295: Sometimes, I'm a Cheater

[Dastardly]

... I ended up keeping that book open and doing everything exactly as it said...

Absolutely what I was going for, there. I can't even count how many games I've done that with, only to get to the end and say, "Okay... when does the fun start?" And then I realize I just flew past it. It's the difference between assembling a bike (where you follow the instructions in a detached way, not really thinking too hard), or building and painting a model from a kit (There are instructions, but there's also your own creativity at work).

Right now I'd love a money cheat for Gran Turismo 5. I work a 56 hour week and have a career to worry about. I really don't have enough time to spend hours and hours grinding credits on GT5 just to be able to unlock the final 2 or 3 cars that I want to have a test drive of for historical/sentimental reasons.

And that's exactly the "dessert first" angle that cheat codes should give us. I think even having a trade-off (like disabling multiplayer or saving while the cheat is active) can be fair, if it allows your customers to skip to the parts they want without compromising the overall game experience for others.

Walkthroughs and cheat codes are there for when other people fail at game design. Sadly, this happens a lot.

(Hat tip to Machinarium for being the first adventure game in a long time which didn't require this.)

I want so much to agree... but it might be a little unfair. You don't want a game to be so chock-full of hints and arrows that it's like reading a walkthrough while you play... but sometimes the designer and the player are just in two different frames of mind. An outside source of a small hint can get you back on track.

When it comes to difficulty problems, I'd agree that a good tutorial is more valuable than any cheat code. If you teach the player how to meet the challenge, they won't need the cheat. At the same time, sometimes it's more fun just to cheat your way through the level, create your own gameplan, and then try it again without the cheat.

But not all cheats are there to make up for the inadequacies of the game (or the player). Some just add some fun (like sandbox games allowing flight, or something). Others do what the gentleman above you was looking for--they allow you to bypass the "chores" of the game and skip straight to the parts you want. Cheats can allow for a more user-directed experience.

And that's what it's about, right? Us. The users. When I go to a restaurant and order a steak, I don't want to be told I have to eat it a certain way. If I want to pick it up and eat it from the center, then let me--as long as I keep my angry food noises down and don't throw bits on my neighbors.

 

[Stammer]

I agree with a lot of this article. I wish there was a way to play Smash Bros Brawl without a victory screen at the end to show who won and who lost, because then my friends and I would be able to play without getting mad at the game.

I also agree that there are ways to completely ruin the experience of a game. I played Civilization V a lot when I first got it, beating the game as different leaders each time. But then I discovered the SDK and I was able to make my own maps-- giving myself 10 cities right from the start with plenty of water nearby with fish and luxuries, and 100 of every resource. After I'd played even a single match of that, I found I was completely incapable of playing the game after that.

 

[M4t3us]

You missed a couple of little details.

Cheating in obnoxiously restrictive games can actually improve the experience. Let's use Fallout New Vegas as an example:

Obsidian decreed that you can't hike up that mountain because they were too lazy to bake the terrain properly, so using a little something called Toggle Collision you can actually climb up that hill to get the vantage point on the Legionnaires bellow, or even to escape from an annoying bug, which all Bethesda based games seem to have which is little depressions with incorrect collision detectors, which leave you stuck, the only chance would be to reload and we all know how frustrating it is to reload when the nearest save was 20mins ago at the start of Über Dungeon of Effing Hardship, or you could simply use the "cheat" to remove yourself from such hole and disable it as soon as you're out.

 

[XT inc]

I think there is a missed area to discuss about this topic and how there is an utter lack of cheats in modern console games.

If you look at modern games the cheat selection is weak to say the least. Take Halo, the Golden eye of the modern age, has no cheat codes at all. Some of the most fun I had in that series was going into an illegal modded room and playing with smgs that fired sticky grenades and all sorts of nonsense.

Cod's cheats felt wrong to me as the combat in single player fells like shooting paper targets more than anything.

Lastly, my main issue is it seems a lot of cheat worthy content has been whisked away to the realm of paid for DLC, unlockable cars and weapons, Experience points and money. For the xbox any way as they have yet to clear the hurdle of letting you cheat in a game without it permanently locking out earning achievements.

 

[CitySquirrel]

I think the best time to use cheats is when an obstacle is between you and fun. I suck fantastically at RTSs. Still, I loved starcraft...the feel of building things, the story, the units... so I put on invincibility and played through the game. And I do not regret it at all. I was able to experience the story, I could build and play with units at my leisure, and I got to experience the game without constantly starting over from scratch. I got everything I wanted out of that game in a way that I never would have been able to without cheats.

 

[Dice Warwick]

It's more of a "what kind of cheating," "dose it affect others" and "dose it change the game"

In bracket ball, you done run around with the ball, knock people down, and climb a latter to the hoop, because that's not basket ball. But you can study the other teams way of playing, trash talk then into messing up, and convince the ref to favor you.

In Video games it's very similar, you can cheat, but as long as you don't change the game, it doesn't matter as much. It's the differences between Me playing WoW and getting my character to lv80, and someone stealing that character and pretending that they got it to Lv80. Part of the fun of WoW was going from Lv1 to Lv80, after that I started to loos interest and then my laptop burst into flames. But for the person who took a year later, I can see that it was not about having fun, it was just a cheats way of getting what they want now, like sealing a car.

So ya, moderation is the key, for if all you do is cheat, you forget how to have fun.

 

[Dice Warwick]

I think the best time to use cheats is when an obstacle is between you and fun. I suck fantastically at RTSs. Still, I loved starcraft...the feel of building things, the story, the units... so I put on invincibility and played through the game. And I do not regret it at all. I was able to experience the story, I could build and play with units at my leisure, and I got to experience the game without constantly starting over from scratch. I got everything I wanted out of that game in a way that I never would have been able to without cheats.

true, just don't cheat agents other people. I once played a game with someone, two rounds in a tactual strategy game. The fist found he stacked the odd in his favor and wiped the floor with me, the second round was an even match, and I still sucked but the round lasted three times longer, and even though he was winning, he gave up in the end.

 

[CitySquirrel]

true, just don't cheat agents other people. I once played a game with someone, two rounds in a tactual strategy game. The fist found he stacked the odd in his favor and wiped the floor with me, the second round was an even match, and I still sucked but the round lasted three times longer, and even though he was winning, he gave up in the end.

I assumed it was obvious that I was playing the campaign. I never played much multiplayer because...well...I sucked. I only bought the game for the single player campaign.

 

[robert022614]

I love cheating after i already beat the game. It makes me want to play the game again. I hate cheating in multiplayer as it can ruin the experience of others, but i really dont get all the hate for single player cheating. Everyone uses faqs and guides once in awhile.

 

[SageRuffin]

I seldom cheat to complete, but will do it at every opportunity to give me a feeling of omnipotence. Stat-tricking my Chao in Sonic Adventure to give them godly stats?? You know it. Item-duping in Dragon Age? Sign me up (it also removes the feeling that I might be "leveling wrong"). Crafting exploit in Resonance of Fate? Hells yeah.

I'm one of those people where "God mode" actually gives me some fun since I can now go through the game and wreck everything I come across. Good times.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I bought a Roomba to cheat at vacuuming. That tells you something about me, right?

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Right now I'd love a money cheat for Gran Turismo 5. I work a 56 hour week and have a career to worry about. I really don't have enough time to spend hours and hours grinding credits on GT5 just to be able to unlock the final 2 or 3 cars that I want to have a test drive of for historical/sentimental reasons.

I don't want to cheat online, or to show people how l33t I am. I simply want to be able to access content (in a product that I paid good money for) that I personally am unlikely to get a shot at otherwise.

Agreed with this...played GT4 to 97% completion, and that is so many hours of racing I don't even want to know (there are 24 hr endurance races in the damn thing, even though you can use a B-drive who does them for you).

OT: I've only cheated when I'm truly stuck, but I give most games a pretty fair go. The cheating only extends to the 'soft side' though, as in using walkthrus, to either get me through a really tough section, or remove a bit of extra exploring and trial-error (perhaps in character creation). I have hacked Minecraft inventory, but man, that's because I've easily thrown down 100+ hrs of mining and that's just not conducive to living a fulfilling life anymore. However, I still enjoy building massive projects every now and then.

As for online cheating, anyone trying to pwn n00bs or make the game unfair deserve to be burned at the stake.

 

[The Random One]

Without waxing philosophical, I consider cheating to be a failure of game design. A game should hint at you what to do next without you needing to consult a walkthrough (although, an adventure game might be partially exempt since it should be hard to figure out what to do next, but there's a different between 'having to look up a walkthrough after you get stuck' and 'have to constantly consult a walkthrough because otherwise you constantly miss what you can interact with' so there's still a distinction). A game should be challenging enough that you don't feel like putting in an all weapons cheat, either because it's too hard to complete it with the tools you are given or because it's so easy you want to go overkill. A game that goads you with cheats that allow you to explore the gameworld quickly is a game that doesn't lay the gameworld before you in an interesting fashion. The best games are not known for what you do with cheats on, they're known for what the simple game puts on the table.

Of course the most egregious example of this is GTAIV, in which its bad 'menu in gameplay' design decision even made the cheats that might make it more enjoyable harder to access.

 

[Eldarion]

Ah, saints row 2 with low gravity, evil cars, pedestrian wars, raining pedestrians, heaven bound and infinite ammo all turned on is a lot of fun.

 

[Greyhawk]

I try to avoid cheating, that is to say using a code or a hack that breaks the coded rules (I don't count strategy guides as cheating).

I make an exception for cheats that save me time and reduce frustration while not reducing the real difficulty of a game. Case in point: getting the key items to upgrade the ultimate weapons in Final Fantasy X. I have neither the time nor the patience to waste mastering mini-games, so I resorted to using Codebreaker to speed the process. A cheat? Yes, but a cheat that let me fulfill my completionist desires and move on to my next game that much faster.

 

[Lovesfool]

I am all for cheating codes and walkthroughs!

But, at the same time, I AM AGAINST THEM!!!

I'll explain what I mean. I play games because they are fun. I play them to enjoy myself. When I get stuck, I enjoy the challenge. I have even come to the point where I simply don't use the hint system or walkthroughs to Layton games any more. Not because I am smart. Because I undestand the game's logic and what it expects from me.

However, if it becomes too much of a chore, or too frustrating, to the point that the fun element is lost, I will use a hint or cheat system. It is a game, after all, not a job. It's ment to be fun.

If I need to use hints and cheats too much, then that can only mean one of two things. Either bad game design, in which case I simply stop playing, or that the game is too difficult for my taste and ability, in which case I also stop playing. There is no fun in a game that you play with a walkthrough on my lap or with infinite ammo and life.

 

[zedel]

This. I, too, quit Dragon Age (and Mass Effect)

Mass Effect? Really? It had good combat. Inventory management was a right pain in the ass, but I never felt that the combat lacked much especially if you play tactically (use that pause thing a lot to micro-manage) against Hard opponents with Biotics! Fuck yeah for Biotics!

But, oh well, different strokes.

Funny, I thought to myself the exact opposite when I read "Dragon Age (and Mass Effect)". For me, mass effect combat was something that I found to be rather dull. I mean, the combat played so similarly to an fps that it gave me a "meh" feeling. In addition, I did not find any cheats that would allow me to more quickly plow through the combat. Combine that with my intense dislike for sheperd and I have yet to be able to finish it.

With Dragon Age, even when I began to find the combat a bit dull, I found that I enjoyed watching how my stats went into affecting the combat. Rather, I treated it as I treat DnD encounters...though I really wish I could have rolled my own d20. >.> In addition, I liked to see how leveling my character differently would allow for combat to be more or less difficult.

Back to the topic at hand, I own a cheat device for each of my consoles before the current generation. The reason for this is that I attempt to alleviate the monotony of certain points in games. There are some games I play for their combat systems, some I play for their story, and some I play for a roleplaying experience. If I am interested in a game's story, but I find its combat tedious, I cheat.

I completely agree with most of the responses when it comes to cheating in multiplayer, but this leads me to another concern I have. My PS3 has no cheat device. One of the main reasons behind this is that a great deal of emphasis has been placed on multiplayer gaming among the current systems. That said, I don't *do* multiplayer. I don't see why they don't allow a cheat device, but restrict multiplayer access when a cheat device is detected. Though there are some developers that don't like the idea of their game being modified through cheats, but if I want to experience a part of their game, but not another, I see no reason for them to complain.

 

[-Torchedini-]

Yeah Invedit in Minecraft stopped me enjoying singleplayer alltogheter
Luckily I found a SMP server. Which was a lot of fun.

 

[tharglet]

I tend to avoid cheating as much as possible on a first run through of a game.

If I get stuck, I'll try for a looong time before giving up and looking at a walkthrough. Most of the times I've resorted to walkthroughs, it's usually something I would never have got, given all the time in the world.