PS2 Controller Hack Nets Codes for GTA

glengineer writes "Gotta love edisoncarter for his cheesy, brute force, and effective hack of the PS2 controller to discover cheats for Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas. He used the parallel port of his PC connected to relays on the PS2 controller to step thru the combinations of button pushing needed to obtain cheats that were not released by Rockstar."

huh.

[xerxesVII]

I remember being a little kid, looking at Nintendo Power's codes section and wondering where all those codes came from. Did kids like me just sit there all day punching random codes in and seeing what happened?

Looks like someone figured out a way to do just that.

Re:huh.

[crow]

There are several ways to acquire cheat codes:

* Leak from an insider

* Lucky guess or brute force

* Analysis of the code

This looks like a new method of brute force. However, it would be easy for the game to detect it and disable all cheat codes--all they would have to do is have a bunch of extra special codes that instead of giving you more power, silently disable cheat codes.

Why do they exist?

[crow]

Why do these cheat codes exist in the final product? I can understand having them for development--they need to be able to test different parts of the game. Buy why would they still exist in the released version?

Re:Why do they exist?

[superpulpsicle]

That is the best part of the game. I know so many folks who bought GTA san andreas just to blow shit up. While I really enjoy the missions and the plot, IMHO few people actually play the game straight.

Sounds fishy

[Anonymous Coward]

He used the parallel port of his PC connected to relays on the PS2 controller to step thru the combinations of button pushing needed to obtain cheats that were not released by Rockstar

So, how did the "relays" know when he'd actually found one? I'd read the article, if it was actually available.

SUre, it's easy to program some i/o lines to just twiddle all combinations of the buttons, but you have to have something that confirms that you actually hit something interesting.

Re:Why do they exist?

[captnitro]

Even better, it's the presentation. You play a game once without them, and you play it with cheats the second or third time around -- it's an entirely different game.

Last year when bored I became a fan of turning my UT2003 single-player speed ('slomo') down to something far below normal, like 0.001, 1.0 being normal. At that speed it became more like an elaborate chess game, where you had minutes to decide where to go or who to shoot first. While it's not for everyone, it made for some very interesting matches -- you savor the triumph of a frag a little more, and then kick your own ass for not noticing the guy behind you for four minutes.

There's something that we like in games that's more about situations than strictly playing. Cheat codes allow us to get to the parts we really liked about the game.

Re:Why do they exist?

[milkman_matt]

Damn right. I never played VC or SA but in GTA 3 I eventually got bored of all the stupid missions and would see how long I could stay alive with the army hunting me down.

You know it's funny, when I BOUGHT VC I played it for about 25 minutes, other than that, my old roomie and I were just plugging in cheat codes and seeing who could last longest. The funny part is, I eventually got sucked into the plot (I -love- Scarface). Went and started playing the game, realized once I took over half the game, that I had so much damned money that the cheat codes couldn't compete with my arsenal :) But yeah, playing for survival is fun.

You know what I miss though? Is that in GTA1 it gave you a REPORT once you finally got hospitalized or arrested. How many misdemeanors, felonies, cops you killed, civilians you killed, etc... Made it a hell of a lot more fun for going on rampages ;)

Source code?

[cgenman]

I've been looking for a way for a long time to record inputs to a PC and play them back directly over a controller line according to a script, but I don't have the experience necessary with parallel ports to do such a thing. It would make QA much easier.

Did he post the source code somewhere? I'd love to have working base from which to, well, work.

- Chris

Re:Why do they exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand having them for development--they need to be able to test different parts of the game. Buy why would they still exist in the released version?

There's a non-zero chance that the two executables could behave in different ways. Since that's the case, it's easier to leave cheats in the game than re-test the entire release version of the game (which can take a few days).