Dr Gadget - Gadget Shop - Xploder V5: Cheat System(PS2)

List Price: г12.99
Our Price: г12.99
Your Save: £ ( % )
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Manufacturer: Madcatz

Average Customer Rating:

Manufacturer Maximum Age: 18
Audience Rating: To Be Announced
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Madcatz
EAN: 0709458015900
Label: Madcatz
Manufacturer: Madcatz
Manufacturer Minimum Age: 36
Number Of Items: 1
Platform: PlayStation2
Publisher: Madcatz
Release Date: 2004-11-05
Studio: Madcatz

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Like magic.............................
Comment: This cheats CD is great. It has allowed me to easily crack open many PS2 games including Ace Combat-5, Gran Turismo-4, and TT-Superbikes (Ace Combat was almost impossible to play until I enabled full ammo and god mode via this cd, I then came in guns blazing and zipped through most of the game and really enjoyed it.

It has lots of built in cheats for tons of games...but not the very latest ps2 games.

Great concept!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Xploder v5.
Comment: Ah.. the Xploder v5

Well having seen the so called "excellent features i have heard about on this particular cheat disc. I decided to go ahead and buy it.

It worked like a dream the first time i loaded it. All my cheats worked and i was a happier gamer!
UNTIL..
The next time i loaded the cheat disc in my ps2 it would not recognize it.
It took me about 15 attempts and a hell of a lot of fiddling around with the ps2 and alot of time spent to finally get it to load.

I would not reccomend this product at all.
Stick with V4.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Certain features of this device don't operate as described
Comment: Tested on: Slim PS2 charcoal black

The Xploder V5 is a cheat CD designed to run on the Playstation 2. It works by copying it's code database to the memory card and then you activate the codes and then swap in your game and play. It changes values in the PS2's memory so no harm can be done to your console.

According to the manual you can only use the Xploder with the official Sony memory card. I don't have any 3rd party memory cards so can't confirm this. I have been using the Xploder for over 7 months now and it has never corrupted my memory card. One thing I should point out is that the PS2's fan is spinning at max for the whole time the Xploder CD is in the PS2 for some reason.

The codes inlcuded on the CD are from around 2004 so for any game released after this date you will have to find compatible codes either on the official Xploder site or somewhere like the European Codebase. You should note that codes are region specific (like games) and American gameshark/Action Replay/Codebreaker codes won't work with European games. I would say that the code support for the average game is adequate, although pales in comparison to the support offered for the American cheat devices such as Codebreaker. This will inevitably frustrate although there are legions of amateur code hackers that may hack some codes compatible with the Xploder.

Apart from the cheat codes the Xploder is supposedly able to play foreign DVDs and UK region 2 DVDs without the green screen. I found that no domestic DVD would boot using the Xploder which I was really disappointed about. I couldn't test it with foreign DVDs because the only foreign films I own are VCDs (which aren't compatible with the PS2)

The Xploder can run mp3/jpeg/BMP/MPEG 1 & 2 from a flash memory stick. I had no problems with these, only why you would want to see pictures on your PS2 is beyond me. The real shortfall however is that being able to play MPEG 1 & 2 only is a bit pointless if you want to play a movie as these are highly uncompressed formats. What this means is that if you have a 700MB avi movie and try to convert it to either MPEG 1 or 2 you will end up with a file around 3GB! You will need a very large flash stick and a lot of patience for the converting! Even then, there are display restrictions (about the same resoultion as an old CRT TV) Thus the Xploder V5 cannot be used to watch Dixv encodded files. Apparently the PS2 is not powerful enough for this to be a reality.

Another interesting feature is the PAL boost selectable from the main menu. This forces the PS2 to run the game at the full American speed of 60Hz. This works but is rendered almost useless by the fact that the Xpldoer does not have a screen adjust option, so unless the game you are playing allows you to fix the position of the picture on screen it will be offcentre. However, I have discovered that you can find so-called PAL2NTSC & Y/X fix codes on the net that perform the same function much better. You would just enter them in the normal way as cheat codes.

The save file zip is the most well implemented feature. take any games save and zip it up so it takes up less space on your memory card. This works escpecially well for those gamesaves above 300KB. On average you can make gamesaves about five times smaller. You cannot play saved game files until you unzip them though. This feature will save you money on memory cards.

Included on the Xploder CD is a whole host of gamesaves which can be transferred to your memory card. You can also take Xploder compatible saves from the net through flash stick or by plugging the PS2 into your net connection. The necessary cables and software to do this is not included in this version of teh Xploder.

I didn't test the online update features because I don't have a practical way of connecting the PS2 to my broadband connection.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Does what it does, and well.
Comment: Superb. Hook up a USB keyboard and it's even better - although that doesn't mean you need a usb keyboard as a normal joypad works just as well (just a little slower entering info).

Great point with this is that it recognises cheats that might conflict and sorts it out.

GT4 cheats give you everything - and once you save you still have it all when you next play the game (you just need to go to the EXPLODER site to get the cheats first).

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