Quote:Do A Boomerang Throw!
Far be it from we here at Nintendorks to avoid the opportunity to report on strange and unusual sightings in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Many of you are familiar with our infamous video which shows the capture of the rare Hyrulian Loach during an all-night hotel room video game session at E3 1999.
Well, when news came across our fictional yet cluttered desks of some strange lights in the sky above Kokiri Forest, we knew what we had to do. We checked ourselves into that same Los Angeles hotel, emptied all the minibars, called some escorts, and got down to some serious Zeldaing.
We emerged into the California sun hours later: hungover, penniless, victorious. Ladies and gentlemen... here are the fruits of our labor.
Click here to watch the video.
Yeah, we're confused too. It turns out that there are Gameshark codes to replace the little rock-humping boy in Kokiri Forest with any other object in the game. However, one version of this code will change him to something not present anywhere in the game: a fully operational Arwing from Starfox!
Want to try it yourself? Here are the codes for the different versions of the game.
North America v1.0
81244096 0009
81244124 013b
81244132 0000
North America v1.1
8124c806 0009
8124c894 013b
8124c8a2 0000
North America v1.2
8124cd06 0009
8124cd94 013b
8124cda2 0000
Europe v1.0
81242e26 0009
81242eb4 013b
81242ec2 0000
Europe v1.1
8124b456 0009
8124b4e4 013b
8124b4f2 0000
Kevyn: The video was actually recorded by some guys at GSCentral.org who get the credit for discovering this code. I just threw the audio from the loach video into it for ha-has.
Brandon: Ha ha!
http://www.nintendorks.com/
Wow, I knew that looked amazing... Huh... I wonder why the code for an arwing was in there... I'm betting that on it's way to being reused in OOT, the engine for SM64 was being used in SF64.
http://dudeneedsespers.ytmnd.com/
The dude needs espers. So is this one fer reals as well?
Well, it's things like that that almost make me want to get a Gameshark. But, I'm too afraid of accidently experimenting in some stupid way and screwing up the game FOREVERS. I suppose I could get a ROM of games I own and use a hex editor on it, same thing really, and that way anything I did wrong would easily be reversible. Well, not "always", you just don't see that many links to "come here for ROMsors!" when surfing the net... Oh well, no biggy really.
Wow, that's incredible. Kinda makes me wonder, though, how a Kokiri Sheild can withstand laser fire from an Arwing but burns up on contact with a Fire Keese.
I'm a touch disappointed though. I was hoping to see Link IN the Arwing, terrorizing Hyrule Field! Yeah, Ganondorf! Don't need no Bridge-O-Light to get into your fortress, now! Come get some!!
Well it's not exactly like this is cannon storyline ;)
Yeah, saw that pic... pretty neat. But why is an Arwing in OoT...
Pic? It's a full movie actually. Not sure why it's in there. From what I can tell, they just left in some extra code from SF64.
That's awesome! It must have been part of a code that was never used or a secret mini game! But DJ you dont have to worry about the GS ruining your game, the very worst possible scenario is that it will erase your game saves, any effect from the GS will be removed when you reset the game.
There's no way to create 'permanent' effects in a video game unless you have the rom and game editing tools on your PC. The GS just manipulates code in the Ram that is flushed out when you power down.
I've used the Gameshark with N64 games before and it never messed any of them up.
I know, I'm actually more worried about literally shorting the game out due to bad code. That's most likely not an option since after the NES days, but a copy of SMB3 says NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs10.html
I don't think it's possible to "short out the game" unless you try this one code for Zelda 64 where you have to actually PULL THE CART OUT while the system is still on.
Well the N64 is made in the current era, sort of, so I think it's a lot safer than the NES days. Then, a Genie really could kill your games permanently. Namely, there are a number of, admittedly anecdotal, stories of people ruining games. I myself also have an anecdote regarding SMB3 being made unplayable. None of that counts as scientific validity in and of itself, but it is possible considering what I now know about how that old Game Genie worked... it's method of altering the game's code was pretty direct, and considering how iffy the NES already was when it came to getting games to run, it was only a matter of time before that genie changed the wrong bits of code and some circuit loop shorted something out...
But anyway, today there is one other way to screw up a game forever. Saved games can be corrupted, not just deleted. If the game isn't designed to handle corrupt data like that, and often there is no real reason for it to be, the game will glitch out in all manner of ways. Too often, that way is to fail to even start up.
You can't write to a cartridge's main memory. If you could, we wouldn't have memory cards. Some carts came with EEPROM (like OoT and most Nintendo published games), but that is physically a different piece of memory with a completely different technology. Like lazy said, the Game Shark alters what the game stores in the console's RAM, but that can never get onto your cartridge and will be erased after you power off. You could, perhaps, ruin a memory card of the EEPROM saved data (you could possibly even corrupt the EEPROM so that nothing can be saved to it) but you won't ever alter the actual game code.
I am not 100% certain on how NES games worked either, but I find it doubtful that they could be written to either. It is more expensive to do a read/write memory file system than read only (look at CD writers and CD-RWs compared to standard CD players) and I don't think Nintendo would do that for kicks. Perhaps the EEPROM chip was corrupted and that made the game unsavable, but it should never be unplayable.
I know that. I REALLY know that. I've said as much myself in the past. That is not what I am saying.
I'm basically saying what you said after that, about the actual saved files being corrupted beyond usability. As I said, different games will cope with utterly corrupted save data in different ways. Pokemon, for example, will fail to even load up if you corrupt the saved data. I suppose that the right Game Shark code will clear the data out, or you could open it and remove the battery for a short period of time (in older tech that used batteries anyway). The only exception would be if the saved data has to already be, from the start, in a certain format and the game isn't designed to format a blank slate. Then, you are basically screwed.
As for NES games, you can't alter the code on them either. The only thing you could change would be saved data. Same thing basically, except for one. Apparently, you CAN short the thing out. I used to have a copy of FF1 that screwed up so bad that the characters for naming... characters... were changed to random bits of data. I tried everything to undo the effect, including removing the battery to clear the saved data (here's the odd thing, removing the save battery did not delete the data immediatly. I actually had to wait overnight, I think a capacitor may have been to blame for that, possibly holding an extra charge that had to slowly disappate). I also made sure that all the pins were making perfect contact. In the end, the only conclusion I could come up with was that there was some glitch inside the game. A later copy of FF1 worked just fine and still does. Then there is the issue of SMB3. I'm not sure what happened there. All I know is that game has NO save battery, no EPROM (that wasn't even in use in NES games, just a sort of RAM that used a battery), and could not be written to. The only thing I can think of is the Genie actually shorted out the ROM somehow and ruined it. Anyway, ever since a particularly experimental code, it no longer works, forever. It did make a pretty horrid noise when I put that code in there... Too bad too, since I had a pretty cool code for SMB3 that shrunk every single sprite that Mario had into about the size of his hat (cycling through), gave me P wing status all the time, and made every level behave like an underwater level. The crippling part of that is that pipes do NOT work underwater in SMB3, so you couldn't finish the game (and it was a "3 liner" code, so no extra codes to bail me out).
Quote:Pic? It's a full movie actually. Not sure why it's in there. From what I can tell, they just left in some extra code from SF64.
I mean I saw a picture of the Arwing in OoT on the net a few days ago. (Kotaku or something?)
As for third party stuff breaking things, once I had a third party GB (original) AC adaptor, and the plug got stuck in the AC adaptor port of the GB... had to go to a repair center to get it fixed. Didn't use a third party AC adaptor again on my gameboy after that...
I can see that. Fire hot, fire bad!
But anyway, as far as I can tell the most likely explanation is the Genie, while it couldn't write to it, certainly wasn't prevented from burning out the chip.
A Black Falcon Wrote:As for third party stuff breaking things, once I had a third party GB (original) AC adaptor, and the plug got stuck in the AC adaptor port of the GB... had to go to a repair center to get it fixed. Didn't use a third party AC adaptor again on my gameboy after that...
I make it a general rule to not buy third-party stuff at all if it can be avoided. 9 times out of 10, it's crap and breaks within a month or two. That's been my experience at least. I once bought a third-party GC controller and it lasted about 3 months. I still use the same WaveBird I bought when they first came out, what? Two years ago? First-party may cost a bit more, but the quality is far superior in that you don't need to pay for a replacement down the line.
That is almost always the case, or at least it was. From what I understand memory cards are no longer reverse engineered, so they are fine. However, I figure I won't take any risks I don't really need to. You tend to get what you pay for.
I'm <i>especially</i> wary of Memory Cards. After logging who knows how many hours into a game, you don't want to risk losing it all because you saved a few bucks when you bought it.
Ack, N64 memory cards... I have two, one Nintendo and one Interact. I don't think that either one has ever had a REAL problem... however, becaus of stupidity I've erased them both at least in part before. You know, when it says 'memory card corrupt, do you want to try to repair the error" and when you say yes it deletes part/all of the stuff on the card... and it's only a long while later that I figure out that the problem probably just is that that message can appear when the card isn't seated quite right in the cart slot, or the contacts are dirty, or something like that...
At least I haven't lost anything REALLY important, though. When the Interact card 'messed up' (a few months after getting it, which would be a while ago now...) all I lost was Wipeout 64... which I played through again, fairly quickly... and when the Nintendo card did, I lost some stuff, but only one game of note, and I didn't mind playing Goemon's Great Adventure again. :)
Anyway, though, neither card has truly failed me yet... but I am of course afraid of them failing. Especially the third party one, naturally... I'm always scared that that thing will fail... since I have my Rush 2049 save on the thing and the only way to back it up/copy it to another card would be to have a dexdrive or something like that, which I don't have...
Oh yeah, my GC memcards are all first-party, but I did have a problem once... one file got corrupted (Midway Arcade Treasures), and I had to delete that file and recreate it... but just that file, oddly, and not anything else... and I haven't seen any more problems (can't remember if that was on the 251 or 1019 or whatever)...
As for controllers, N64 first party analog sticks dissolve. My original GC first-party controller is somewhat broken and in games sometimes some buttons don't work, or multiple buttons are mapped to the same button (like L doing both L and R's functions and R doing nothing), and stuff like that... very annoying... my third-party controller (Mad Catz) is junk of course, and one button broke... thankfully the useless programmable M button... and its buttons are sticky, and the dpad is abysmal and always has been, and the analog sticks are loose and imprecise and always have been that way...
My other controller of course works (not perfect actually, the main analog stick's deadzone (where it goes before you have to start pushing it) is too large (and wasn't always that way - not good), but that doesn't affect gameplay and hasn't seemed to be growing), but for multiplayer it's a tough choice... do you use the controller which, depending on the game/time of day/whatever will have nonfunctional buttons, or do you use the junk third party thing?
Oh yeah, and the screen on my GBC broke a year and a half ago. Got fried in the sun or something... I'm sure everyone has hand broken consoles before, even Nintendo ones... (like my ... other ... N64, which erases or messes with or fails to recognize on-cartridge-save (that is, not memcard) carts' saves) Yes, third party stuff is usually worse, but not always. Just look at my two N64 memory cards (or my cousins' third party psx or n64 memcards), they seem to work decently after some years...
But even so, I am definitely more scared of that third party thing breaking, and really, really don't want to lose that Rush save... all those hours and all those stats cataloged there... :(
I don't buy third party memory cards anymore. Or third party controllers for that matter.
I haven't, and won't, for Gamecube, and certainly don't plan to for Revolution either. But I was just saying that first-party stuff isn't perfect either... it's better, but not perfect.
Oh certainly. Yes I myself am all too familiar with "control stick disintegration". And brother, when it disintegrates, it disintegrates.
Do the Arwings appear elseware? Thats awesome!
Quote:Oh certainly. Yes I myself am all too familiar with "control stick disintegration". And brother, when it disintegrates, it disintegrates.
This is why, this summer, I was so happy to find that the locally-owned game store in town at home (sells whatever used games get sold to it, does system repairs, etc. in addition to sales) replaces N64 analog sticks with brand-new first party analog sticks... so I got all four of mine -- all horribly degraded, one to the point of virtually being unusable and the others not too far off from that -- replaced. $28 total.
:) :)
Where did they get the replacement control stick parts? I would repair my own N64 controllers if I just knew where I could order a part like that from. As it stands, it'll take ordering a brand new N64 controller from Nintendo's Online Store, and my controllers aren't quite bad enough to warrent that purchase.
Next time you go there, could you ask them where they get those components?
I don't know where he got the new sticks... but he did say how it was done, and it's easy... just unscrew the controller (normal screwdriver), unplug the analog stick (no sauder or any of that stuff), and install the new one... some controllers use less nice means of keeping it together, but this just has a plug and maybe something else that evidently isn't too hard to deal with (he mentioned the X-Box for 'not really fixable', I think... but for this he said that I'd probably have been able to install it myself, if I'd tried... (he did say though that it's easier with the transparent controllers because you can see if it's in properly, while with solid-color ones you can't... but two of my four controllers are Atomic Purple ones. :))) . But yes, the main question is 'where do you get the sticks'... because they certainly appear to be first-party Nintendo analog sticks. But yes, the big question is where he got the parts... that new stick, specifically...
I didn't ask how it was done! :D
Yes it is mindnumbingly easy. If you have the parts, which is where buddy mcgeorge over thar comes in. Tell ya what, do you have the number to the place? I could make a call and find out manually! I do know that apparently "The Gord", or whatever that site I saw years ago was, once made a comment that he was able to get ahold of some first party parts from the company Nintendo hired to make the parts to begin with.
This guy may have similar connections.
Now I want those very same connections.
So anyway, if you could give me something to go on here, I could just ask the guy myself.
Just so it's clear:
Other than erasing game saves, a game hacking tool cannot permanently damage your system or game.
However... :D
And this only applies to N64 games really, do not remove the game with the power on. You'll short the chips in the cart. Sometimes rendering the cart dead.
Yeah, I have one third party memory card that occasionally says 'Corrupted' and asks me to wipe it clean. So I just power down and restart and then its fine. I'm never getting third party memory cards again. I had problems with third party PS2 memory cards as well, so yeah. Nomo.
Quote:And this only applies to N64 games really, do not remove the game with the power on. You'll short the chips in the cart. Sometimes rendering the cart dead.
Ouch... still doesn't explain how one of my N64s broke its on-cart-save compatibility and erased SSB's savedata and failed to recognize the savefiles of all N64 games that save to the cart, while still working with memcard-save titles...
Quote:Yeah, I have one third party memory card that occasionally says 'Corrupted' and asks me to wipe it clean. So I just power down and restart and then its fine. I'm never getting third party memory cards again. I had problems with third party PS2 memory cards as well, so yeah. Nomo.
As I said, I had this happen with a first-party N64 card (taking the card out and putting it back in fixed it), and with that corrupted file on one of my firstparty NGC cards... so I've had about as much bad luck with first party as I have with third. More, really, probably... of course, I just have one third-party N64 card, versus one firstparty N64 card and three firstparty GC cards, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. :)
Quote:So anyway, if you could give me something to go on here, I could just ask the guy myself.
I won't be back until next break, which is Thanksgiving...