I've had some similar problems with it when the desktop color depth when I started the game was different than the color depth that the game was set to use. Was there a discrepancy between the game and the desktop color settings?
I play in Windowed mode almost all of the time, though, so it's almost always someone else who notices these things.
[ February 07, 2004, 00:11: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]