Cheats never prosper (but they do have more fun)

Why cheating is fun.

Since the beginning of time man hath cheated, bent the rules, lied, stolen and generally been a bit naughty. Just look at the story of Adam & Eve. The forbidden fruit is impossible to resist. Not that I'm religious or anything, as much as I like the idea of Christ coming back to life after death on the cross, I simply believe that it wasn't divine intervention; he just put another couple of ten pence pieces in the slot and hit CONTINUE before the countdown got to zero (from ten of course).

Indeed reincarnation (or RESPAWNING as it's called nowadays) is also plausible.

Anyway, I digress somewhat. Back to cheating. We've all done it. I remember hiding my pink £500 note under the Monopoly board and pleading with my mum for cheaper rates when landing on their properties "it's all I have!" and then whipping out the note at the first chance of buying a train station.

My first gaming cheats involved typing codes onto C64 keyboards while the game was paused. Infinite lives were a staple cheat back then. My appetite would be whetted by weekly doses of Games Master on TV where a computer enhanced astronomer would dish out vicious insult laced cheats to pathetic kids (like me). "Games Master, I am stuck on the second level of James Pond 2 Robocod can you help me?" "Oh dear" would come his reply "you are a pathetic creature aren't you? Alright, here is a level select cheat..." and he'd deliver the cheat code. I'd scribble it down and be upstairs trying it out within seconds of the final credits.

Some memorable cheats include A-B-R-A-C-A-D-A-B-R-A (Chuck Rock on the Mega-Drive) which was "A" button, "B" button, d-pad right etc. (you get the gist) and for some reason I still remember the regain a life cheat for Icari Warriors on the NES; up-down-left-right-A-B-B-A.

I think that cheats were originally ways for developers and programmers to test game play and as such there evolved into some pretty powerful cheats that could change a games code itself. For example, there was a cheat on Sonic The Hedgehog where you could change Sonic into any of the sprites in the game (e.g. a spring, bad-guy, TV etc.) and place it on the screen. Then you could change back to sonic and continue.

Eventually the demand for cheating led to innovations such as the Action Replay Cartridge. This brilliantly would let you enter a code so as to alter game code. This powerful piece of kit on the N64 allowed myself and my buddies to unlock many hours of multiplayer on previously unplayable multiplayer maps on GoldenEye. Anyone for 4-player Cradle? (It would run at a terrible frame rate but the novelty never wore off!)

I can't go on with mentioning the Hot-Coffee cheat for Grand Theft Auto. It unlocked a feature that wasn't even officially known about by the actual developers, who then had to halt production and re-release the game without the code. Brilliant.

So cheating has gone from humble beginnings of Infinite Lives and Level Selectors right through to unlocking features of a game that nobody should have ever seen.

Cheating can be good then.

Soon I'll post a little something about when cheating isn't a good thing (and when it's an absolutely terrible thing). After all, there can be no Ying without Yang.

Thanks for reading, hope to see you again soon. In the mean time, please post a comment on your favourite cheat, anecdotes on cheating, or if you have it; the cheat for infinite lives on Wonder Boy.

Happy head-shots,
GavinoX

Extra bonus points will be awarded for anyone who can remember the location of the first warp jump pipes in Super Mario on the NES.