On-Disk DLC…

By SiamJai

There is effectively no distinction between the DLC being “locked” behind the disc and available for unlocking at a later date, or being available through a full download at a later date, other than delivery mechanism.
Capcom

There is effectively no distinction between playing the game by buying the disc, or downloading and burning it, other than delivery mechanism.
Customers

(via The Escapist forums.)

Decision – Final level video and cheats

By SiamJai

Zombie games are dime-a-dozen nowadays, but their quality varies greatly. One recent game that stands out from the crowd is Decision, a top-down shooter that really got the apocalyptic survival mood down. A variety of upgradable weapons, abilities and unlockable achievements complete the experience.

Cheats
No play-worthy game is without cheats and exploits, and Decision delivers on this front as well:

• HP: Double (100 default)
• Ammo count: 4byte (starting shotgun: 6; machine gun: 30, minigun: 60)
• Rage meter: Double (Complete meter: 200)

 
The last one makes Rage pretty much infinite, though the constant roaring can get annoying.

The video
And now, all the above in action at the last level:

Fortune Summoners on piano

By SiamJai

A beautiful and sad piano tune plays at the end of the Fortune Summoners demo, after the first boss is beaten. The melody is so unusual in the otherwise cheerful merry-go-happy atmosphere that it broke the immersion the first time I heard it. Then I wondered if I could learn the song, and here is my first attempt:

What do you think? I plan to make a more creative instrumental version of it as well, and hopefully learn some more songs from this game.

Fortune Summoners items and cheats

By SiamJai

So, lately I’ve been playing a recently-localized jRPG called Fortune Summoners. It’s a light-hearted ‘girly’ game with gorgeous graphics and story, just what you need to brighten these gloomy days. Its battle system has room for improvement, but thankfully the game lends itself to hacking easily, so progress shouldn’t be a problem.

Which brings me to the point of this post: a complete list of all 171 items and their Cheat Engine codes has already been compiled by yours truly, and are presented below:

Click to continue to the item table

Games as Artforms

By BloxMaster

I’d like to quickly state that this is my first ‘article’ and it’s a bit of a departure from SiamJai’s articles so I’d like to say that if you are not into intellectual or opinional essays, some of my articles might not be for you, and you have my permission to skip them freely.

There are people who like to play games, and then there are those who like games as an art form. Naturally, you can be somewhere in-between. I think sometimes people get confused as to what people actually mean when they say ‘Games as an art form’. What does it mean? Why are games art? Do they have to have nice graphics to be artsy? And most of all, should I really care if games are an art-form? Let me explain it from my point of view.

Firstly, the expression ‘games as an art form’ indicates that like more typically thought of art forms, games are also art. The most basic answer I can give to express that games are art in the same way music can be art, or a painting, is that in nearly all cases, a game is made with an expression in mind. This is similar to how one may make a drawing for a friend as an expression of their bond; someone can make a game to express many things as well.

Game: a collection of art forms
If you want to go further, I would argue that games are actually a large collection of art forms. They can be one of the most elaborate pieces of art. In addition to this, they are actively enjoyed by many people. They are rare in that they engage with viewer, in this case, a player. Although from the outside games may or may not seem like art, when you pull them apart, you can understand why most of them are in fact art. Read the rest of the article here

Scarlet Stranger: a hacker’s goldmine

By SiamJai

Have you ever played games that look and feel great at first glance, but after five minutes or so you’ll come across glaring design mistakes and game-breaking technical bugs? These unpolished gems are a goldmine of secrets for the cheat-conscious gamer; a few simple hacks often reveal unused goodies the hasty developer carelessly left in the game.

Enter Scarlet Stranger, a Zelda-esque action RPG with charming graphics and all the shortcomings mentioned above. The folks at Jayisgames did a great job reviewing the game already, so I’ll only mention stuff relevant to this post.

1. Get secret items via inventory hack.
There are about half a dozen items that didn’t make it to the final game, but are still there, hidden. These include quest items such as a map and compass, along with interesting upgrades like the pouch that upgrades your carrying capacity.

To hack this, hook Cheat Engine (CE) to the Flash player, start a Flash*8 search and follow the steps below:

1. Visit the shop with some item in your inventory (a piece of rock or wood will do).
2. Drag that item into the first crafting slot.
3. In CE, search for the itemID (for values, refer to the table at the end of this post).
4. Remove the item from the crafting slot.
5. In CE, search for 0.
6. Add another or the same item back to that same crafting slot and do a search for its itemID.
7. Soon you’ll get only one address. Put something into the crafting slot again, change its ID to one of the rare item IDs, say, 9.
8. Remove the item from the crafting slot, and voila: in the inventory, the item morphs into your desired item!
9. Repeat for other items and values as desired.

Elovac FAQs

By SiamJai

Thought I’ll address some common questions here:

1. Is that really a Moongate? Can I use this in online moongates?
Yes and yes. Just change all values to 0 and every item in a Moongate usermap will become free to pick.

2. Isn’t that stealing?
No. This cheat doesn’t affect the original data on the server, so the next visitor will see the exact same thing that you did before you picked up anything.

3. The codes don’t work in my game. Why?
Locations in the memory change occasionally depending on how Elona loads its modules. This will affect all CE codes that don’t have static pointers, including Elovac for the time being.

4. How can I make the codes work?
Elovac can be re-tuned In four easy steps that are listed here on my blog. Also, you can see in detail how I do it, in a YouTube video.

5. I got some ideas to improve these cheats. May I?
Go ahead! Credits are appreciated but not required.

6. That music is really cool, where can I get it?
Music4YourVids.co.uk They have some really nice free-to-use stuff there.

7. I’ve got a question not addressed here. How can I get in touch?
Post your questions in the comment section here. Good ones will be added to this FAQ.

Elovac re-tuning

By SiamJai

The day may come when Elovac no longer works for your game (or didn’t work to begin with) for whatever reasons. No worries though; it’s easy to fix it. Think of it as an old piano that needs fine-tuning now and then to work as it should. This is how it goes:

1. Get into an empty shelter.
2. Drop an item (stacked is best).
3. In CE, search for the amount of item you dropped.
4. Pick up the item(s).
5. In CE, search for 0.
6. Add the only remaining address to the list of addresses.
7. Offset this address by 54 using Smart Edit (Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Enter).
8. This address is the new Elovac item 1 address. Compare it with the old one.
9. Get the difference between the new and old address using a calculator in hex mode.
10. Using the difference, offset all the addresses in Elovac by another Smart Edit.
11. Check it in the nearest town, when most values are 1, you got Elovac working. Congrats!

Check out this video where I fine-tuned Elovac using the above method:

If you have any questions, post them in the comments below. Have fun!

Elovac demo

By SiamJai

This video shows Elovac in action at an online moongate. Look at all that loot! ^_^

Elovac: pick up anything, anywhere!

By SiamJai

Elovac is a series of Cheat Engine cheatcodes that enable players to pick up items from the ground, even when they’d normally not be able to. With these codes, it’s possible to pick up items on moongate usermaps, among other things. Check out Elovac in action here. And this is how to use it:

1. Open elovac1.ct in Cheat Engine.
Check the values; most of them should show the same value depending on your location:

2. Turn all 1s and 5s into 0s, so you can pick up items from local towns and online moongates. Easy as pie. And now some pics in spoilers:

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