Special opponents
A special birthday mode, with cows, monkeys and other animals, may be enabled by setting the system date to make one of the following programmer birthdays: March 12, May 16, August 28, or October 2. This mode may also be enabled by activating all the switches at the bottom of the episode selection screen and darkening the button.
Cheat mode
Pause game play and enter one of the following codes to activate the corresponding cheat function. Note: Some codes can only be enabled in the v1.1 patch.
| Full armor, shields, energy, weapons, plasma bombs and ammo | nsopta |
| Toggle ultra-shields until end of level. | nsbagwan |
| Full energy | nse |
| Toggle maneuvering jets | nsbjipp |
| Illuminate surfaces | nsoptl |
| Toggle rapid shield regeneration | nsblaster |
| Toggle rapid energy regeneration | nshorsley |
| Faster weapons firing | nsdiebesterds |
| Valid code that has no effect | nsopts |
| Toggle air friction | nsfricoff |
| Death skill level | nsdeath |
| Hover at minimum throttle | nshalt |
| Full map | nsoptm |
| Level select | nswarp<episode><level> |
| Debug mode | nsdebug |
Command line parameters
Start the game with the one of the following command line parameters to activate the corresponding cheat function.
| Effect | Command line parameter |
| Debug mode | -debug |
| Disable sounds | -nosound |
| Load external resource file | -file <filename> |
| Level select | -warp <episode,level number> |
| Skill level select | -skill <skill level 0-3> |
| Record a demo | -record <filename> |
| Play a recorded demo | -play <filename> |
Network mode cheats
Start the game with the "-boom" <number of players> command line parameter to initiate a network game. Use one of the following additional command line parameters to activate the corresponding network cheat.
| Effect | Command line parameter |
| Faster weapons firing | -cheater |
| Dogfight mode | -dogfight |
| Cooperative mode | -cooperative |
| Capture the flag mode | -capture |
| Disable enemies | -noenemies |
| Power-ups respawned | -respawn |
| Assign a player name | -name <player name> |
