Secret of Mana when talking to the woman in the water temple... happened everytime until I restarted my game (luckily that part is right at the start).

GTA Vice City froze on me when I manually blew up my helicopter in one of the mini games.

Final Fantasy III glitched up when I used Relm's sketch command (it happens everytime you use it on invisible enemies, but this happened to me on enemies that weren't invisible!)

In Zelda: An Ocarina of Time, the game froze when I played a song to one of the scarecrows.

Super Mario Allstars froze on me once... can't recall what happened.

[bizounce]

I had Grandia on PSX freeze on me once. I was in the middle of a dungeon too....<sigh>

[josekortez]

War of the Monsters on PS2 locks up when your character gets stuck behind certain buildings. I don't know why but this has happened to me several times.

[DDCecil]

Final Fantasy 2 would glitch up on me back in the day, so I called up Squaresoft and they told me to send them my copy. I did and they called me back and told me not to fight too many enemies!

Willy Beamish on Sega CD would lock up on me during certain sequences. I'm just glad I made it to the end...

[DarkSoul]

I bought and returned (way back in the day) 3 seperate copies of Thunder Castle for the Intellivision that would, on both of my (then) two Intellivisions (a I and a II, both in good condition) freeze just before loading the second level. It took me ages to remember the name of it, and I'm just now starting to look for another copy (as I remember absolutely loving that first level =P )

[Arqueologia_Digital]

every Jelaco game for the NES.
I think it´s Jaleco, and Goal! was a good game for me...

[zektor]

I had "Duck Dodgers" for the N64 glitch on me the other day. I kind of "got stuck" in a wall. Just when I was getting into the game too...

[Ruudos]

Well I haven't played DK64 yet, but only watch the opening scene, and it crashed at some point.

[lionforce]

Mario in Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES would get stuck in the ground when I jumped on certain platforms, very frustrating to a 9 year old >:(

[vampyre10]

Well, Ikari Warriors for the NES had that crappy habit of freezing your character at a certain point late in the game. It wouldn't really freeze or lock up, but you just couldn't move. That pissed me off.

O_O @_@ >:( !!! Right on man! That shit pissed me off! I would spend hours playing until the end just to have it get stuck or throw garbage on the screen and freeze!!! Damn!

[vampyre10]

>) Alright, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for the XBOX. Besides this game being WAY HARD (on normal level) it froze the system many times during gameplay. It's the only game that ever freezes on my xbox and I have 21 others. Great graphics, poor design. You get all the expensive weapons at the end, when you cant use them! Poorly thought out storyline, but good game.

[autobotracing]

vice city is the only game I had majior issues with it locking up

[Oberfuhrer Hamm]

Originally when I used the floating mines glitch in Goldeneye, it would work fine, but later it would lock the game. I loved that glitch and could not figure out why it was no longer working.

It was then that I realized that it was the Expansion Pack that was causing the glitch to lock the game as the glitch stopped working at about the same time as when I bought it. (That or some crazy coincidence ... yeah right 8-) )

[hydr0x]

the first console game that ever frozed when i played it was Tomb Raider IV (DC) a week ago, while loading the next level

[dreamcaster]

Sonic Adventure (DC): Found a perfect condition disc, not a scratch on it - just wouldn't load. Kept going back to the main menu.

Soul Calibur (DC): Sometimes a saving error would occur, resulting in the creation of a new corrupt save file. However, this save file could not be deleted from the DC's VMU menu. You had to start up the VMU and find the file - of which, all of it's details were "-------------" - and size = "0". It's done it to me twice in a row, but never again since.

Re-Volt (N64): Will not reliably save/load data from a third party controller pak. And it will always screw up if you're using a first-party controller pak that has other games saved on it.

GoldenEye 007: A One time I managed to trigger a sequence of events that led the game to freeze. Only did it twice.

[Oberfuhrer Hamm]

Oh, just remembered.

Sometimes if you start a massive chain reaction of mines or other explosives in Goldeneye 007, the sound will suddenly disappear and the odd time the game will completely crash. The risk of a crash was worth it as I used to scare the shit outta my friends in MP with all of those explosions. :vamp:

[SoulBlazer]

You've had Grandia lock on you? So have I -- several times. I bought the game used six months ago and still slugging through it, but I assumed the lockups were due to it being played on a PS2.....

I recall that Star Ocean 2 (PSX) locked on me several times on my PlayStation and both Lunar games locked at least once.

Even Kingdom Hearts locked up on me once -- but I assumed that was just a freak thing since that's the only time it happened.

[Timepants]

I've had plenty of catridge games lock up before... Mainly due to it being dirty or the console getting bumped into or something. Very few instances of bad programming.
The only commonly occuring crash I've encountered is that damn BSOD you get sometimes in the first Phantasy Star in PSO Collection for GBA. That pisses me off so much! It makes me afraid to save my game.

[The Manimal]

Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition for SNES



Madden '96 for GB


There's a bunch more but I can't remember.

[Droodroo]

Hey,
Rrecently, i've found that all the network games for the PS2 crash, all the time.

In years gone by, the last level of moonwalker on the megadrive, genesis to all you yanks, used to lock up on me all the time, which was very fustrating. rogue squadron for the n64, and im noticing that Ikaruga for the gamecube suffers noticable slowdown when there is massive boss sized explosions.

Anyway, this was my first post here on digitpress, lets hope its not the last!

later,

D

[Viper_3000]

three words: Enter the Matrix

It seems to crash about every 2 hours for me. Anyone else have this problem?

[Psyleid]

Playstation - Driver

[Lord_Magus]

Wipout (N64) - I don't know if it was a faulty cart or not, but some times when I was going too fast the game used to lock up on me. Plus, I think its the only cartridge game I've ever seen have a loading screen. Irrelevant, but weird.

Mario Kart 64 (N64) - On Mario Circuit, sometimes the graphics used to get messed up, and a few times it even crashed on me. Again, maybe it was just my cart.

Bubble Bobble (Arcade) - This one just froze randomly on me, for no apparent reason. The music continued playing, but everything else was dead. Has happened to me around 5-6 times total.

Metroid Prime (GC) - A friend said that it crashed on him a few times. I also recall EDGE magazine stating this in their review of the game, when it first came out. I've played it to death and found all the secrets, but never had a problem with this game myself.

Also: most PC games I've played :P

[bangtango]

I've owned two copies of Street Hoops (Activision) on the Gamecube and they would both crash the system every so often. I got rid of the first copy because it was a little banged up and got a disc in better condition. Same problem.

[smork]

My Neo CD Twinkle Star Sprites is unplayable on my top loader -- the game loads up but many of the sprites don't load at all.

Game works fine on my front loader -- and I haven't had any problems with any other game in my top loader.

[Steve W]

For some reason, my Jaguar game I-War would occasionally freeze when you were first starting a level, right after the synthesized voice would say "Entering I-Way". It would also freeze sometimes when it was supposed to bring up the high-rez startup screen.

T-Mek and Metal Head on the 32X would freeze all the time on me, especially Metal Head. I never managed to get too far into the first level before it would die on me. It's probably got everything to do with the inherent instability of the Genesis/32X clusterf*ck design.

I know that it's the age of the hardware and it's most likely an overheating problem, but Mind Strike on my Intellivision ECS tends to freeze after a minute or two. It's a real shame, since I love the game so much.

[mercarian]

ARG, Smash Brothers Brawl. Had to send my system in. Very lame O_o

[Trevelyan]

It's rather old hat but 3rd part expansion packs for the N64 were notorious at crashing games that required it. :grrr::grrr:

For some strange reason, my Zelda OOT has to pushed into the slot in just the right way or the slightest of knocks to the console (seemingly by magic though, sometimes) will cause it to freeze up. Its the only cartridge to have done this & I've owned two copies which both did it. :grrr:

Slightly off topic now but my Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 crashes sooo much on my PC, LOL its just about playable though, and saves where you were on the round.:sob:

And I do seem to remember Alex the Kidd in Miracle World on the SMS crashing alot also.

[G-Boobie]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the 360 is utterly shameful: I've had that game lock up or crash on me so many times I ended up buying it again for PS3. Saves were corrupted, data was lost, loading screens never went away... But I love the game anyway. It's the absolute best buggy piece of crap I've ever played.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin for the PS1 is another one I've had trouble with. I've played it ripped to my PSP, but after a while sprites and art assets stop loading properly and I get sound drop out. Playing it on my PS3 yields the same results: a save and a console reset usually fix it.

Honestly though, the vast bulk of games that 'crash' on consoles tend to be because the individual cart, disc, memory card or console is busted, not the actual code in the game itself, I think. Am I wrong?

[Pete Rittwage]

There were ways to crash the early Genesis Madden games (original or 92, I forget). It had something to do with the endzone and part of it being blacked out, followed by a crash.

Also, there was a way to crash the early Genesis EA Basketball games (Bulls vs. Blazers?) where it would crash to some numbers (CPU addresses, I guess- debugging info).

It's been a long time- I used to work at Electronics Boutique and we had tournaments with these games quite a bit (employee-only, unfortunately).

[brusnes]

Both Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for Gamecube crashed on me. The first crashed on me twice in the same large, vertical tunnel (although I played it so long ago I couldn't tell you exactly where), and the second game crashed during one of the first encounters with the possessed humans.