Cheat Engine

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(GIFS included, more overtime, both 2D/3D, variety of consoles/handhelds)

I've always wanted to play as characters/vehicles you originally couldn't, even just objects since I was a kid. To me it adds more replayability & fun, I don't mean a visual change (except object swaps) (I've done that with characters too, less work) but an actual full swap. You get what's EXCLUSIVE to a character like moves, appearance etc. Same with vehicles.

I've done this in several 100 games so far, 2D/3D. A few have given me a fight. Naming a few series we have Metal Slug, Resident Evil, Need for Speed, Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden, Burnout, Kirby, Timesplitters. Tons of RPGS, some FPS too. NFS I know has been done for several games but I guess no one ever figured out traffic cars for a few so I just did it myself.

As much fun & replayability it can add, no matter what game it is EXTREMELY difficult/frustrating. It has taken me over a decade to understand how this data is handled. But it's different for each game 99% of the time which is part of why there's not one answer, so... It means the long process can take longer.

I'm 26 now, I started doing this at 14, messing with CE at 12. So 2 years exp & I was diving into very advanced confusing stuff already. But I wanted that flexibility. I never understood then why devs limited selection with tons of NPCS/cars & all the other things you couldn't acquire.

Whatever the reasons, I just think it isn't done enough it would probably fit well in being implemented, adding more replayability. Usually NPC data is exclusive so you don't have access to their stuff (crashes) until you play as them. Let me explain the rest of why this is hard & why there isn't one answer to doing this on all games. Not to say it's impossible for any game, because you can. That's the point of this.

Firstly, even if game series is the same, same devs, ALWAYS assume data may be different game to game. 99% chance it will be. Secondly, it's like piecing puzzles together. It's not like a character select cheat on a Gameshark or Action Replay. Those are pretty simple (least to me I've tested with CE) & usually modify only one value.

1v1 fighters can at times have unselectable characters that are actually just hidden off screen, the cheat devices select the value they are, of course there still can be bugs/glitches/crashes which the device probably can't fix on it's own. This.... definitely involves much more steps that are varied & that a console cheat device can't do. CE is just way more flexible.

It's possible for all games but that it's not easy. If you're a beginner I definitely wouuuld not recommend trying this. Bugs/glitches/crashes will be keeping you company. Also very good chance no one will know an answer for you on a game especially not as popular ones. Games like Tekken & Virtua Fighter already have character select cheats by GS & AR. Others do too but it's not even scratching the surface of ones that don't. I would say besides with noclip cheats & a few others, this is by far one of the hardest cheats I make.

Please do not ask me to make any cheats, thank you (I am open to questions though if ever asked.) This is just a sharing experience, educational purposes. I see it get asked a bit with the answer it depends. It does depend on your knowledge, if you're working on a game that isn't really popular & even if so no one has made a character cheat for? Only you can make it happen if you really want.

Every console you can think of & emulate (except 8th & 9th gen consoles but ohhh I will get to those) I have done this. & PC games. I might also just control NPCS depending on how much work I want to do. It's still playing as them & you can use their moves. Piece the puzzles, you get your reward.

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Weapon swapping showcases for a couple games with one character swap, I'll probably add more weapon showcase swapping, along with noclip showcases. Also you can see some glitches going on with the weapon swaps. Black Ops the mounted LMG you use in story mode has no model when selected as a weapon. It'll use whatever the previous weapon you used for a placeholder.

Dynamite Cop the invisible weapons can be fixed, I however just let the quick method happen. If I get hit, I drop the weapon & the model gets fixed. It can still be used even if it's invisibile, so not a bother really.

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More. Full 3D & actually one of my childhood games, Incoming. I'm playing it on a DC emu, but I do have it for PC, just hard to get running on modern tech. So, I have learned over the years from games everything may be seperated. I mean like all the way down to textures, shadows for the models & stuff.

This game has an arcade mode, you can play as like six? Of the alien aircrafts. Three marine. There are TONS of craft unplayable they didn't make playable that are in the campaign & arcade. Two unplayables I showcased are the big alien bomber & alien hovercraft tank (rectangle shaped). This is one of the more complex games.

Super Smash Bros is another but it's tricky, & even then the NPCS like Goombas, Mites etc & big bosses like Rayquaza/Taboo are nooot gonna be there, different method. Master Hand Giga Bowser the Fighting Wireframes sure but they're like a level above right with the player characters because Nintendo made it that way so it's not that difficult of a swap. There's like tons of mods for SB so I'm sure someone has done it already for the public, I know for the big bosses someone did.

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Showing more, Timesplitters FP being an example, a childhood favorite game of mine. Someone got on here STOLE my screen pic & info on how to swap for that game on my old tut post, made a wiki page not crediting me finding all of it. (Please don't do that, if you do, credit ME.) That's a part of why I removed ALL my tuts I was nice to give out from doing character swapping, weapon swapping... & refuse to do any for now.

I was still a teen when I did that (14) so it wasn't refined, but it seemed like a brought up question with no exact answer so helping what I could based on experience is what I did. & it taking a LONG time to achieve, had no clue about memory really. It still takes a long time sadly. I didn't really realize just how advanced, but it did help my journey.

That old tutorial is at 38K views (wild). All important info is pretty much gone. Those that had work stolen & not credited understand & I'm sure those who haven't would too. It can ruin things.

Here's a swap glitch example in Driver 2, where the car model is unindentifiable until you hit something. I don't know the exact reason why these happen in games but they do. That's just what can come with this til it's solved. Driver 1 has unplayable cars, method is same.

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Here's more. Desert Tank arcade, the first Need for Speed & Blue Forest Story. Ranges from spawning to swapping. You can tell in Need for Speed that the cars I swap to are definitely not meant to be played besides the beginning car the Ferrari, the traffic cars have lower quality. even their wheels don't even move.

Also the color of the traffic car changes when a new one spawns in, it triggers a change flag. The change can be fixed but personally it doesn't really bother me. All these games are in the mid 90s & developers had different ways to optimize for game systems & of course, PCs which is a thing they still do but we're not as limited like we used to be now.

Desert Tank arcade for the Model 2 there's not too much to talk about, I'm spawning in as unplayable enemy tanks. It's a fun game even though you only get one tank to really play as. & it's short.

Blue Forest Story I haven't gotten into much of yet, some recommend the game some don't. Having the availability to all characters would certainly add to it for me so we'll see how everything adds up in total. As far as I know & have checked nobody else has done this in these games but not surprising with the difficulty.

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I forgot to post, busy & sidetracked. Mainly more 3D games. For PS1, I've got Gran Turismo 1, Gran Turismo 2 & Auto Destruct. All three have some funny cool vehicle models I like using at times. GT 2 I'm swapping to the opponent cars. Auto Destruct is another example of having traffic cars that have no movable wheels. The models are a bit lower quality overall, but they still have a good amount of detail intact including reflections of windshields.

It's common to experiece it in this era but mainly fifth gen consoles, Need for Speed HS is one PS1 game where they did add fully functional wheel models to traffic, I guess the devs were better understanding of the hardware & limitations by then. You can see my players wheels still for some cars, that can be fixed but that's considered small to me & small things like that don't really bother me. I might still fix it though.

Next is Final Fantasy II for Bandai Wonderswan, playing as an NPC. Final is Timestalkers for the Sega Dreamcast, it's an RPG game. Some like it some not, I'm usually not very picky. Anyways I swapped to an NPC enemy, which you can have on your team & battle with, use attacks, but you can't play as them outside battle. I haven't bothered to fix the texture colors yet but it's okay for now. Also the shadow doesn't appear. For NPCS the shadow is a circle.

As you can see, it isn't true you have to reload a game to swap models. Every game you can swap models, animations & all on the fly. Obviously weapons items, & armor too. I do have a few games where I did only do loading methods out of laziness other than GT1. I'll showcase some.

I think I'll showcase from all consoles & most handhelds available on PC then do a grand finale of some more much bigger games. I just hope by the end of this it makes others intrigued & wanna learn a bit about advanced stuff like this. It's like I stated & can't state enough, pretty euphoric & rewarding.

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I think I'll throw a little section in here of games I've done noclip in, another fun cheat in my tables. I'm always interested in out of bounds for games, there can be tons of stuff out of sight, even if not it's just interesting to explore & enjoy. Sometimes scary or funny imo. To achieve it is almost on par with difficulty to swapping. It's not a teleport cheat though those can work to get past barriers, which is modifying coordinates nothing more. But out of bounds areas can have hardly any collision. Or at the very least unpredictable, some areas might be okay others no.

To solve this, is a fly hack. There's info out there on this, at least to lead you the right direction. Some games have flags that determine if your player or an object is on the ground, which is a fantastic workaround falling through out of bounds.

Showcases here are Timesplitters Future Perfect (Original Xbox, XEMU), Gran Turismo 3 (PS2, PCSX2), & Metropolis Street Racer (Sega Dreamcast, Redream). Perfect for exploration, big areas & stuff out of bounds you would've never seen originally. Also on my favorite level for TSFP, haunted mansion. Baseball bats, shotguns, flamethrowers revolvers, all at your need to kill some zombies ghosts & carrion worms

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Happy New Year's & belated happy holidays. Been pretty busy with life stuff, but got some more showcases to drop. We've got PS2, Dreamcast & PSP. The hardest of these was most definitely Midnight Club, Grandia II & Arc the Lad. I suppose I can give a little info on MC.

So, all Midnight Club series use vp_ strings to load cars. However this is just a loading method, & I'm 100% there's an address too that holds all playable car values you could use as well, again they're just loading methods. String method is okay for swapping to traffic cars in MC I which needs tinker to work properly, but II & III requires on the fly swapping for proper traffic car control. In III you try the string method it'll crash for traffic cars.

It goes like this though, so the playable taxi in MC I would be like vp_taxi, or the low rider would be vp_lowriderclassb. vp_ is player data. Traffic cars use va_ & would be something like va_compact va_accord or va_suvlarge for examples. At least for I-III, I don't have too much experience on LA right now.

Anyways, for Grandia II, you can see I cloned player character with an NPC. Disgaea & Arc the Lad Twilight of Spirits I'm swapping my character to NPCs complete with whatever animations they come with (guy sitting on air like it's a chair is pretty funny, the save game orb is interesting as well but like I said, you find the data for objects you can swap to it.)

Also Disgaea AoD someone already made a swap, but it was for in battles, I found a forum on it through gameFAQs site. Makes sense because besides battles, you only play as one main character. Out of battle data is usually not paired with in battle. One playable = static data usually & that takes difficulty way higher. Anyways, I got some more showcases coming. There's so many games with so many cool unplayable cars & characters I can't cover them all on here.

I might just make a YouTube channel & do unplayable character & car showcasings. It's an interesting & brought up enough topic. Also going to go through & organize these posts, try to shorten things up as best as I can.