The internet lies: cheat code edition

This is why this matters. I noticed MagForce Racing, a game nobody ever cared about (although spoilers: it's not terrible) had a "debug mode" cheat listed. Save a high score as "JOHNM" - I wonder what we can mess with...



wait







it's a code that turns everything into [John] Malkovich. It is the best code.


Fun fact: we got this film as a freebie with our first DVD player. I've never watched it.

 

Improving the women's game:



Silicon Dreams' ladies versus all the world's men on... the surface of Mars?



It was going well until this player got frozen in time. They tried to tackle her but the ball's off the ground. Nobody wins!


One move and it's a foul. Should have been a red. Should have cared enough to continue playing.

UEFA Dream Soccer or "why do football games have the worst menus?". You need three codes to unlock all the stadiums, and most of the internet just labels them 1-through-16. This is "Stadium 16", which is clearly labeled as "Out of this World" in-game.

 

Name your character after a "recent" Olympic host city in ESPN International Track & Field and you get a metallic-coloured athlete. Including Athens 2004, which hadn't happened yet (assuming it's not the 1896 games).



But for whatever reason, the 1956 Melbourne and 1992 Barcelona games are missing. I'm guessing it's because they're more than 8 letters.. but


The 1952 games are in Gold and the 1960 games are Bronze. Surely Melbourne should be silver! Oh well.

Incidentally this takes us to 1000 hidden content pages. Well done team

 

Re-Volt which I thought was done, but whatever.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/198470-re-volt/cheats
The GameFAQs page is a bit sloppy but mostly right. Supposedly some cheats are different in the PAL version which is why there are duplicates - someone else can check, since Re-Volt is great and you should play it.

But "Hi-Fi Mode" which the internet calls it... is not that. In fact, if anything it's "lo-fi":

->
It's the secret 60FPS mode (which affects timing, so I can get a nice grid start). Take out some of the scenery, reduce the draw distance, and you can double the frame rate.

Is it worth doing? ...maybe? Both modes look and run better than the N64 and PS1 iterations (and you always get 8 cars in a race instead of 4), but the added fogging isn't very... Dreamcast-esque. I think I prefer being able to see the road.


Also reverse tracks are not a hidden thing on Dreamcast. In fact, the game openly offers reverse, mirror and reverse-mirror versions of every course - all racing games should do this!

 

Hydro Thunder's not in good shape:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/197594-hydro-thunder/cheats

There is a lot of confusion across the net on this one - all of those codes, as GameFAQs describes them, don't work (except for clean pause, and "super start" (though even then there's two variations of that)). Other sites claim the PAL version behaves differently (I don't think it does), others claim you need a top 3 or 5 finish (or a top 3 or 5 high score?) in all the easy tracks before things will start working - it's a mess.

Finishing second or third in the "Thunder Park" track, then inputting my name as "?DL" gave me the medium tracks and boats prematurely ("?DL" and/or "?DP" is meant to grant you everything), but this isn't a game where you can easily test all the different permutations - you need to have a perfect race to come 1st, so for now, this is as far as I'll go.

And the other reason for that is not all Hydro Thunders are created equal:



I'm not sure the original US launch version (with added Dreamcast logo) even has the cheats. The "Hot! New!" revision of the game (and the basis for the PAL version) behaves slightly differently in places, and we can't rule out people getting confused with the arcade (or PC) versions.

It's also a port of a Midway arcade game, which means it might have a bazillion secrets that haven't even been discovered yet. It doesn't have Kombat Kodes, but who knows, maybe you can play as Rain if it's a full moon in December on a Tuesday.

 

no there is no rhyme nor reason to the games I'm picking

Slam 'n Jam '96 Featuring Magic & Kareem

Simple stuff.

On the main menu, you press left right up down R L A down for the Left Field Lefties

then left right up down R L A up for the Monsters.

You can't have Monsters without Lefties. Obviously.

Oh but then if you press R L A you get version info, which can be seen by leaving the game alone for a bit and pressing start at the title screen:



This is "cheat level" 3.



How much further can we go?




L L L takes us to "Status Box". I... don't know what this does. This was glossed over in Saturn cheat coverage in favour of...


R R R for "Short Quarters". And... nobody checked this at all, because it... doesn't make quarters shorter. The shortest they go is 2 minutes, both before and after this code. Okay.


down down down takes us to cheat level 6: "Memory Dump". Where does it dump memory? Nobody knows - this was documented as a PlayStation cheat, but not a Saturn one (spoilers: the codes are identical on PlayStation, just swap A for X and use L1/R1). You have to input these six codes in order so you can forgive the gaming media for losing track.


Do any of these codes do anything? Does it go further? Maybe someone will find out one day.

 

I wasn't entirely sure if it was an error, but yes, NBA 2K2 has pretty much the same cheats as NBA 2K1.

Yes the pixels do match up. Annual sports games, everybody.

 

More baskets and balls.

College Slam, specifically the Mega Drive version, is a bit wobbly:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/915986-college-slam/cheats
I could only get the "on fire" and "quick hands" cheats to work after looking at the SNES codes (and making educated guesses), but the rest are fine. I do wonder if there's a big head mode hiding somewhere in the code - every basketball game should have one!


However there is an "infinite shot clock" cheat listed that's... not a cheat at all. It's a bug. And a fun one.

For whatever reason, if you press A+B+C while highlighting the shot clock time option, you're taken back to the title screen, and the option breaks. If you revisit the config screen, the upper and lower boundaries of the shot clock will have been removed, letting you set it to stupid numbers.




Finally I can play basketball the way it was intended - with BLANK-0 or n9 second shot clocks. You can set the value to something stupidly high (and therefore essentially remove the feature) but you can also set it to a negative time, which means you get SHOT CLOCK VIOLATION: the game:



it's like an episode of Scooby Doo.

 

They did themselves a disservice in the 90s - NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC is basically "NBA Jam 3" (or "NBA Jam 4"?), but you would never know, because they couldn't keep the old name and they're in bed with broadcaster NBC, despite NBC not really doing a whole lot here.

But just like previous entries there's a bazillion cheats (including the Mortal Kombat-style Kombat Kodes "special codes"), including a whole set of weather effects for outdoor courts... that you probably wouldn't see, because those are also secret.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/198091-nba-showtime-nba-on-nbc/cheats

Quite a few of these "vs screen" codes don't work though - anything with a "5" in it, from what I can tell. I suspect these work in other versions, but not on Dreamcast for whatever reason. A bug?

And yes that is a badly resized HUD. Redream also can't cope with the commentary, so emulated versions on YouTube should be easy to spot.

 

Kill me now

I have documented all 66 secret characters in NBA Showtime, which includes those often missing from lists and... five duplicate (or prototype characters?) with very minor differences.

Anyway some highlights, because if I'm going to waste my day taking screenshots, you're going to waste your day looking at them. I've not done the research yet so some of these might be US celebrities or whatever.


"Crispy"


"Horse"


"Jacko"


"Nikko"


"The Wiz"


"Dennis Rodman", a North Korean favourite.



"Biggy"


"Smalls"


Smaller Biggy.


Bigger Smalls.

 

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, or "why is the woman not green" has dozens of codes, because it was published by Midway, and those are the rules. Too bad they didn't spend the time making the game better.

While hunting for Dreamcast codes I found the next best thing!... Nintendo 64 codes, which exist on the disc too. Not that anyone has bothered to verify that version's cheats either (and I'm only assuming N64 - some of the codes match lists, but the lists are seemingly incomplete), but yeah:

Code (Text):

1. CLNLGRMM      Attack
2. TRGHTR        Spy Blue
3. TDBWL         Bathroom
4. MSTRMN        Riff Mission
5. TLLTRS        Forest
6. SCRDCT        Hoover Mission
7. STPDMN        Thick Mission
8. BLZZRD        Snow Mission
9. SRFPNK        Shrap Mission
10. GNRLMN        Fort Plastro
11. HTTTRT        Scorch  Mission
12. ZBTSRL        Showdown
13. HTKTTN        Sandbox
14. PTSPNS        Kitchen
15. HXMSTR        Living Room
16. VRCLN         The Way Home
17. CNN           Cinematic Level One
18. CNTWN         Cinematic Level 2.1
19. CNTWTW        Cinematic Level 2.2
20. CNTWTHR       Cinematic Level 2.3
21. CNTWFR        Cinematic Level 2.4
22. CNTHR         Cinematic Level Three
23. CNFR          Cinematic Level Four
24. DNSTHMN       All Levels
25. NSRLS         Weapons
26. MMRTL         Immortal
27. MMLVSRM       Max Ammo
28. CNTN          Continues
29. DNLVSHSF      Invisible
30. xxxTNSLDRS    Tin Soldier
31. BGGRN         Big Green One
32. GRNGRLRX      Vikki
33. PLSTRLVSVG    Plastro
34. SHRMNSLDR     Hail Mendheimicus
35. THDTST        Test Info
36. LVNGLRG       Living Large
37. DRVLLVSMM     Mini Mode
38. JHNNBRZ       Johnny Breeze
39. PNKBNN        Pink Bunny
40. CHNG          Chunga
41. FTHD          Fat Head
42. SLPHLLW       Sleepy Hallow
43. NBRNR         No Brainer
44. XRCST         Exorcist
45. FTFT          Fat Feet
46. SPRKLWRLD     Sparkle World
47. LNRGRVT       Lunar Gravity
48. RBNML          
49. SFFRMV        Saffire Making Of
50. MDWTSTR       Day in the life
51. CHNGLVNGRM    Chunga Living Room
52. FCFJHNRN      Face of JohnRen
53. FCFHL         Face of Hal
54. FCFBRN        Face of Bryan
55. FCFJHNN       Face of Johnny
56. FCFMK         Face of Mike
57. FCFRCHRD      Face of Richard
58. FCFSTV        Face of Steve
59. FCFBRNT       Face of Brent
60. FCFRBN        Face of Robyn
61. FCFSTWRT      Face of Stewert
62. FCFTDD        Face of Todd
63. FCFJN         Face of Jun
64. FCFKTH        Face of Kathy
65. FCFJRM        Face of Jeremy
66. FCFDNN        Face of Danny
67. FCFBRD        Face of Brad
68. FCFDSTN       Face of Dustin
69. FCFCRR        Face of Carrie
70. FCFRNNX       Face of Ryan Nix
71. FCFTLRRNSTRM  Face of Tyler Renstrom
72. FCFMGNRNSTRM  Face of Megan Renstrom
73. FCFNKKPN      Face of Nikki Pino
74.               Face of Alexis Pino
75. FCFBRTPN      Face of Bret Pino
76. FCFZCH        Face of Zach
77. FCFBRNTNGN    Face of BrienAtangan
78. FCFVRGLBD     Face of VirgilAbad

Many are the same as on Dreamcast (or have Dreamcast equivalents), but "Chunga Living Room" is unique to Nintendo's machine. We have to make do with features such as "Disco Madness" instead:



Because nothing says "disco" like BLACK TEXTURES.



I think maybe my favourite is the "evil spirit" (VLSPRT) code which makes the characters heads rotate like in the Exorcist. The problem is this is running at 640x480 and all the heads are green - you can't tell which direction they're facing!