Destruction Derby Cheat Codes & Secrets

Cheat Codes — Name Entry System

Destruction Derby on PlayStation uses a name-entry cheat system. At the main menu, select Championship or any mode that prompts you to enter a driver name. Type one of the following codes exactly as shown (case-insensitive on PS1 hardware) using the on-screen alphabet, then confirm the name. The effect activates immediately or at the next event load.

Enter your real name afterward to replace the cheat name if you want to save a clean profile, as some codes persist only for that session.

Button Sequence Cheats — Title Screen

At the Psygnosis / Reflections logo splash, before the main menu loads, you can enter the following with a DualShock or standard PS1 digital pad. Timing is loose — complete each sequence within about three seconds of the logo appearing.

For the wireframe code, the screen flickers briefly white to confirm activation. If no confirmation occurs, return to the title and retry — the logo window is short.

Unlockable Modes and Hidden Arenas

Destruction Derby ships with three core modes — Wrecking Racing, Stock Car Racing, and the Destruction Derby Bowl — but two additional configurations are locked behind progression or codes.

Unlocking “Burnout” Mode via Championship Completion

Finish all five Championship rounds in Wrecking Racing with a cumulative score placing you in the top three. After the credits roll, a sixth entry appears on the mode select screen labeled Burnout. In this mode, every car (including yours) has a heavily reduced damage threshold — matches end in under two minutes.

Hidden Developer Bowl — “The Pit”

Using the FORKLIFT name code above and then navigating to single-event Destruction Derby, a second bowl labeled The Pit appears at the bottom of the venue list. It is a narrower, enclosed concrete arena with no escape ramps, making survival and point-scoring significantly harder. This venue does not appear in Championship rotation under any conditions.

Scoring Exploits and Beneficial Glitches

Destruction Derby’s damage-point system rewards specific collision angles, and several consistent glitches let skilled players farm points efficiently.

Wall-Pin Exploit

In the Destruction Derby Bowl, drive a damaged CPU car into a corner wall at an angle and repeatedly ram it while it is pinned. Each collision registers as a fresh impact worth one to three points depending on angle. Cars pinned at approximately 45 degrees take repeated side hits (two points each) faster than they would in open play. A single pinned car can yield 20+ points before it catches fire and the game forces a separation.

Damage Direction Scoring Reference

Understanding the scoring system is the most important “exploit.” The point values per hit are:

Positioning yourself for deliberate head-on impacts — driving against the flow of traffic in Wrecking Racing — is the fastest legitimate point-farming technique and is not patched in any revision of the game.

Invisible Boundary Skip (Meadows Bowl)

In the Meadows Bowl arena, the northeast outer wall has a collision geometry gap at ground level near the drainage channel texture. A car approaching at full speed at a very low angle (nearly parallel to the wall) can pass partially through it, becoming stuck half-embedded. While stuck, the car takes no further collision damage and cannot be scored against. It also cannot score points. This is useful for a last-car-standing win if your car is near destruction — intentionally wedge into the gap and wait for all other cars to be eliminated. Exit is achieved by reversing at a perpendicular angle.

Developer Easter Eggs

Reflections Interactive Credits Car

In any free-roam or bowl event, if four CPU cars are destroyed within 30 seconds of each other (a “chain” elimination), the fifth car to spawn carries a license plate reading REFLECT instead of a randomized plate string. This is only visible in wireframe mode (see title screen codes above) or on a CRT with a composite cable where plate text renders at a readable resolution. It is widely attributed to the Reflections team embedding a studio credit.

Hidden Photo Mode Frame

Pausing mid-race and pressing R2 + L2 + Select simultaneously on a standard PS1 controller produces an undocumented freeze-frame that removes all HUD elements. No save function is attached — it is a developer screenshot mode left in the retail build. Releasing any button resumes normal play. This behavior does not appear in any official documentation and was discovered by dataminers examining the executable.

Infinite Points — Endurance Strategy

Destruction Derby has no lives system and no traditional game-over state in Bowl mode — your car simply stops moving when fully destroyed. However, the game does not end the event until either a timer expires or all cars are eliminated. This creates an effective infinite-session strategy:

1. Enter Bowl mode with the SADIST driver name deactivated (use a neutral name) to keep AI aggression moderate.
2. Stay on the outer ring of the arena, avoiding the center melee.
3. Pick off cars that have already been damaged by other CPU drivers — they represent easier head-on collision setups.
4. If your car catches fire, deliberately position it to be hit by another car, which sometimes resets the fire timer briefly.

Top session scores using this method on the Destruction Derby Bowl consistently land above 80 points before the event auto-resolves.

Password System

Destruction Derby (PS1) does not use a traditional level password system. Championship progress is tracked through the console’s internal memory card save system using a standard Psygnosis save block. There are no round-select passwords to enter. If you want to jump directly to a later Championship round, use the WRECKED driver name code detailed in the Name Entry section above, or use the FORKLIFT unlock to practice individual venues in single-event mode without advancing the Championship save state.