General hack type for thought

[Viper187]

I was testing my Renegade source with an N64 game that I've always used for testing, and it occurred to me that the demo for this game is likely not a video, but rather scripted or the game more or less on CPU control. It loads a random checkpoint and the main character is CPU controlled. Probably plenty of games like this. Question is, does anyone think to try hacking this "demo mode" to change where in the game it starts from, which weapon the CPU is using, or even how long it runs, etc. I dunno. It's just something I don't really see messed with, so I thought I'd mention it. I wonder if we could make some games literally play themselves from start to finish. haha

[dlevere]

Sounds interesting. What game are you using?

[Viper187]

Sounds interesting. What game are you using?

The original Turok Dinosaur Hunter gave me the idea. I fully intend to go back and look into it someday, but I figure the demo stuff in a lot of games could be manipulated. Might as well throw the idea out there. Even fighting games. Did the original Mortal Kombat show demo fighting? Put the secret character (Reptile) in for kicks. heheh

[Tony H]

I remember making some codes for SMB (walk thru walls or something like that), and it changed Mario's behavior in the demo. Never really thought about hacking the actual demo. Good idea.

[Lazy Bastard]

That's a pretty funny idea. I shall keep that in mind from now on.

[Hacc]

I suggest that you do (and others), Viper. At the moment, it looks as if these scripted demos have much older content than the playable demos (still check these). A long time ago, I hacked a "Rolling Demo" of Driver (the oldest build available to date, but I haven't really kept track of what has been found since I played it, so it may not be anymore) that was included on an old PAL demo disc, and recently a MediEvil "Rolling Demo". The "Rolling Demo" turned out to be the oldest version (August 1997 when the game was released in October 1998) of the game anyone has seen first-hand beyond it. A lot of unknown stuff found.

It's pretty rewarding in the end to make these demos playable, or modify them to do other things.