Area 51 (Arcade)

Area 51
Developer: Mesa Logic Publisher: Atari Games Platform: Arcade (Atari CoJag) Released in US: November 1995 This game has debugging material.

To do: Revisional differences between Atari Games and Time Warner Interactive versions such as "Shake your Booda" secret room being changed to "X Marks the Spot" in subsequent versions of the game and console ports.

Debug Options

Present in the service menu is a normally disabled debug menu. To access it, hold down either of the start buttons and turn on the services dipswitch. Continue to hold start until "OKAY, I HEARD YOU" appears. A debug menu along with a few extra menus will be added to the service menu.

The Development setting enables a few normally disabled options in the service menu. Debug Switches is enabled by default but doesn't appear to do anything when changed.

DISK TEST

The DISK TEST menu now displays more info.

VCR Check

Just displays a blank screen.

SOUND TESTS

This would've been a sound test but it no longer functions.

DUMP MEMORY

This option is added to the MEMORY TESTS menu. This would've been used to dump the game's memory.

SCOPE LOOPS

This appears to be used to test reading and writing to RAM.

ALPHANUMERIC TEST

Just displays the service menu fonts.

ALPHANUM STAMPS

Another font viewer which can display more fonts.

LOGO

This option is added to the MONITOR TESTS menu. Whatever this would've been was removed.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Crash Handler

If the game ever crashes, it'll display this crash handler. Pressing Start three times will reboot the game.