You dial a number in GTA 4 by opening Niko’s phone with up on the D-pad, selecting the dial pad, typing the number, and pressing call. That is the whole interface, and it is also how every cheat in the game is entered. GTA 4 dropped button-combination cheats entirely in favour of phone numbers, which is why the dial pad matters more here than in any other game in the series.
Opening the Dial Pad
Press up on the D-pad to bring up the phone. From the phone menu, select the dial pad option, and you get a numeric keypad you can type into.
Enter the digits, then select call. If the number corresponds to something, it responds immediately.
Emergency Services
Dialing 911 brings up emergency services, and you choose which one you want. You can request a police car, an ambulance or a fire truck, and each arrives driven by the relevant crew. This is also the easiest way to get hold of one of those vehicles, since taking the responding one is an option.
Cheat Codes Are Phone Numbers
Every cheat in GTA 4 is a phone number dialed on this keypad, and they are identical across PlayStation, Xbox and PC. There are no platform-specific button strings.
There is one catch worth knowing before you use any of them: activating a cheat disables achievements and trophies for that session. If you are working toward completion, that is a real cost rather than a formality.
Once you have entered a cheat number, the game adds a cheat menu to your phone, so you can re-apply it later without typing the digits again.
Other Numbers That Do Something
The phone book in this game is deeper than it needs to be. A number of in-game businesses and services have working numbers, and one of the more useful is ZiT, the song identification service, which tells you what track is currently playing on the radio.
If the radio itself is the problem rather than the solution, our guide on how to turn off the radio covers that. For getting around, calling a taxi uses the same phone.
A Note on Number Lists
Large lists of GTA 4 phone numbers circulate on cheat aggregator sites. Some entries on them are real and some are not, and those sites are not published by Rockstar. Treat any number that promises something unusually dramatic with suspicion until it works for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you open the dial pad? Up on the D-pad to open the phone, then select the dial pad.
Do cheats disable trophies? They disable achievements and trophies for the current session.
Are cheat numbers different on each platform? No. The same numbers work on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
Can you re-use a cheat without typing it again? Yes. Entering it once adds it to a cheat menu on the phone.