Broken AOF Home Cart?

Hey everyone,
I was recently the winner of an Ebay Auction for a US "Art Of Fighting", the seller's ID is "phmatt24". Anyways I got the game yesterday, happy to have finally gotten it in my hands since I had meant to add to my Neo Collection ages ago.
The condition of the inserts,instructions and cart were pretty good, they showed some minor wear but it all seemed fine.
When I proceeded to place the game in my Neo system, the game's screens suffered from blockiness, weird colors etc. At first I attempted the wiggle method but it refused to work. Thinking the cart might be dusty, I tried to blow air on it and even tried the newly learned eraser cleaning technique(special mention goes out to lump505 & Nick_Th_Fury). But still after many attempts the cart refused to work! All the images kept looking like either old Atari 2600 games or fuzzy.
After examining the cart more closely, I found that the cart seemed loose. I also recalled that the seller did not package the game very well at all. It was delivered in a big priority mail envelope bag, not a box. Could it be that the poor AOF cart sustained extensive damage during its delivery because of the poor packaging? And because of that it does not work? Still before contacting the seller about the situation, I wondered if any of you had some suggestions or opinions of what I could try to do to get it to work properly. Help someone, please!!!

Nothing worse that waiting for something, to finally get it, and then it dosent work. I'm not really sure, did you try cleaning it multiple times? To be honest, packing it in a priority bag was a terrible idea by the guy. Neo carts are just to sensitive, to be honest, I would NEVER pack any game in bag. Depending on the seller's level of friendliness you might be screwed. I dont remember if eBay has a rule about the condition of merchandise. I know paypal dosent.

Hope you fix it or atleast you didnt pay too much

You need to contact that seller immediately and let him know that the cart doesn't work. If he's a good seller as mentioned by outsider, he should take the cart back and refund your money. Packaging sounds like it was very poor and could easily account for the damage. These carts need to be padded with bubble wrap or something, at least, to preserve them from damage. Neo carts are very tough items, as a rule they hold up very well over time. I've personally never run into a single dead or damaged cart, and I have LOTS of carts (both home and arcade).

Contact seller, go through the return process, if he doesn't go along with it, then leave negative feedback. That's what the feedback ratings are for, to alert others to problems with sellers/buyers. Good luck.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I did indeed try cleaning the game many times, but it just won't work right! I did only pay $30.49 for the cart, but still it sucks. His packaging of the game was terrible, I could not believe he didn't protect it in any way. Still the seller did seem frienly enough and pehaps he just wasn't too aware of the game's sensitivity and the UPS roughness with items. I'm gonna be contacting him about the situation and see what we he can do for me. I'll keep you all posted on what happens, Wish me luck and thanks again!

If you haven't returned the game to the guy here is the best way to clean the contacts.

Get a Q-tip dip it in rubbing alcohol ( I use 50% Isopropyl ).
Rub the q-tip alone the contacts and if they are dirty, you should see the q-tip begin to turn black. Grab some more q-tips and do it again if you have to. Wait a few minutes and then test the game out. I've gotten REALLY dirty games to work ( neo geo , famicom, nintendo, gameboy, turbo grafx ) and have never had a problem with them after that. Good Luck!!

Gunbu

Thank you very much for the advice, Gunbu.
I'll be sure to try it out, since I haven't sent the game back yet. I just recently contacted the seller about the situation too, and he wanted to try to get it to work again. If after trying your technique; it still doesn't work, I'll have to declare it damaged but I hope I don't have to.

Also does anybody think my actual Neo-Geo system might need some cleaning? If so how do you clean the inside? :/ All my other carts pretty much play without problems, so perhaps that's not the issue.

I don't know...I'll try Gunbu's cleaning technique first and see how that goes. Wish me luck and thanks again everyone!

Originally posted by Gunbu:
If you haven't returned the game to the guy here is the best way to clean the contacts.

Get a Q-tip dip it in rubbing alcohol ( I use 50% Isopropyl ).
Rub the q-tip alone the contacts and if they are dirty, you should see the q-tip begin to turn black. Grab some more q-tips and do it again if you have to. Wait a few minutes and then test the game out. I've gotten REALLY dirty games to work ( neo geo , famicom, nintendo, gameboy, turbo grafx ) and have never had a problem with them after that. Good Luck!!

Gunbu

Click to expand...

Year try that cleaning i have done that often with Carts and it works fine.
Somtimes i got Problems with brandnew carts, because there is a little protektcream or something like that on the contackts and my old Neo got some grafik erros too. After Cleaning all work fine. Be sure u dont get to strong alcohol because it can damage the plasik of the cart.

Hey everyone,
I just wanted to report some good news, after trying out Gunbu's cart cleaning suggestion(and a little cart wiggeling), I did get that AOF cart to work properly! No more Atari 2600 graphics or fuzziness! The cart turned out to have some serious dust issues it seemed, but all is well and I'm now able to enjoy my AOF game despite it's unbalanced gameplay, but hey it's still great! Anyways I just wanted to give my thanks to everyone for their help and support. You guys here on the forums are great! Cheers!

[This message has been edited by Dark Fact (edited October 22, 2000).]