Give Me a Win Button

[Swaki]

its been awhile since ive played a game where i hit a wall, and so i haven't noticed the lack of cheats, but i still enjoy playing unreal tournament 04 (btw this is as good as gaming gets, ive played hundreds of games but nothing beats UT04, this game is my "silent hill 2") whit god mode, flying and all the weapons, also developers should make a "skip this part" code, back in the days i often ran into walls and had to bribe a friend to come over to do it for me so i could complete the rest of the game (not every part can be defeated by god mode).

but i have never seen a game whit no easy difficulty, but, again back to the wall, it should be possible to change difficulty mid game in all games, i dont want to have to restart the entire game when i realize half way trough that its either to hard or to easy on normal.

 

[toapat]

the fact that there are permenant and irreversible penalties into GTA4's cheats, and the fact that they fully denighed giving us a tank is wrong

has anyone legitimately beaten SC:Terran Campain mission 8 legitimately? you are being fucking Hercules beetled that entire mission

 

[tehroc]

You can have your cheat codes but the whole your grandma can beat this game needs to go. Remember when games used to just be hard like Mega Man 1, Master Blaster or Bionic Commando? You either got better at the game or you didn't progress. Inputting a CHEAT code already implies shame just from its classification, sure you beat the game but you had to cheat to do it.

 

[Flour]

You can have your cheat codes but the whole your grandma can beat this game needs to go. Remember when games used to just be hard like Mega Man 1, Master Blaster or Bionic Commando? You either got better at the game or you didn't progress. Inputting a CHEAT code already implies shame just from its classification, sure you beat the game but you had to cheat to do it.

How exactly would my grandma playing on easy affect your hard mode?
And why exactly is someone not as skilled as you not allowed to see the ending of the game? Did they pay less than you for the game?

Yeah, but when you put in the cheat codes you're not really "visiting paris" in your analogy. You're flying over it. You're not experiencing the game as it's meant to anyways, that's why they're called cheats. In that case, yeah I'd rather look at pictures, at least I don't have to pay for it, get the benefit of a really neatly framed and high quality picture, and don't waste nearly as much time.

Better comparison would be visiting Paris with a tour guide. You're not experiencing it on your own, but you're also not avoiding the smell coming from the homeless guy.

 

[Void(null)]

Seamus... If you just want the story or the journey, without needing a certain level of skill in order to make it through a game, then have you ever considered these wonderful things called books?

You can get them from your local library... its like file sharing, only legal and sponsored by your community... you can take out a whole bunch of these "books" and be engaged in a wonderful story that requires no input except turning a page.

You do of course, need to be able to read the language that said book is written in, but you have a admirable grasp of the English language so that should pose absolutely no problem for you.

Books are truly wonderful, they have detailed plots, twists and amazing characterization. Many of them have even inspired Movies and Video Games!

Instead of taking the skill out of Video Games, I highly, highly recommend books...

 

[The Youth Counselor]

Everyone has a different play style they like. I had a friend who enjoyed playing first-person shooters by using cheats to give himself all weapons and infinite health, and then exploding every single foe in the game with the rocket launcher.

That used to be me. *Cowers in shame*

I like to replay segments of a game like a God after completion and dick around? That one NPC that gave me grief? Set him on fire and kill anyone that tries to stop me? That boss fight that took so long? Fire at him with your biggest gun with infinite ammo, it was therapeutic. And today's generation seems to be missing out.

What disturbs me even more than the lack of cheat codes is the fact that some games are now even missing chapter and cutscene selections. Others allow only one save per profile. Batman: Arkham Asylum, though it is my favorite game this year commits of all these sins. Imagine my ire, when I accidently hit the circle button on accident and skipped an important cutscene the first time it played, or how pissed I was when I got to a glitched part of the game where a trigger that was nessecary for progression didn't play! I had to start a new game and catch all the way up to those points!

 

[Kollega]

Well,i do agree with this. Games should have "tourist mode",difficulty level easier than easy,so everyone can enjoy story and atmosphere without dying all the time.

On the other hand,"highway to Hell" mode may also be needed to please truly hardcore gamers,the leetest of the leet.

 

[Tears of Blood]

This reminds me ever so slightly of Susan Arendts article "Easy should be Easy."

I gotta' say, I agree with this one more than I did with Susan's. I don't mind a game being easy. Heck, I love easy games. I'm always having the most fun when I'm blasting away my enemies rather than the times I am the one getting blasted away.

The difference, though, is that Susan proposed these idea for games that might simply become annoying to me or another hardcore gamer.

I think we should be treated like intelligent individuals, but if we want to play a game it should be genuinely easy if we want it to be. A game should assume you know how to read on-screen prompts and pay attention to your health bar and those sorts of things, but if I want to play in a mode where I can smear my enemies into a fine paste effortlessly, then I am all for that sort of thing.

I really don't have much sympathy for the non-gamer who wants to try their first game and fails hard at it. I really don't. I don't think that every game should be teaching people who know nothing about games how to play their game. Some games, certainly, that is a niche they are free to fill. And there are plenty of games like that. I think we can handle teaching our friends how to play our games, we don't need developers to do it for us.

 

[Shamus Young]

Seamus... If you just want the story or the journey, without needing a certain level of skill in order to make it through a game, then have you ever considered these wonderful things called books?

This is an absurd and feeble strawman, but since other people seem to be trying it out I'll humor you.

I'm there to HEAR the characters, FEEL the combat, and SEE the scenery. I even addressed this in the article: There is pleasure to be had in strolling through a game world, experimenting with it, and generally moving at your own pace. Sometimes I want a lot of challenge, and sometimes I want a little. Or none.

And a book is a terrible alternative. A book is a single rigid experience: You read what was written. A game is a thing of choices and experimentation, even if the choices are "do I use the rocket launcher or the chainsaw on this guy". So yes, I've heard of books and no, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about here.

In my view, a game needs to be completely awesome before it earns the right to seriously challenge me. I've proven in the past that I can completely destroy a game. But it takes time, and I love my time more than I love the average half-assed Halo knockoff developers puke out on a regular basis. Getting good at a game is my way of loving a game. If the game doesn't delight me, I just want to skim the good parts and move on.

 

[Chipperz]

i dont know what your talking about.... about 80% of the games that came out this decade were piss easy.... since halo we have regenerating health and checkpoints and stuff ....
games like mario and sonic were the challenge.. limited lives and no cheats .

What's easier? The game with regenerating health and so many bullets and enemies that you can't physically get to cover to regenerate, or the game with limited lived where everything is so slow and predictable that you can complete the entire game without being hit once?

 

[phoenix352]

i dont know what your talking about.... about 80% of the games that came out this decade were piss easy.... since halo we have regenerating health and checkpoints and stuff ....
games like mario and sonic were the challenge.. limited lives and no cheats .

What's easier? The game with regenerating health and so many bullets and enemies that you can't physically get to cover to regenerate, or the game with limited lived where everything is so slow and predictable that you can complete the entire game without being hit once?

oh really? i have yet to encounter such an impossible game to find cover in....

on the other hand i dare you to beat the original super mario bro's and sonic adventures 1-3 without getting killed adlist 10 times...

 

[Dogstile]

Cheat codes are not "gone", or "rare". Honestly I think you haven't played many games if you think that. Check out cheats on Gamefaqs and you'll see TONS of them. The thing about them though is that they tend to disable achievements/trophies/gamerscore. Sure, you can basically play Saint's Row 2 in god mode (to pick an example) but don't expect someone to claim doing so is an "achievement".

I get the impression on some level that what your actually talking about (without mentioning it) ties into achievements, with you considering them "part of the content" and honestly I have to disagree with you. *IF* achievements stay you should have to achieve something (like say winning without cheating) to get them.

Have you actually LOOKED at the "cheats" they offer on Gamefaqs? Check out the "cheats" for Overlord II:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/code/952370.html

It's just a list of achievements.

http://www.gamewinners.com/Cheats/index.php/Overlord_2_(Xbox_360)

try that site, still no cheats, but that site always has good hints

 

[veloper]

Oh no. First Susan and now Shamus too wants training wheels?

I cannot think of a single big budget title that is remotely hard on the lowest (or only) difficulty setting, for the past decade.

There is still some recent indie stuff that can be pretty hard, like Knights of the Chalice, but nothing from the big companies.

Challenge = the game. A Win Button turns a game into a demo.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

In my view, a game needs to be completely awesome before it earns the right to seriously challenge me. I've proven in the past that I can completely destroy a game.

Wow, just like me. Sadly, many games now looks, plays and feels like shit, but have the arrogance to demand a high skill level.

 

[Son of Makuta]

We are talking console games here, right? PC games (at least, FPSs) have this wonderful thing called the developer's console, and I've yet to find a game that couldn't be made ever so slightly easier via the console.

- Want quicksaves in Far Cry? There's a way (doesn't make Far Cry any easier as there's no bloody godmode, but still).
- Want infinite ammo in Quake 4 so you can actually USE the dark matter cannon? Tap in 'give ammo' and have fun. (I think it was in either Doom 3 or Quake 4 that I actually bound 'give ammo' to a key by messing around with the config files. Tap F2 or whatever and all your bullets miraculously come back.)
- Want to do absolutely anything in Unreal Tournament? Console it. (You can even summon objects and baddies from the original Unreal.)
- Something glitches and you can't get to where you need to be? Noclip.
- Want the upgraded gravity gun from Half Life 2 for the entire duration of the game? IIRC, you can console that, too...

To be fair, I've played enough FPSs now since I got into gaming that I can rampage through most of them on easy or normal. I'm by no means a hardcore gamer though, and I appreciate an easy mode on games. Particularly RTSs, which I'm only just getting to like, and am unashamedly crap at.

A good example. Dark Messiah (of Might and Magic) is an awesome game with an intriguing storyline that's hooked me, but the difficulty curve is all over the place and I've just ran into my first bunch of Orcs, who kill me before I can say 'holy shit'. So I'm going to godmode it, or at least give myself some free abilities/weapons, via the console. Shameful? No. Judging by what happened with the originally-hard Black Guards, once your character has suitable gear, tough enemies are balanced out and brought down to your level, and I don't fancy contending with cleaver/longbow-toting, damage-absorbing Orcs over and over again until I beat them through sheer luck. Does this spoil anybody else's game experience? No. It lets me raise myself - and just me - to the required level (or beyond) of uberness required to successfully kill about 10 pissed-off Orcs in a single encounter, without dying or letting them get at my accompanying NPCs. I'm not spoiling the game, just adapting to it.

Edit: I decided to have another shot at beating the Orcs without cheating, and managed it. Turns out if you run back near your NPC love interest, she heals you. Oh well. I had to godmode a later boss fight, though.

 

[tehroc]

You can have your cheat codes but the whole your grandma can beat this game needs to go. Remember when games used to just be hard like Mega Man 1, Master Blaster or Bionic Commando? You either got better at the game or you didn't progress. Inputting a CHEAT code already implies shame just from its classification, sure you beat the game but you had to cheat to do it.

How exactly would my grandma playing on easy affect your hard mode?
And why exactly is someone not as skilled as you not allowed to see the ending of the game? Did they pay less than you for the game?

Ahh I see you have that sense of entitlement that plagues gamers these days. Just cause you purchased the game doesn't give you the right to be able to cruise through it without skill. Then I conceded it ok to let poor gamers have cheat codes, so they can get through the game knowing they had to cheat to do it, but no that's not enough for you. You don't want that cheating stigma and think playing it on grandma mode proves your skill as a leet gamer.

Since I purchased a chess set, I should be able to make the exact same moves over and over again and the game/player should let me win just due to the fact I paid for it. No, if you want to win at chess you have to learn to play better and plan out your next moves

 

[prawn]

I do agree, and it does depend on the game.

Some games I like zipping through, and I really appreciate a game that lets me play in my own style, or try several different ones. I can't go Past Deus Ex to this day, I still sometimes fire it up to try something different. Didn't look at a cheat or an FAQ to get through that game, I just played it how I wanted to first time, then replayed it a bit different and it worked just as well.

Then some games I really can't get through easily and may give up, but REALLY want to see the story line through, and that's where cheats work for me. Or at least FAQS, which in my mind amount to the same thing, sort of....

Final Fantasy 7 is the first game I used a play guide on, because I was blown away by the story as it unfolded, but found it frustrating to know what to do next, but I wanted to continue. And I wanted to know where to get all the materia, and how to max them out, and what equipment to use when etc...

A well written game, if it's hard I'll get frustrated but still want to see the story through to the end, so please put some cheats or codes in there, an average game,I may be bored but if there is an invincibility code I may still see it through to the end, just for the fun of it and because it is a lot quicker.

 

[Gunner 51]

The trouble with cheats is that they make the game far too easy. To add cheats would mean you complete and - ultimately, get bored of the game quicker.

Doom was OK to cheat on due to the sheer number of user submitted levels. One guy's walk in the park is another guy's cyberdemon spam attack.