Nice! someone with the skill should try to see if this enables something in the game or if it is just an easter egg. I think the linked page deserves a sweep. I remmember posting some codes for Truxton (level select) and Metal Head (anime faces) on SEGA 16 that at the time wasn't published anywhere else. At the time I was trying to make a definitive and checked cheat code list for all Brazilian releases but never got around to sit down and try each one of them.
It's looking like it's just a "thing you can do": https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:Mdfan_JP_1991-09.pdf&page=128 It was discovered a within a couple of months after launch... but yeah, it just seems to be "you can make it display 777". Feels like it should be granting you continues (or at least something), but... it's activated on the continue screen... so you already have at least one.
In light of today's news I thought I'd give the two Pelé games some wiki attention. And then discovered that because people didn't like the games, there's not much to say. However I did find undocumented cheats for Pelé II: Pelé II: World Tournament Soccer/Hidden content https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SegaVisions_US_20.pdf&page=106 Curtosy of Sega Visions of all places. Play as teams that didn't qualify for the 1994 World Cup, including England! (and Scotland and Wales and France and Canada) There's an ABRACADABRA cheat that doesn't seem do do anything though. Sega Visions says is maxes out the team stats... but I'm not sure that it does. However the UI in Pelé II is beyond awful* so I could be missing it. There are no Sega games sponsored by Vivienne Westwood, sorry. *as in, you need to go to the options screen, then press down to change teams. Videos on YouTube tend to have Argentina vs. Bolivia because without scanned manuals, you have to go hunting for the option.
Whew, so here's a doozy. Does the internet lie about cheat codes? Yeah, especially in the early days of the internet... But what if you could prove a cheat that seemed like it was a lie? I have been reverse engineering Sonic the Fighters, and to that extent, Fighting Vipers, to better understand the underlying engine of both games. In documenting the character select screen, I saw some code that was intriguing to say the least. Gamewinners.com has a cheat listed for Fighting Vipers from at least 2001: 15,000 plays? Was this a lie? Well, no, it actually wasn't. However, the cheat is slightly wrong, but gets many things right to be too much of a coincidence: This is disassembled code from Fighting Vipers (Rev D). The code is almost exactly the same as the Gamewinners listing, but the cheat must be executed before the 18 second mark, not when the timer reaches 9. Also the 15,000 plays is actually 15,000 VS mode plays, p1 and p2 human fights, not single player mode. What I want to know is how someone would someone have even known this specifically back in 2001? EDIT: Forgot to state the cheat gives you playable Mahler, not B. Mahler.
Gamewinners always was a weird one, but the only place I actually went to for codes in the late 90s/early 2000s. They had the unlock all characters cheat in Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 before anyone else on the internet did, for instance. I was surprised when it worked way back when.
I guess it's just a way of making sure the machine has taken plenty of money before you let people cheat. It would have to be leaked though surely, no one is accidentally doing that on the character select screen!
That's the sort of thing that probably came out of a Japanese magazine or interview or whatever. I'd be amazed if it had actually been tested.
Keeping with the Dreamcast theme: https://segaretro.org/Sega_Retro:Todo/Sub-pages#Dreamcast.2C_GameFAQs I scavenged GameFAQs for Dreamcast games that look like they might actually have cheats, as opposed to "finish the game and you get this". There is one thing I hadn't factored in though: we have a copy of the Dreamcast software guidelines, and in addition to a whole section about the software reset (A+B+X+Y+Start, aka not a cheat), there is https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SegaDreamcastSoftwareCreationStandards_US.pdf&page=49 For those playing along at home, that's "clean pause", which has been listed among Dreamcast cheats since 1998. X+Y+Z is somewhat common on the Sega Saturn to achieve the same effect, but we don't know how widespread and/or official it was for that system. On the Dreamcast though, I'm expecting it to be pretty common. There's also mention of having screensavers kick in after 300 seconds. Darkening the screen is an option, but Sega allowed fancy things too. I don't know if that counts as hidden content - it's not something you'd usually see, but it's a requirement of the software, so you can kind-of guess it would be there. p.s. I'm not downloading and running 3428970923849032 Dreamcast games to test this feature out.
Yeah, I noticed when I was doing the Sega PC stuff that when I hit the Dreamcast ports, it was mostly 'unlockable content' rather than proper codes. Where's the fun in that? :-) If MK Gold is anything to go by, Midway were still cheat fans at this time, I'll check out Hydro Thunder and SF Rush after I've finished mucking around with Quake III's console.
There is... But we're talking like, ancient bespoke hubs made by people who were (and are) just finding as they go. Change your non-Unicode PC to Japanese, this is as geriatric as you can get. http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~famicom/Urawaza/FC/00000.htm#SA
Pseudo-undocumented cheat time: Holding A+X+Y before starting a new game in Shenmue's version of Space Harrier lets you play with inverted Y controls (or "up input to down"). It also works with Yu Suzuki Game Works Vol. 1. This wasn't written down. Now it is.
Spider-Man on the Dreamcast has a fun feature. If you input bad words as cheats, Spider-Man will turn up, punch them, and the word to turn into something friendlier. Apparently he doesn't like chickens. It's a feature of the PlayStation version, but this is a Dreamcast - I expect my swear words to be 128 bits! There isn't a widely available list online but through the power of "pretending to work on a Friday afternoon" (and a hex editor), we can get some clues: (HxD doesn't have proper high DPI support - deal with it) I found a list of the replacement words, but the strings above look like garbage. Well, until I realised that "btt" looks a lot like "ass" with the letters uh... incremented? So I tested the theory: Code (Text): sjnkpc rimjob cmpxkpc blowjob bstf arse btt ass gvdl fuck cvhhfs bugger xbol wank uju tit dvou cunt tobudi snatch qvttz pussy tiju shit qjtt piss dvn cum wbh vag gfmudi feltch tqvol spunk kj{ jiz dpdl cock gjtujoh fisting ovutbd nutsac bobm anal ejmep dildo cbtubse bastard cvuu butt qfojt penis uxbu twat cjudi bitch guess Treyarch and/or Neversoft were trying to hide it. The replacement words: Code (Text): flower happy pretty puppy bunny donut lolly love nice cake poppy fluffy cloud rainbow icecream sugar windmill iowa toffee taffy candy sodapop bubble cinnamon dinosaur balloon lobster honey potato spice While there are 28 bad words, there are 30 replacements (which are randomised). For the record, the game checks for substrings, so "fucking" will be censored too (and for long time followers: there's not enough room for "YoshiTennis") As for real cheats, GameFAQs is missing a couple (although some are listed on the PlayStation page) "Toon Spidey" (FUNKYTWN) isn't well documented. RULUR is also meant to replace J. Jonah Jameson with Neversoft's J. James Jewett. This doesn't work in the Dreamcast version, but strings are still there. Perhaps someone can find him? Code (Text): WEAKNESS full health LEANEST everything GLANDS unlimited webbing EGOTRIP pulsating head RULUR J James Jewett SECRTWAR symbiote spidey costume MIGUELOH spidey 2099 costume TRISNTNL Captain Universe Costume SYNOPTIC Spidey Unlimited Costume XILRTRNS Scarlet Spider Costume KICK ME Amazing Bag Man Costume MRWATSON Peter Parker Costume SM LVIII Quick Change Costume ROBRTSON Storyboard Viewer KIRBYFAN Game Comic Covers MME WEB Level Select FANBOY Comic Collection CINEMA Movie Viewer RGSGLLRY Character Viewer UATUSEES What If Contest ADMNTIUM invulnerable CLUBNOIR Ben Reilly Costume STICKMAN Stick Spidey FUNKYTWN Toon Spidey (for the record)
I remember back in the day finding a code on some random website for Micro Machines 2. It involved who knows what, but it promised to unlock a secret Smurfs track. When I was a kid I imagined it so hard it almost passes as a false memory. But I know it's not legit because it never worked. Also because when I tried to search again for it years later, I found no results at all.
We don't have any push button codes at all for Micro Machines 2 on the wiki, a surprising gap because I'm sure there's a few. I'll add it onto my TODO list to look at.
I don't recall it having any myself as someone who had that back in the day and a large cheats book, so I'll be interested in anything you might find!
@Overlord, I think you're right. MM1 has a bunch of 'pause the game' codes, and just to annoy me further, IGN incorrectly has those codes listed as MM2 codes. The faqs mention a bunch of hidden power ups if you leave the track and go exploring on certain levels, although always in quite a vague way, that might be interesting to try and document systematically.
So the hidden bonuses are definitely real, on the first proper track with the drills, if you turn off the track on the 2nd lap just after you've avoided the drills and gone round the corner, there's a star you can run over to instantly warp to the next level. Curious if the manual mentions these at all. EDIT - the UK manual does have the single line 'look out for hidden power ups including extra lives', so not actually hidden content. EDIT 2 - also this Youtuber has done a pretty thorough search Hidden powerups - Micro Machines 2 [Genesis] - YouTube
Oh, yeah, THOSE exist. They only appear up to iirc about Level 10 on Challenge Mode, but that's about all I'm aware of. There's one above one of the rolls in the wallpaper track and in one of the joins off-track in the attic level, plus others.
