Up until the PlayStation 3 generation, piracy was a common issue in Brazil, with many players obtaining titles illegally. The PlayStation 1, in particular, was often unlocked through the modification of a chip. However, a simpler and lesser-known way of doing this was hidden within the game Alien Resurrection.
It was revealed in a video by the Modern Vintage Gaming channel that Argonaut Games, the developer of the FPS title, included a secret code that allowed the insertion of burned discs - those that had ISO files recorded on them - for gameplay. This was done through a Windows application called Nero. The user would download the game file, purchase a blank CD, and record the desired title onto it to run on the PS1. Without the chip or any other illegal modification, the console would reject the disc, but with the Alien Resurrection cheat, this did not happen.
A burned copy of Silent Hill ran perfectly on the console after Martin Piper, one of the title’s developers, demonstrated how the process works.
Surprisingly, Sony was unaware of this secret “unlock” of the PS1. According to Piper, all cheat codes were supposed to be revealed to Sony before the games were sent for publication. However, the studio chose not to reveal anything about this.
As a result, the PS1 unlock remained a secret until the developer himself decided to reveal it: “I think enough time has passed and I didn’t want to grow old and die without revealing this kind of secret”.
