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Back in the N64 days Datel was the biggest cheat device manufacturer with their version of the well known brand, the Action Replay cheat system brand, better known
as GameShark in the US, where InterAct handled the distribution. But other companies also tried their luck and one of them was Blaze, which more or less has been in
the shadow of Datel mostly because their products weren't as widely available as Datels.
Of course Blaze also had to have their own cheat device for the N64, called Xplorer64. I've never actually seen the Xplorer64 on sale at any shop in Denmark, maybe I wasn't looking hard
enough though, a while after the N64 hey days were over I managed to stumble upon an Xplorer64 on a danish auction site called QXL.
It seems that the Xplorer64 was released in the middle of the N64 lifespan, being late 1999, I have not been able to confirm this though, but here's what
Blaze wrote on www.x-plorer.co.uk around March 1st back in 2000.
The Ultimate Cheat Cartridge, is now available for the N64. Preloaded with the hottest cheats, the Xplorer 64 brings new life to old
games. Contains all the cheat codes you have come to expect from us such as slide-codes, super-codes, skip codes and master codes. Advanced multi-boot
mechanism so you don`t have to use a seperate cartridge to boot "special" games eg. Zelda 1080, Banjo Kazooie etc. And now your Xplorer64 is easier to
upgrade than ever, by simply connecting two Xplorer64`s together, you can upgrade another cartridge
to the latest version and also copy cheats from one Xplorer64 to another. Available in the shops for the great price of ?34.99.
The Xplorer64 seems like a great product and features the same PC connectivity as Datels "PRO" version of the Action Replay, a parallel
port hookup to the PC, using program called Xlink. Unfortunatelty the software doesn't seem to have been included in the package and
isn't available online anymore, obviously.
Rumor has it that Datel released the Action Replay PRO the very same day that Blaze released the Xplorer64. The original Action Replay and the original one
without PC hookup, was then renamed to Equalizer.
I can't say for sure if my Xplorer64 has had code upgrades/downgrades, but if it wasn't altered in any way, the cheat cart only came with codes for 51 games and
a total number of 276 cheats which isn't a whole lot. But Blaze was a bit clever when designing this thing, as it also allows for the use of Action Replay (GameShark) codes.
Any old N64 "scene" gamer knows the history of N64 CIC chip changes and the problems it caused. Well by adding a small button on the Xplorer64 to switch between the
boot modes, it allows you to boot games such as 1080 Snowboarding, Yoshi's Story and the Zelda games. A total of 4 boot modes are
included.
Xplorer64 is upgradable via the xlink software or by connecting two Xplorer64's where one has a newer bios. By connecting two Xplorer64's,
codes could also be copied.
Finally i'm able to present you with a lot of Xplorer64 stuff, so enjoy :-)
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Official N64 cheat list update (only ever rumors say) |
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Pokemon (German) cheat list |
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Perfect Dark cheat list |
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X-Killer V0.50 (Unofficial PC util for the xploder) |
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X-Killer V0.56 (Unofficial PC util for the xploder) |
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X-Killer V0.60 (Unofficial PC util for the xploder) |
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BIOS V1.067E (English) |
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BIOS V1.067G (German) |
In the bios update, there's a hidden message
Hello to 0x4e494c, tika64, _rip_, AzMaEl, _Demo_ du sud, LaC, KS & Rene_, Act0r and his twin Hartec, Blackbag
& Dextrose, and other blokes from #n64dev Developed entirely under Linux with mips-sgi-irix5 cross gcc 2.8.1, and custom makerom
tool The people at FCD are WHB, PJH, DN, MW, IN, RM, SPGM, SK and MF Check http://www.x-plorer.co.uk for the l
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