The 3DO game Shock Wave was ported to the PlayStation in 1995 and to the Saturn in 1996. On those systems it was released as Shockwave Assault .

GameFAQs lists some cheat codes for the 3DO and PlayStation versions, but none for the Saturn version:

Maybe there’s something hiding out? Let’s investigate…

Hunting for cheat codes

GameFAQs says the game needs to be paused for cheats to work, so let’s start there. Comparing memory snapshots from where the game is paused and unpaused leads to the address at 060f4ec8 , which is 00000004 when you’re playing and 00000008 after you press Start.

Tracing writes to that address leads to the function at 06018538 , which handles inputs while the game is paused. It’s got a section that looks like this (simplified pseudo-Python adapted from Ghidra’s decompilation):

That is, if you press some buttons in the right sequence, a counter will increment. When that counter reaches 10, a sound effect plays and a flag gets set.

The sequence of buttons is: Left, Up, X, Up, Right, Y, C, Left, Up, B.

After that’s entered, un-pause and then pause again. Then you can press R+A to jump forward one mission. You’ll see an FMV before the next mission starts:

Or you can press L+A to switch between Earth and Mars missions.

Something was hiding out!

Outro

This article is syndicated from Rings of Saturn, my reverse engineering blog. I have additional details about the 3DO and PlayStation versions of this game over there — check it out.

For more adventures in Saturn hacking, see my archive here at SHIRO!.

	Bo Bayles
		Rings of Saturn: 32bits.substack.com