Under the microscope: Test Drive Le Mans (Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, PlayStation)

a.k.a. Le Mans 24 Hours

In this edition I’m examining the Infogrames racing game Test Drive Le Mans (a.k.a. Le Mans 24) and coming up with new cheat codes:

• Dreamcast: Two special names that unlock additional vehicles, plus one that lets you view the game credits.

• PlayStation 2: Three special names that unlock additional vehicles.

• PlayStation: Five special names and one new cheat effect.

Read on for details!

---

Dreamcast

Let’s start with the Dreamcast version. A few cheat codes for it are known already, all of which involve entering a special name in Championship Mode:

• GOOZ: Unlock extra tracks

• MONSTA: Unlock extra cars

• CARNAGE: Unlock the championship classes

As always, I ask “are there any more?” Answer: yes!

Enter your name as TEAMPEEP to make the Infogrames car available in Le Mans mode:

Enter ZEEK to make the Go Kart available in the Quick Race mode:

Neither of these is unlocked by the MONSTA code.

Enter HEINEY to see the credits instead of an auto demo (let the title screen time out):

This code was known for the PS2 version.

Technical details: The game hides these names in an infuriating manner: starting at memory address 8c20da08 are these characters:

GOZ_MNSTACREPKHIY

That is, the unique letters used by the special names. Nearby are struct that reference these characters. For example:

8c20d870 8c20da08  -> Points to "G"
8c20d874 8c20da0a  -> Points to "O"
8c20d878 8c20da0a  -> Points to "O"
8c20d87c 8c20da0c  -> Points to "Z"

There is one struct for each of the special names. Once I located those, I was able to read off all of the special names.

---

PlayStation 2

How about the PS2 version? Cheat sites (e.g. GameFAQS) have several special names listed: ACO, HEINEY, NUMBAT, WOMBAT, and SPEEDY as codes. But they don’t seem to have these:

• FASTCAR: Unlocks the Team Infogrames car

• SLOWCAR: Unlocks the Go Kart

• MCLAREN: Unlocks them both

Technical details: This version uses the same special name handling code as the Dreamcast version. The function at 001fc710 reads the data starting at 003a0940 (NTSC-U version) to see which names to check against.

My first PlayStation 2 cheat code discovery! I’m very pleased.

---

PlayStation

This version of the game is easier to analyze; it stores its special names in plain text. The function at 800884c0 (NTSC-U version) does all the checking. Most of the ones the game recognizes are already known to cheat sites, but five of them aren’t.

ARUREV unlocks the Reverse Cup options:

CRMAGM gives you the “Cheese” car. This is the same effect as the already-known FROMAGE code:

There’s also FIRSTOF, which undoes the effect of the FIRSTON code, which GameFAQs describes as “easy victory.”

CEHATHJ is also recognized, but I don’t think it does anything aside from making the screen shake upon entry. IMAPRO is recognized, too, but the flag it sets never seems to get read by the game.

---

Outro

For more cheat code discovery posts, see my archive.

Logo by Ashlyn Anstee