Cheating, cracking, breaking?

As I got to typing my thoughts about what JWFW had to say about cheating in video games, they got to be so voluminous that I thought it was best to respond with a new post, rather than to write an very long comment.

It seems to me that from your point of view, Mr. Jac O'Nian,  a system of "best practices" outlines how you view 'getting help' vs 'cheating.'  It seems to me that you're actually interested in how the player cheats themself out of the experience of playing the game; when they choose to use cheat codes or maps without ever having put in the effort.  And I've got to say, that's pretty damn cool.   It does seem like it even cheats the game designers, because they are not able to show their game for what it is.  However, I do love the game genie for its ability to show what the game COULD be.

For me, the fun and the very best joy of using a game genie comes from using it on games that I already know intimately well.  I remember getting Super High Jumping for Super Mario Bros, which was very exciting.  I had no thoughts of how "easy" it would make the game, more like: "what can I do with this?"  With super-high jumping, I now had access to the top half of the screen, an area that is normally closed off to the player without the correctly placed blocks.  What was possible, with these new powers?

My favorite GG cheats were 'do your moves in the air' on street fighter, and 'give Terra Shock' on FFVI also 'Completely Random Item Drop' on FFVI.  By the time Street Fighter II had come out on SNES there were hyper editions of the game floating through arcades, where Chun Li could shoot a fireball and everyone could do their moves in the air.  I remember salivating over the all-out mayhem that this brought to the game.  Game Genie was able to replicate some of these, but the results were pretty silly, complete with graphical glitches and control kerfuffles.

For FFVI, the best cheats were much better integrated into the game.  There was  no doubting that Shock was a totally badass move, and one that the player only sees very briefly (in one of the best scenes of the whole game, I might add.)  Who could resist giving Terra Shock?  It certainly  made the first part of the game stupidly-easy, but I got a lot of mileage out of using that move over and over again.  And then the cheat that makes items-all items in the game- appear completely randomly.  I had a Genji Glove and Offering before I left Figaro!  The Offering is a unique (and totally badass) item that doesn't appear until 3/4 of the way through the game (and is also a General Leo tease).

Granted, I never beat FFVI with these codes.  While it was fun for a while, it got boring pretty quickly.  The Game Genie served to disrupt the flow of what was obviously a very finely tuned game.  And I gained a renewed respect for the craftsmanship that went into the making of Final Fantasy III (VI).  So, that's my favorite part about Game Genie, breaking the game to see how it works.

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I would like to also talk about Conklederp's observation #2, about the difference between Easter Eggs and cheating.  There are some easter eggs that make the game better.  Konami code when used in Contra being one.  That game is so hard, and really  not all that much fun without it.  And it's clear that the Konami designers knew how hard the game was, which is why they included the now infamous code.   Shout out to Gradius for the same code with a different, but still totally wicked, benefit.

And Goldeneye is a great example of Easter Eggs (among the many, many other things Goldeneye is a good example for).  They just nailed it with this game.  And let me tell you, getting that Facility cheat was fucking, fucking hard.  I could do everything correctly, but if the goddamn scientist wasn't in the first room I looked, I was fucked.  Man, that was a good game.  There was no better publisher in the world than Rare when that game came out.  So, yeah, I don't have the capacity to carefully explain every way in which Goldeneye is a great game, but Jaconian said it right in his post that they made 'a form of functional achievement.'

The only Easter egg I never got in 007 was Two RCP90's.  I think it's the cavern level in under 10 minutes.  I just.. never could quite do it.  Not patient enough, I suppose.

But Is It Really Cheating?

Dr. Potts brought up a nice point, his first in fact, about LIMBO in his post on Tuesday.  His first sentence was, "I cheated twice."

In our current world of near internet connectivity through laptops, netbooks, game consoles, e-readers, smartphones and desktops, the way that we seek and take in information has changed dramatically, especially since I started playing video games in the mid 1980s.  The way this affects gaming and how we game is what I wanted to talk about.

I can remember,  not the exact year, sitting outside on a set of bleachers waiting for my swimming lesson to start (so let's say somewhere around 1988-89) talking with one of my friends about how to beat The Legend of Zelda.  I was at the battle with Ganon and didn't have an idea as to how to slay the Prince of Darkness.  I obviously knew enough about the game's mechanics to know how the game worked to know what I was doing for the most part.  This friend told me that he had heard and possibly implemented as well, the tactic of using the meat/bait that worked for lesser enemies and that it would draw Ganon out and then you could kill him with the Silver Arrow.  My tactic of firing frantically with the Silver Arrow wasn't working too well and Nintendo Power only gave so much information, but not how to defeat the final boss.  Talking with friends about being stuck in areas in video games was the earliest form of Gamefaqs.  I do not consider this cheating.

Enter Game Genie.  Yes, the desire to cheat in games was very great, especially with a device whose sole purpose was to subvert the pre-existing game program to allow special allowances such as allowing Mario to perform multiple jumps in mid air, make Mega Man's special weapon meter never go down or even giving General Leo's "Shock" attack to Terra in Final Fantasy III/VI.  For me, I would never (okay, maybe not "never" but very rarely) use Game Genie on a game that I hadn't beaten...... Okay, with the exception of Mega Man II, although that was to see what bosses and weapons were like and I never beat a game with Game Genie.  Either way, I've never been a fan of cheating.

If I remember correctly, in Goldeneye 007, whenever you enabled a "Cheat," it would not progress the game beyond the level you were currently playing.  Even if was something inane as "Paintball Mode" you could not progress the story line.  I thought this was a brilliant idea in a few ways.  First, you had to "earn" the cheat and not just punch in a certain code or button combination.  You could almost say that this was a form of functional achievements as I know Dr. Potts and I would frequently ask if we'd gotten a specific cheat yet.  (Dr. Potts is also the only person I've known who was able to earn the Invincibility cheat by beating "Facility" in 2:05 on 00 Agent).  Speaking of which, I watched a similar video that Nintendo put out  way back when, showing how to go through the level to get the cheat.  To this day, it's still the only cheat I don't have in that game.

So with that, what do I consider "cheating?"

1.  Looking up or seeking information about how to beat/pass a particular area/puzzle/boss/enemy in a game without having tried it before.

2.  Using codes, exploiting bugs/glitches or otherwise manipulating the game that was not intended during regular gameplay.

     -Examples: 150 item cheat in Pokemon Red/Blue; The Konami Code; Typing "Red Alert" or "On Screen" (among others) in Warcraft II.

3.  Completing a level for someone.

     -While I won't beat a level for someone if they ask me to, I do have a "policy" of sorts that I will show them how to beat a level, but then make them do it themselves.  I don't see this being any different than someone looking up a video on youtube.
4.  Using maps for areas or dungeons that you have not previously tried to explore on your own.

With that, I do not consider Dr. Potts to have cheated on LIMBO.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Little Gage Says "No Fair!"