Was
: this a well-known secret or not?
Now *I'm* asking for a screenshot or movie of this! Forget what I said about it being invisible - if it's there, I want to know where to look!
I just revisited M1 level 22 once again to see if I had somehow missed it. I tabbed high and low in the same spot as the pattern buffer in M1A1, and adjacent to it on the same wall. Nothing - not even a flicker. The pattern buffer in M1A1 is very generous in size - you can tab almost anywhere in the general area and get it. Mike, not that I doubt you, but is there *any* possibility you might have been using a doctored copy of M1? There are a number of cheats out there that let you add a 'save anywhere' feature. If there really is a pattern buffer hidden in the original M1, consider yourself to have found a secret that few have seen before!
There are 2 other interesting points of discussion from your post. First of all, it's hard to believe that any of us could have had trouble finding that secret door the first time through and, yet, I too couldn't find it at first. Now it's so obvious - just look in map mode - I always tab on dead ends - but back in the beginning we were all just learning. Now, in Rubicon, there were only 3 secrets that I didn't find through normal game play.
The second point, which addresses this thread in general, is that there *are* significant differences between M1 and M1A1 and that we need to be cognizant of that when making posts here. The games really play differently - a lot differently. I'm glad that we now have the option of playing M1A1 and taking full advantage of the enhancements in the M2/Infinity engine, and OpenGL, but it's a different game with different strategies. A good example is on G4 Sunbathing (wasn't it G3 in M1?). In M1, I could activate all the compilers and take them out one-by-one. In M1A1, this strategy was nearly lethal - I ended up with a saved game and moments from being surrounded. Ducking into the narrow hallway leading to the shield/O2 regenerator room let me tackle them (and some hunters) one-by-one, but I'd run out of O2 if I fisted them, and die between reloads if I used my fusion pistol. I ended up using a combination of the 2, but will be more careful in saving games in new scenarios from now on - and this is really a new scenario.
