game codes

The Rare Witch Project is a videogame fansite that opened on April 11, 2000 with a heavy interest in the Nintendo 64 video game Banjo-Kazooie, developed by Rare. Founded by GameShark hackers Alan Pierce (Ice Mario) and Mitchell Kleiman (SubDrag), the site is famous^{citation needed]} within the Rareware community for discovering secret, hidden in-game codes for Banjo-Kazooie relating to a hidden feature called "Stop 'N' Swop", and for creating a face-mapping and texture-replacement utility for both GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. They have been featured in numerous^{citation needed]} gaming magazines for these accomplishments.

Banjo-Kazooie Discoveries

Stop 'N' Swop Items

Several items and special locations are shown at the end of Banjo-Kazooie, if the player has found all 100 jiggies. Some of these items and locations may be seen — but not accessed — during the game, such as the Ice Key in Freezeezy Peak or Sharkfood Island in Treasure Trove Cove. Despite the efforts of many gameshark users, it became apparent that there was no way to access these items - consisting of several multicolored, question-marked eggs and an Ice Key - through "regular" gameplay.

The first breakthrough came in the form of manipulating the end credits cutscene, allowing users to grab the egg at Sharkfood Island or the Ice Key. Later, through the use of devices such as Action Replay and GameShark, several people were able to grab the Ice Key by "moon jumping" over the ice wall that blocked the access to the key. The team of Ice Mario and Subdrag were among the first to accomplish this^{citation needed]}. However, collecting the items causes nothing to happen, short of the appearance of a menu screen that displays the collected items along with the words "Stop 'N' Swop" as a title.

Secret Cheat Codes

On January 13, 2001, The Rare Witch Project announced that there was a way to unlock the Stop 'N' Swop items (six coloured eggs and one ice key) in Banjo-Kazooie without the use of a GameShark. Ice Mario and SubDrag had successfully discovered a large number of unreleased cheat codes hidden within Banjo-Kazooie. The effects of these codes range from opening up worlds without requiring jiggies, to unlocking and obtaining the Stop 'N' Swop items that Rare had promised fans would receive upon the release of Banjo-Tooie.

Bottles' Revenge

Bottles' Revenge was a two-player feature planned for Banjo-Tooie where Player 1 would play as Banjo, while Player 2 took control of nearby enemies to hinder Player 1's progress. Even though it was shown to be in full working order at E3 ^{citation needed]}, it did not make the cut to the final release.

On December 17, 2000, The Rare Witch Project announced that they had uncovered a fully intact cutscene, left in the game from beta development, consisting of Bottles telling Banjo and Kazooie about the Bottles' Revenge feature. It wasn't until the September 27, 2004, when Ice Mario announced that Bottles' Revenge was not only found left in the game, but was fully playable.

Texture Utilities

On March 21, 2004 Ice Mario announced the creation of a Face Mapping utility for GoldenEye 007. This allows a player to add their own face texture, replacing one that was already in the game. This was a feature that Rare had promised for Perfect Dark, but was removed from the final product. Later that year, on June 4, SubDrag announced a similar utility for Perfect Dark.

On December 11, 2004, SubDrag announced that both he and Ice Mario had cracked the compression methods used in GoldenEye 007. This would allow players to replace up to 1,473 textures in the game with one of their own. On January 19, 2005, a new version of the utility allowed the replacement of all the textures in the game; to complement this, the Perfect Dark ROM Editor was released.

The GoldenEye ROM Editor also provided some closure concerning the All Bonds feature in GoldenEye 007. In the beta version of the game, Rare had planned on allowing all the actors who portrayed Bond to be playable in multiplayer. This feature was scrapped due to possible copyright issues. Rare stated that all traces of the All Bonds feature had been removed from the final version of the game, however the tuxedo and face textures were still found in the programing. The ROM editor allows players to use the James Bond face textures by mapping the textures to existing multiplayer characters.

External links

• The Rare Witch Project
• Rare Witch Project Downloads
• The Rare Witch Wiki Project - A Wiki about the company Rare.
• Hacker's Delight - scan of a print article about The Rare Witch Project and the face mapping utilities.