What is Cheat Engine ?

             Gamer's Metasploit.

Here's a seemigly a typical tutorial on "Cheat Engine".It'smainly about hacking games,but we'll see there's quite a bit more to it than just games.So,let's dive in.

First of all , What Is Cheat Engine ?
Cheat Engine Is an open sorce tool designed to help you to mosify ( mostly ) single player games so the user can make them harder or easieer depending on their preference.(Example:If you find that 100HP is too easy on a particular game.you can try playing game with a macimum 10HP as a challenge).Cheat Engine(CE) also contains several others useful tools to help debugging and relly just messing around with games and pretty much any appplications.(Example: As a prank,one may alter the download speed shown in a torrent client/download manager to perhaps 100Gbps or like that.)

CE also comes with a memory scanner to quickly scan for variables used within a game and aloow you to change them,but it also comes with a debugger,disassembler,speedhack,trainer maker,direct 3D manipulation tools,system ispection tools etc. - The ultimate tool for a mischievous programmer.So,read on to find out how CE does it.

Although CE can do quite a bit more,lets take a look at an example of "hacking" a game.Now,every single application there is uses what's called "variables" to store various values.In game,for example,the player's HP,level,ammo,position, - literally everything is stored in certain variables.There could be a separate variables with values 0-100 keeping track of hit points(HP),another variables keeping track of what level the user is currently in and perhaps three more jeeping track of the X,Y,Z coordinates of the avatar or player in a 3-D game.ALmost all new games these days run in cycles.What i mean by that iss the game has a recurring infinite loop of some function (Group of statement) that goes on and on until the player exits/pauses the game.Inside the loop,the function's code checks to see if (example) any user event has occured.Did the users press the arrow keys? If Button ? If so,then descrease ammo by one and call the function to launch a projectile from the gun and so on.certain aspects of games often rely completely on a particular variables and trust it to maintain a legit value.Considering that the average user may never even know about the existence after all and implementing double checks,encrypted values and a sealed environment (sandbox) is simply not worth spoiling the performance and gameplay.This small point is what leaves almost every single player game vulnerableto nosy software such as Cheat Engine.

This is also the reason why CE does not( yet ) work for most big online games likes RuneScape,WoW,AoC etc.since the dta and any changes dont to it are always double checked with the server's copy.Whatever happens at the server,stays at the sever and although you could make yourself LOOK like a pro,that will be only because of your dumb browser also ( i.e, Like all applications,your browser also maintains variable which can be tempered with,but that doesn't affect the server's copy)

What CE does is try to find out which variable the application is using,the addresses at which they are stored in the RAM and possibly tamper with them according to what the user(you) may want.For gamers,this tool is simply god sentmYou can increase your speed in "Need for Speed",get infinite ammo in "call Of Duty" and avoid killing a thousand people or typing cheat codes for money in "Grand theft Auto" and so much more.

Rewinding back,how does any of this relate to hacking? it all lies in experience.CE teaches you how to find out exactly what the problemm is and how to solve it.The procedure for tampering with games is very close to what we will try to accomplish in later,more advanced hacking techniques.CE gives you the feel and thrill of cracking a seemigly impossible problem and teaches you how to look for an open windows when the door is locked - which is actually a very accurate definition of hacking.CE gives you hint,a glimpse of advanced hacking procedures to which we shall get to later on.Fair warning,in my experience i've noticed that the number one reason for beginners giving up early while learning hacking is simply because it just gets a little boring.Outside of movies,that's just the way it is.But for those willing to make the journey,the reward is more than worth it.I admit that to truly enjoy using CE,you have to be somewhat of a gamer.Hacking depends on,more than anything else,practice because pratice only can give you the experience needed to truly hack like what you see in movies(Yes..Its possible.Everything is..)CE is nowhere close to a professional hacking tool,but it's a steo in the right direction (plus it's fun).For the Programmers,as i mentioned before CE is open source - it's all out thre waiting for you to explore.(Check Out the Official Website given below)

This was more of an introduction than a tutorial and thats because CE comes packed up with it's own excellent for it's usage.FOr Beginners i recommed going through the tutorial (The one that comes with CE).As easy as i've made it sound,head over to following website to download CE and see for yourself

http://www.cheatengine.org/