Do You Cheat In Video Games?

[Blanka]

I must admit that I do use my fair share of in-game cheats and a shark for rpg's. You?

[CJC]

I used to rely on in-game cheats and even gameshark cheats when I was younger, especially in RPGs as I did not care to grind.


Recently though I have abandoned them completely.

...Walkthroughs don't count, do they?

[Zim]

I did "cheat" at some games that seemed impossible.. or just too time consuming for me to feel like putting effort into it.

Though a Nintendo 64 with a Gameshark Pro 3.2 and above was just all around awesome to tinker with anyway.
Things like getting the Gatling Gun in Resident Evil 64 to shoot 4 times faster, which is FAST, like a waterfall of shells,
Flying the F-Zero cars in F-Zero X by adjusting the overall velocity and using turbo boosts constantly,
Changing Link's colors in Zelda games,
and getting infinite Terrillium (sp) in Command and Conquer 64.

As an added bonus, with the 3.2s and above one could actually permanently alter the Hexidecimal code...
I rigged up the Command and Conquer game to get infinite money (in fact the mining base still had to be built to progress in the levels for development, but the miner
cart vehicle would have to be stopped in it's tracks once automatically deployed, because if it got back with the Ore the resource number would quit going up indefinitely and
start going down instead, and the counter would get bounced back to 0 and wouldn't go up anymore.

[Aliem]

I did a bit when I was younger, mostly in RPGs to get more than the typical amount of EXP. I haven't used cheats for the express purpose of helping me win in a long time, though a while back I found a code for Final Fantasy IV that allowed all fights to end as soon as they start. That, paired with a no encounters code, allowed me to get through the entire game in just over four hours. Great for speeding through to get a quick story :)

[Dark Knight]

I never cheat on my first run through of a game. Any runs afterwards, however, generally involve a grab bag of various cheats. I prefer using the in-game cheats, should they be available, but I am not above using my various Action Replay products. When it comes to PC games, I stick with using cheat engine and its debugger (or ollydbg, should the game be protected from debugging) as I prefer using my own cheats. Trainers tend to be iffy at best (version differences, viruses, etc). I don't do anything truly impressive as I know virtually nothing about assembler. An example would be my personal trainer for Black Ops II. It gives me infinite ammo (including grenades, specials, and tacticals), infinite health, removes recoil, removes bullet spread, rapid fire, and the ability to slow down or speed up the game similar to the timescale console command or the Slow Mo cheat from CoD4.

[Jirin]

The only time I cheat is if the game's just not fun if you don't cheat due to some bad game design decision or something. Like back when I played FFI I used inifnite GP with game genie, just because the amount of grinding required if you don't makes the game unplayable. Or, if I had a Gameshark for Wii I'd use it to freeze the monster meter in Pandora's Tower, just because having to constantly exit the dungeon and come back in to give monster meat to your girlfriend makes the game a lot less fun. Also in Super Luigi U I looked up the secret exit locations online just because I heard from somebody they're hidden so stupidly the only way to find them on your own is to ground pound every square on every map, and thought 'Screw that, I'm not spending hours doing that just to open up world 9'.

In general I avoid cheating just because overcoming challenge on your own is half the fun of the game for me. A couple times for challenge runs I've cheated the game harder, like I made Ramza into a generic squire without special bonuses in Final Fantasy Tactics. And a lot of recent Nintendo games I wish I had a cheat code to skip the easy levels and only play the last level.

Plus when I play a Suikoden game I haven't played before I always look up the missable characters.

[Zim]

FF I isn't that bad for level grinding when one does the following:
There's the island that is only reachable by the boat, and when the boat is acquired, it's not the first destination. It's the island in the SouthEast I believe. As soon as it is reachable the "normal" baddies there are as tough as a boss battle, so save right before it's possible to go there, then beat one baddie, and voila!: You've racked like 5-6 levels per battle and get enough gold to make everything in the current point in the game buyable, but skip that fact and buy that town's equipment instead, and you won't have any problems with grinding levels for the rest of the game when you go back to the normal sequence of the game, because the normal amount of gold and exp yielded is sufficient to be racking 'extra' because you won't be spending any more on lower level equipment for quite some time after that.

[Aliem]

Actually, I forgot one... I've never finished Chain of Memories without cheating. I just hate the card system so much...

[ShadowTiger]

I cheat in games to avoid grinding. I have better things to do with my time. For example, while Playing Diablo III, I hate myself. That's all. It's that simple. I merely hate myself for playing. Because it's just grinding while playing the slot machines. Oh and there's a plotline in there somewhere, which I've already played through. Nightmare mode? No thanks.

My first run through the Deus Ex games was cheat-free. The second runs don't even need a god mode or anything because you already know where everything is.

[SUCCESSOR]

I can count the number of times I have cheated on my hand. I used to use Game Genies to get Super Sonic in Sonic 2. I used cheats in FF6 to get better items and experience from battles. I used a Glitch in Link's Awakening to get stuff early. I think there one more... I forget.

[Jirin]

Do you guys count getting help from outside sources (Hints, item locations, puzzle solutions) cheating? I consider it cheating if it's your first time through. The only time I look up stuff like that is if for some reason I don't respect the particular reason that I'm having trouble. For example, in Tales of Destiny there's a password puzzle and the hints are mistranslated. Or, the sequence of events that gets you the A ending in Valkyrie Profile is so obscure, specific and unintuitive it's not reasonable to expect anyone to get it on their own.

Also if it's a case like some of the newer Mario games where you have to get all the star coins in the boring levels just to get to the harder levels, and they're hidden in such random pointless places the only way to find them is to jump into every wall and ground pound every inch of the level, I might look up where the hidden stuff is.

Basically, any time it's "This is not fun to do, it's completely stupid that I have to do this, and I have to do this to get back to the fun part of the game", I will consider looking up hints.

[Tim]

Grand Theft Auto, anyone?

My cousin and I spent days on end just putting in codes to cause mass destruction to the cities. Oh the fun...

[SUCCESSOR]

Forgot about Vice City. I used to enter the all gun cheat for epic stand offs with the police. That really isn't cheating it should be a game mode.

[travis.ross88]

whenever after pc games completed i used cheats to enjoy :D