Datel’s Action Replay (and some versions of the Gameshark) led the pack of cheat-code devices for the PS2 until 2003. This unofficial CD boots on unmodified PlayStation 2 (an impressive trick, to say the least), allowing you to enter codes to activate specific in-game effects, such as infinite lives, game debug modes, and level skipping. After you’ve entered the code with the Action Replay disc, swap in the game disc and allow it to boot as normal, with certain memory values changed to enable the cheat.

Unfortunately, probably due to issues with third-party companies duplicating various console Action Replay features, Datel now builds encryption into their 16-character cheat codes. Fortunately, they do a good job of keeping up to date with new codes, but it’s great to be able to enter brand new codes as well. There are ways around this.

The basic versions of Action Replay come with a CD-ROM filled with the latest codes. You can upgrade to receive the newest codes for a small fee. This is the way to go; entering 24- or 32-digit codes via the controller is particularly time-consuming, so having them available on the CD is handy. However, if you want to enter new data quickly, plug a normal USB keyboard into your PlayStation 2. Datel actually sold a keyboard called the Powerboard specifically for this purpose, presumably before USB keyboards were more widespread or used in PS2 games, but don’t be confused; it’s just a Datel-branded standard USB keyboard.

You can also find single-disc, PS2-only editions of Datel’s Action Replay, sold for $10 or less as the Action Replay Ultimate Cheat Series. There are specific editions for Grand Theft Auto 3, The Getaway, The Sims, and many other titles. These discs hold cut-down versions of the main software, specific to the named game. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to enter codes of your own. Although there are some decent default codes, you can’t hack them any further. Avoid these discs in favor of the normal Action Replay discs, which have all of these codes anyway.

Unfortunately, Datel is very protective of their Action Replay codes, both to prevent unwanted misuse and to stop other companies from cloning their codes and releasing gray-market copies of their software. It’s not easy to make your own Action Replay codes, but it’s possible.

The amazing Hellion00 encryption Action Replay Code Guide page (http://hellion00.thegfcc.com/index.html) is a superior starting point that offers an exact step-by-step guide for creating your own cheat codes for popular games. It also gives a handy guide to what all those existing codes actually mean. An AR code has four different parts, as shown in Table 6-1.

In order to work out which bits of memory you’ll change or address, you can’t work completely blind. As the Action Replay Code Guide explains, the official Datel engineers and hackers who create the common codes as quickly as possible have complicated equipment (likely development kits for each console), but the amateur hacker has to make do with what he has.

That’s where PS2DIS (http://hellion00.thegfcc.com/PS2DISGuide.htm) comes in. This cunning program analyzes the SLUS (program) file you need to copy off a PlayStation 2 game disc onto your PC. Insert the PS2 CD into your CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, as appropriate, find a SLUS_< XXX.XX > file on the disc, and copy it to your computer.

The PS2DIS utility searches this file for strings and works out which places in the game code refer to a given address. The site includes a Grand Theft Auto 3-related example of searching the SLUS for potential cheat code locations (http://hellion00.thegfcc.com/PS2DISExample1.htm). This explanation points out that many games don’t have well-labeled code, so relying on strings, while one of the only ways you can guess what’s going on without an expensive debugging kit, may not always work so well. It’s still worth trying.

Once you’ve sorted out your code, you’ll need to encrypt it so that the Action Replay will actually understand it. The Hellion00 encryption page (http://hellion00.thegfcc.com/encryption.html) hosts three web-based conversion tools, each for a different type of game. Enter your raw code to produce a different eight-digit code to enter into the Action Replay itself. First, though, you’ll probably need to enter a master code to enable cheating.

Here’s where things get complicated. If you see an Action Replay product for PlayStation 2, it will have the Datel architecture in it that allows you to perform all of the earlier hacks. However, if you see a Gameshark, you have no such guarantee.

In the United States, a company named Interact originally used the Gameshark name. They licensed the Datel technology used in the Action Replay but then went out of business. Because the Gameshark name is particularly well-known, major peripheral manufacturer Mad Catz bought the name. They formed a partnership with Fire International, maker of the rival-to-Datel Code Breaker series of cheat devices (actually made by Pelican), and started producing Gamesharks with the Pelican technology.

Now Pelican has apparently developed its own technology to continue producing Code Breaker hardware, bringing the grand total to three different major cheat code devices on the market.

The general consensus seems to be that both the new Gameshark and new Code Breaker tools, while perfectly competent, don’t offer anything over the existing Action Replay. More to the point, the vast majority of the innovative extra hacking work uses the Action Replay, so it seems sensible for most users to stick to that.

There’s one final reason why the Action Replay brand seems to make the most sense, and that’s the introduction of the new Action Replay Max. With the AR Max, if you have a broadband connection and a network adapter for your PlayStation 2, and insert the CD in the drive and boot it, you can download all the latest official saves directly from the Internet. You don’t have to buy a CD upgrade to get them or enter them yourself. This is a clever hack in itself and makes the Action Replay even more user-friendly. Still, I like the homemade hacks by third parties; hacking the hackers is fun indeed.

If you want resources to discuss PlayStation 2 code creation, need to check out existing codes, or just want to hang out with code junkies, the Datel’s CodeJunkies site (http://www.codejunkies.com/—free registration required), is almost certainly the best. Don’t worry that it’s run by the company themselves; they tolerate and even encourage creative work on their forums.