Heh[]heh

April 21st, 2009
Lazy Bastard: Aside from hacking quite a few codes, you successfully solved for the way Star Ocean 2 moved addresses to and fro, and co-wrote the Dope RPG Hacking FAQ (which included the former) with KingEdgar0. What was your motivation in doing these things?

Heh[]heh: Well with the SO2 code I was motivated by the fact that I have fun hacking, and enjoy a good challenge. The FAQ was made to encourage more people to enter the Gameshark hacking community, which benefits everyone involved. It was also a good excuse to collaborate with a fellow hacker who I enjoyed talking to.


Lazy Bastard: What is your favorite code/hack that you hacked?

Heh[]heh: Probably the code to lock the memory address of the menu in place so that you could always access the "secret" menu option in Star Ocean 2 that would take you to the debug room. This was a product of finding the memory randomization pattern.


Lazy Bastard: What is your favorite code/hack of all time?

Heh[]heh: I can't think of one specific one, but definitely experience/level codes for RPGs. Once you beat the game it was fun to go back and see what an all-powerful party was like.


Lazy Bastard: Who would you say influenced you the most in the video game hacking scene? Who did you 'look up to' when you first entered the scene? (doesn't have to be the same person for both)

Heh[]heh: KingEdgar0 helped me a lot when I first got involved, and we ended up putting our heads together on a lot of things. So I'd say him for both answers.


Lazy Bastard: What was your first code/hack?

Heh[]heh: Infinite ammo on weapon 1 in Goldeneye for N64.


Lazy Bastard: What do you think is the most difficult type of code/hack to hack, and why?

Heh[]heh: Anything involving 3D models or collision detection. These are often the most complex parts of a game and thusly the most complicated to change.


Lazy Bastard: What is your favorite type of code/hack?

Heh[]heh: Anything that makes me scratch my head and say "How did they do that?". 


Lazy Bastard: What is your least favorite aspect of hacking?

Heh[]heh: How easy it was to crash a game or lock up your system. You could lose a lot of work because of that.


Lazy Bastard:  What do you think the most annoying thing about the hacking scene is?

Heh[]heh: The fact that I've been out of it for so long! When I was involved, it seemed like there was always someone to post a code I just hacked a few hours or days earlier. Not a bad thing, but it's annoying when someone steals your thunder ;-)


Lazy Bastard: Did you ever hack an awesome code, or find an address in memory that would've yielded an awesome code, but then lost it somehow?

Heh[]heh: Many times. Between crashes and forgetting to write things down it's easy to lose codes.


Lazy Bastard: What was the most difficult, 'hair-pulling' hack you've ever accomplished?

Heh[]heh: My instincts point to the SO2 Debug Room code, but I remember a lot of instances of yelling and system resets throughout my time as a GS hacker.


Lazy Bastard: Was there ever a code you just couldn't get to work quite correctly (something you hacked/attempted to hack)?

Heh[]heh: Plenty. Luckily there was usually a fellow hacker around to help out.


Lazy Bastard: Aside from hacking and gaming, how do you like to spend your time?

Heh[]heh: Parties, dive bars, and Fenway Park.


Lazy Bastard: What do you think must happen for the video game hacking scene to continue to thrive?

Heh[]heh: Being able to hack current-gen consoles. It'd be nice if everything was as easy as the PS1 era!

Lazy Bastard: One last question: if you had one thing to say to current, aspiring, and future hackers, what would it be?

Heh[]heh: Be patient and learn to count to FF.