Alien Resurrection is a movie tie-in game based on the 1997 film of the same name that was released over two decades ago, in 2000, for PS1. The game is a survival horror FPS title and received mixed reactions upon release, but a fascinating discovery has been made about the game that could have backfired if it had been known during the PlayStation 1 era.
It has now been revealed that the game contains a cheat code that turns the game into a boot disk, allowing you to play backup disks without having to make any additional hardware or software modifications to the PlayStation 1.
Alien Resurrection Developer Reveals a Hidden Cheat Code
Alien Resurrection was developed by Argonaut Games, the developer behind games like Star Fox and Croc. The game was supposed to be released at the same time as the movie release but had development issues that led to its release in 2000. The game was praised for its use of modern analog controls, scary atmosphere, and gameplay that pushed the console to its limits.
However, that’s not all the game was, as Martin Piper, a former developer at Argonaut Games who worked on the development team of the game, has revealed a cheat code to Modern Vintage Gaming in a video that turns the game into a boot disk to run backups. For those unfamiliar, a boot disk is a storage medium that allows loading and booting up several media, such as CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or even a floppy disk. In this case, the game acts as a boot disk to run the backups.
You would need an original copy of the game, a PlayStation 1 console, and the cheat code, and you’re good to try it out. Piper explained the reason behind this revelation after so long, saying:
I figured it was so long ago and that I didn’t want to get old and die without letting go of these kind of secrets.
There are sets of button combinations that unlock the “cheat menu,” and then you can change the Alien Resurrection disk for any other burned disk, and it boots up with the use of any soft mod, modchip, or even a memory card. Firstly, insert the game disk into the console and keep the tray open. When the game loads, you need to go to the game’s options menu and unlock the cheat menu for further steps.
To unlock the cheat menu, press circle, left, right, circle, up, and R2, and this will show a cheat menu right after the display options. Now, to expand the cheat menu to include a stage select feature, press R1, down, R1, right, L1, up, L2, and square. A sound effect will notify you of this, and the stage selection will appear in the menu.
Now finally, to enable the console to boot the disk, press left, up, right, down, right, up, left, square, triangle, square, triangle, and L1. A sound will indicate that the cheat has been applied, and you can go back to the cheat menu and select Level 6, Section 1. Next, hold L1 and press X. Keep holding L1, and the disk will stop spinning.
Now you can swap the backup disk with the original disk while holding L1, and after swapping, hold square and triangle along with L1 and release them all to boot the backup disk. However, one important thing to remember while doing this is to keep something wedged into the tray eject sensor so that the console doesn’t perform the anti-piracy check, and if you do everything mentioned above right, the disk will spin and it will boot up almost instantly.
Piper revealed to MVG that this feature was never disclosed to Sony, as it would have sent the game back into development to remove it. This was a part of an experimental technology test for the game, as it was going to be a multi-disk title, and the developer wanted to see if disks could be changed without resetting the console. It is still amazing to know that this cheat was hidden for so long.
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