HT Games
Cheat Mode
Like many RTS games, AVP comes fully featured with a cheat mode that was originally intended for internal quality assurance (QA) testing. Enabling the cheat mode in either the Xbox or PS2 version will enable you to unlock some levels as well as achievements and trophies. You can unlock the cheat mode by pausing the game and pressing this combination on your main controller: R1, R1, L1, R1, L1, L1, R1, L1, R1, R1, L1, R1, L1, L1, R1, L1. These buttons are often referred to by their legacy names of Right Trigger (R1) and Left Trigger (L1). You do have a limited time to enter the code once you start, and you will know you have succeeded by hearing an audible bell chime.
Once you have unlocked cheat mode you can access it from the options menu. The enabled cheats are Cheat Win, Clear Fog of War, Enable All Levels, Gimme $10,000, Player Invulnerable, Show LZs and Toggle Unit Spying. While most of these are fairly straightforward, some of them, such as Show LZs and Toggle Unit Spying, have special applications.
Show LZs, or show landing zones, removes the black area on the map where each unit initially starts. This means you will know where the enemy bases are when you start. Often, you can create several basic soldiers from your side and send them to attack the enemy base at the start of the game. Concentrate on their barracks/hive/landing ship in order to destroy their ability to create new units. This will severely cripple them in the beginning, and they will not be able to create a new base to launch more units. On hard and extreme modes, they will immediately counterattack, so place a single unit halfway between your base and theirs as a sacrifice. After killing your sacrifice, they will forget their mission to counterattack your base and return to what is left of theirs (which by now is probably nothing).
Intelligence is often the key to victory. Toggle Unit Spying when enabled allows you to see every enemy unit as well as your own on the map. This means that as they move around and unlock parts of the map, it clears it away for you as well. When combined with disabling the Fog of War, you will have a complete overview of the entire map. Use this to your advantage to see where the enemy is building up strong points to attack you as well as looking for lone units or supply runners in order to kill them quickly.