bungholio

May 2nd, 2009
Lazy Bastard: Among many other things, you hacked quite an impressive list of codes for Shadow of the Colossus. What inspired you to do this?

bungholio: I wanted more than just infinite health and infinite grip, the have all items codes seemed to randomly cause the game to freeze or get stuck at some loading screen, and time trial mode on colossus 3 was giving me blood boiling rage.
I also read many people requesting for some way to explore the game. I was trying to find anything to help with that, like a way to climb any surface, moon jump, no clipping, or a position modifier. I didn't find any of the things I originally wanted. I've encountered 2 different people that have ran the game on an emulator and found position modifiers, and their results were very close to each other, but for some reason the codes didn't work on the actual game. They both ended up in the 01dddd?? range, and I jokered:
41dd0000 40000001
00000000 00000000
Even with pointers, I would have hoped that would have instantly transported me somewhere. No luck, and I've encountered a few codes that messed with your ability to jump but were not useful in any kind of way either.


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

bungholio: 1-Hit Kills for Shadow Of The Colossus. It felt good to fire 1 arrow at that 3rd colossus in time trial mode and kill him, considering how many times I tried to kill him within the time limit and lost. The only thing that could have made it more satisfying is if that game had some incredibly loose ragdoll physics for him, and that arrow would have pierced his skull and thrust him back against a wall where his lifeless body would hang high and dangle like a stake in Painkiller does to enemies.


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

bungholio: At the moment, that debug menu code Skiller found for Dark Cloud 2. That's how a debug menu should be, it's crammed full of useful stuff. Those should be in every game. I was trying to do the same for Dark Cloud 1 before, it had the same labels but it didn't seem to work. Because of that, I didn't even bother trying to do the same thing for Dark Cloud 2 because I would have assumed it wouldn't work either. It's just another assumption that made me miss something great.


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)

bungholio: Everyone at the codemasters-project forums. I was a royal pain in the butt the second I registered there. I'm surprised I didn't get permanently banned within a week for all the questions I asked. I probably gave Pyriel high blood pressure for all I know.


Lazy Bastard: What was your first code/hack?

bungholio: Infinite Health for Quake 2 version 1.1 for the PS1. I used an emulator and playstation emulator cheater. It was a good learning experience, I didn't even know how to count in hexadecimal and didn't know what bits were until after that.
For the PS2, it was for Resident Evil Outbreak File #1 version 1.1. I saw a code at the bioflames forums for version 1.0 to move so fast that you could go through walls. I don't think I even had the patience to request for it on the cmgsccc forums back then, I just made a topic in the general section asking about converting codes from different versions or whatever, and then solved the problem myself that same day. I became very impatient very fast, and decided to try and find it myself. I didn't know what to do, I just took the code and kept increasing the address by 4. Before I found it, I kept getting other interesting effects that I started writing down and messing around with. I probably found the character type modifier as my very first code.


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

bungholio: Probably codes that deal with collision and infinite double jumps. With my screwy way of doing things, there isn't much of any "hard to hack" codes, just "not likely to find" codes. Wherever you find any player data, there's usually player health, whatever else data like MP or money, which items and how many, position data, possibly collision data, animation stuff, appearance stuff, whatever player statuses, and maybe some other interesting things.
The hardest specific codes I can think of at the moment are those things I originally wanted to find for Shadow Of The Colossus.
The codes I encounter the least though are infinite double jumps and collision disabling codes. They never seem to be with the rest of a character's data, except for the "Walk Through Walls" code for both Resident Evil Outbreak games. I have noticed that the ones I found are both usually very close together though. With Jak and Daxter, infinite double jumps were just a little higher than where the no clipping code was. For Okami, they had the same exact pointer, I just checked the referrers and separated them both. That might just be a coincidence.


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

bungholio: Almost anything, I don't really discriminate. I like codes that can help me do things easier and faster. An RPG like Disgaea can make me incredibly impatient, it takes forever to level up and do all that you want. With Pyriel's codes I can max out everything in a single battle, and with a few of my own I can go to whatever level and view whatever story sequence I want or just beat the game and view different endings.


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

bungholio: Nothing really stands out, other than how much time it takes and then the time it takes to test them.


Lazy Bastard: What do you like least about the hacking scene?

bungholio: I don't know. I've never bothered checking for anything other than a way of moving data from my memory card to my computer, which was the thing I relentlessly asked about when I first registered at the codemasters-project forums. I'm probably missing out on some really good things for all I know.


Lazy Bastard: Which game did you find the most fun to hack, and why?

bungholio: Both Resident Evil Outbreak games. I found one thing after the next, there were many codes right next to each other. For some reason, I just really like those games, even though I hate those long loading screens between every room. Every time I'm at a long loading screen, I always remember that moment in Scrubs where Turk messed up Dr. Kelso's scores for Pac-Man or whatever that game was and then Dr. Kelso yells at him "Do you know how long it took me to do that!? PEOPLE DIED WAITING!!!" or whatever. I wish I had a hard drive for those games, they take forever to load.


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?

bungholio: Not a chance. For every last little thing I'm doing, I'm typing it down in a text file named after the game. I never lost a thing, and never will. Everybody should be doing that. When you're done, just copy and paste it to whatever sites you want to.


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

bungholio: With my odd way of finding codes, there's no such thing as a "hair-pulling" hack. There are just some that take a little longer to do than others. The longest was that Current Colossus Modifier code for Shadow Of The Colossus, the longer one of the 2.
1. I set something to 0, and noticed my sword wasn't aiming at the correct colossus. I figured out which exact address it was and thought I found a simple code to skip to any colossus I wanted to whenever I wanted to. "00" led to colossus 1. I went to it and there was nothing there.
2. I set more stuff to 0 and went to colossus 1 and it loaded. I found that turning off a specific bit allowed a specific colossus to appear. That fixed it for all of them. I thought I was done. Then I noticed the door to colossus 16 wouldn't open.
3. I noticed I couldn't get through that big door to fight colossus 16. I had a normal save outside that door. I set a bunch of addresses to 0, and then I couldn't get through the door. I eventually found turning a certain bit on allowed the door to open.
4. I went and fought an earlier colossus I had already normally defeated. I noticed it's dead body was on the ground while I was fighting it. I wanted to get rid of it. I set a bunch of addresses to 0, and noticed their bodies appeared even for ones I hadn't fought yet. I found that turning a specific bit on removed a specific colossus corpse, destroyed it's specific statue, and made it appear on the map. I realized that coincided with the bit to open the big door before colossus 16 and that I had already found all of the digits before, so that saved a lot of time. I thought I was done, I was about to submit it. I killed a colossus and then immediately went back to it, and it died instantly yet didn't trigger that little animation sequence that happens when those black threads fly into you. I could have submitted it and told people they couldn't fight the same exact colossus 2 times in a row, but I thought "screw that" and decided to see if I could fix that little problem.
5. I tried another bunch of addresses as 0, and one of them seemed to have slightly fixed that problem. Instead of dying when I went back to them, they were now just roaming around. Once again, I wanted to see if I could get it perfect. It seemed to be some very specific digit that I didn't bother figuring out what it was, too lazy.
6. I set another bunch of addresses to 0. That fixed it. Turning off a specific bit reset a specific colossus. Then I noticed the little intro movies for some of them weren't playing. I decided to try and see if I could fix that too.
7. Same thing, I set a bunch of addresses to 0. Once again, turning off a specific bit allowed a certain intro movie to play.
8. Everything seemed perfect, then I noticed the music for colossus 8 seemed like it was too early. Another bunch of addresses set to 0, and I found that. Just turned off another bit.
That whole thing took a lot of time over almost a month. It wasn't even necessary, if you want to fight a specific colossus, just go to time trial mode. I did it just because I could I guess. Big waste of time. I'm nearly 100% certain I could have even removed the armor from colossi 11 and 14 just to save some people some time since they seemed to have been affected by the 0's, but I was sick of it.


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

bungholio: I couldn't get that "Instantly Kill Any Colossus" code to work for Shadow Of The Colossus. I was probably even close, but lost patience. That's the one and only one so far. It wasn't too necessary, 1-Hit Kills are good enough.


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

bungholio: Watch TV and work. I have 3 dogs I love to pick on too, dogs are great friends to have.


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

bungholio: Being able to emulate games and use some plugins or software to find codes helps a lot. People sharing whatever knowledge and tools they have helps. I don't know. I would really like to know what console and game makers have against cheating. I can see why they would hate it for online games, but singleplayer? They shouldn't have anything against that. The only thing I ever saw mentioned about it was some junk about people messing with art. Who cares? Anybody could call anything art, even a car they designed, but I'm still going to change my car however I want to. If that's the only argument, they need to pull the sticks out of their asses and learn to allow it. Nothing is being stolen and profited from, no crime is being committed. Who cares? Some people will find a game to be too easy and boring, and others will find it so unbelievably frustrating they would love nothing more than to pick up their TV and break it over somebody's head. Codes can fix that problem, they make things better. If people want to skip through a game as fast as possible and miss playing it the way it was designed, that should be the gamer's choice. It's the gamer's loss. Why is our freedom to have fun the way we want to being completely removed?


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

bungholio: The same thing that applies to anything throughout life: Try, try, and try again. Keep trying. If you are trying to make your own codes, you'll probably fail a lot. Try something old with an emulator and some good plugins, Viper's Renegade, Cheat Engine, or something else for a start. Don't tackle ASM head on without the slightest crumb of knowledge about it, it will frustrate you a lot. Try my dumb method: check all of the addresses around other people's codes, they probably missed a lot of things, unless I already got to the game first. Wherever there is one code, there's almost always a bunch more right next to it. Also ask people for help, keep prying at them, you are bound to get something out of them even though you might not have a clue about what they are talking about. Anything is better than nothing. I know almost nothing about ASM, and I have found many codes, and I didn't have a nice computer with an emulator and stuff to make it easy. It might be easier than you'd expect. Give it a try. If everybody had my personality where you would just blindly check nearby addresses of other codes, there would be many more codes. I couldn't stress "many" enough without making it all caps, huge font, and shiny colorful bold letters. A lot of games would probably be picked bone dry with nothing left and nobody would request a thing for it because they would have everything they would ever need. Try it people.