Cheating in Videogames - Where is the Line Drawn_ - Game Sack -

 

hello and welcome to game set I thought I'd do a different episode this time and talk about cheating in video games so what is cheating using an invisibility code is certainly cheating but what about using a turbo controller with rapid fire or how about playing a game on an easier difficulty level can you say you beat the game if you used any of these methods moreover is cheating fundamentally wrong the answer is I'm afraid it depends

[Music]

the first kind of cheating that I'd like to look at our built-in codes these are codes that are purposely put into the game by the developer one of the most famous examples is the Konami code for example in Contra if you press up up down down left right left right B a start you get 30 lives per continue in a single player game making it much easier to finish obviously it takes much more skill to beat the game with the default 3 lives per continue there are many similar codes and games especially in the 8-bit era all the way up to the 32-bit era and they were often published in video game magazines these days websites like game fax are good searchable places to find codes for games some codes like in Space Harrier offered a continued feature and it was even printed in the manual is that cheating since it was officially sanctioned in the included manual even though it doesn't have an actual continue screen what's interesting about this game is that it has two different types of continue the first one is in the manual like I mentioned the second one is basically the Konami code you have to press up up down down left right left right down up down up before the music stops playing on the game over screen the code that was published in the manual will let you continue three times but this one will let you continue up to nine times there are also codes for invincibility and minigames where you can just literally walk through the game without getting damaged by an enemy or codes to get all of your weapons and shooters without having to work to gather them all up and of course level selects which let you start at any level you like instead of at the very beginning many codes like these were implemented to make the game easier for testing and debugging and were often removed before the game was released sometimes the developer forgets to remove them or purposely leaves them in there for the players to find the Konami code became so well known that some games will actually give you undesirable results if you try to enter it like Gradius 3 / gradius grati ass I don't know if you pause the game and enter the code you immediately die that'll teach you you cheater Konami wasn't without sympathy for struggling players though you just needed to substitute the L&R buttons for the left and right directions in the original code to fully power up your ship so is this all cheating well yeah of course it is these codes aren't meant to be used during regular gameplay however they are included by the developer so it's not a malicious form of cheating in my opinion but say you used one of these codes to make it all the way through the entire game can you brag to the other kids on the playground the next day that you beat the game I'll be honest I have done that when I was younger nobody questioned it but I know it's definitel ya hollow victory but for me it was a way to see further into the game I like to see everything that the game offers but I've never used a code on a game without giving it several real attempts first if a game doesn't make me want to try again and again to get better I'll see if there's a code that can help my favorite kinds of codes are those for sound tests if the game doesn't straight-up offer that feature in the options menu because I love me some video game music how do you feel about level select codes is that cheating how about games with passwords isn't that basically the same thing you're starting over on the level where you died assuming that you use the level select code for that purpose many games like Castlevania 3 feature passwords so that you can start where you left off on the same level with the characters you've obtained so far however passwords are a bit more personal you have to earn them or at least you're supposed to

[Music]

the next kind of cheating is through the use of actual physical cheat devices like the game genie or pro action replay these products let you put in certain codes which temporarily altered the parameter of the game's RAM or ROM to offer results that were never intended by the games developers game genies exists for the NES Super Nintendo Genesis and Game Boy the pro action replay line offers similar results and is argued to be even more powerful in what it can do and has products available even for the PlayStation in the sadder depending on the code almost anything in the game can be done simple things like extra ammunition to all-out invincibility are possible or even weird things like jumping higher or every time you press a button you die on Sonic the Hedgehog 1 you can even put in a code on the genesis game genie to modify the bonus stage rotation routine by causing the game to ignore one line of code this results in a much smoother rotating animation and it's super cool Nintendo famously opposed the NES game genie and even took gloop to court over this existence claiming that it created derivative works of their copyrighted intellectual properties the court disagreed citing that it similar to fast-forwarding a movie or skipping pages in a book also the changes go away once the console is powered down the NES game genie is bad though as it can ruin the cartridge port on your system in short order and it doesn't work well with a top loader I'm not actually about to put this in my system but I can show you what it looks like by running a game genie ROM on a flash cartridge here personally I really like using game genie style codes for neat tricks like the aforementioned sonic bonus stage but sometimes if there's a game that has defeated me again and again and I have no real interest in practicing or playing much anymore I'll use a game genie code to see the whole game if there aren't already built-in codes I would have otherwise probably never played the game again so at least the game genie gives me reason to pull it down and explore more can you brag to the other kids on the playground that you beat the game if you used one of these cheap devices definitely no I've never done that but then again I've never owned any cheat device in its time I always bought them decades later just for fun and that's what they are fun toys to tinker around with

[Music]

you

[Music]

you may be wondering why I keep talking about bragging to the other kids on the playground about beating a game it's actually one of the few examples I can think of where other people might be impressed or care that I actually beat a game not that I'm trying to diss streamers or speedrunners or anything what they do is actually very very impressive it's just that for the average gamer I don't think it's a huge bragging point anyway let's talk about controllers for a bit I think this is kind of a gray area when it comes to

cheating

[Music]

so you're busy playing through your favorite game with the controller that came with your console it's fun but man you just can't get far enough because you can't press the buttons fast enough to cause massive damage to your enemies but then you buy a weird third-party controller that has a rapid fire or turbo switch that you can enable suddenly you can fire your weapon super fast without any effort at all as a result you're able to get further into the game because this cheating or is this awesome certainly the developer didn't mean for you to use rapid fire they would have just built that into the game right what about first party controllers made by the console manufacturer like the NES advantage or the NES max both of which offer turbo features or how about the rapid fire unit for the Sega Master System which attaches to any controller it can even attach to the light phaser and all you have to do in most games is hold down the trigger to win these are all optional accessories and nobody has to buy them only filthy cheaters would buy them right but what about consoles like the turbo graphics 16 it comes with a controller that has built-in turbo switches however the pc engine which is what the turbo graphics 16 is known as in japan originally did not come with controllers that had these switches but this was soon changed and every NEC console came with a controller that has this turbo option in fact the manuals for most games will even suggest what position to have these switches in in order to be most effective for that particular game so if you beat fantasy zone or any other game on the system with these switches engaged did you cheat in my opinion absolutely not you're using features that were included and advertised with the console there is no reason to feel like you had an edge that you shouldn't have had and don't let anyone tell you otherwise you still absolutely beat the game is it more impressive to beat the game without the switches engaged well sure but it's also more impressive to beat the game with only one life not collecting any power-ups or not getting hit there's no shame at all using rapid fire on turbo graphics or PC engine games but how about other systems which did not include rapid fire controllers in the box this is where it's more of a gray area for me I don't feel that there's really any shame here but at the same time this ability wasn't included you had to seek it out and buy it separately I don't have many rapid-fire controllers for different consoles personally at least not ones that I actually use I just have a bunch of them that I'm saving up for an eventual episode where I want to talk about crappy controllers it's coming eventually I promise I just need to get more crappy controllers then again I'm pretty good at pressing the button fast enough for a natural rapid fire like I'm doing here I feel that using the slow-motion feature built into some controllers can be cheating though and honestly it's also annoying I can't imagine people using this feature very much still most of the games that I absolutely need rapid-fire for like shooters usually has it built directly into the game the reason I need it is because you're firing almost literally all the time in these games

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

how about games with adjustable difficulty if you play a game set too easy or anything below the default setting does that make you less of a gamer did you really beat the game if you finish it in this mode you even qualify as a living human being with actual rights if you play uneasy some games like ghouls and ghosts on the Genesis actually default to the easiest setting you can tell by the word practice at the bottom of the screen rarely have I ever seen anyone played this without that word boldly and blazoned at the bottom of the screen for the entire world to see when I first got this game 60 years ago in 1989 I played on practice in fact that's how I learned to play it this combined with a hidden invincibility feature I saw in a gay magazine really allowed me to learn the ins and outs of the game it was several  years before I tried the professional mode now I can just walk through thisgame with ease on professional I don't feel that there's anything wrong with  playing on practice though it does scale things back and helps you learn the  stage layout and some enemy patterns and this can be said about almost any other  game with difficulty settings pick one that's comfortable for you but I'd  recommend you try whatever the default mode is the first few times you play it  if you finish the game with it set to  easy then you can say you beat itthere's no shame in that in my opinion  of course some games won't let you beat  them on easy which personally I think iskind of lame if that's what thedevelopers want to do why even botherincluding an easy mode in the first  place I'd honestly rather not have anymode where I can't go through the entire game on a similar note I don't feel thatas cheating if you adjust the number oflives and continues to the maximum allowable amount in the options screen before you start your game if you'regonna give me the option hell yeah I'm  gonna take it at the very least it gives  me more opportunities to practice myskills at the parts that are hard for me rather than having to waste my lifegoing through the parts of the game that I'm good at just to practice again soyeah why wouldn't I increase them

have you noticed that I'm asking a tonof rhetorical questions in this episode should I ask more should I ask fewer why am I asking somany questions instead of just giving myown opinion am i afraid to commit to ananswer why did I come on camera just for this part well someone add up the total  number of questions I ask in this episode well I even get back to this episode is this even real life so much to ponder there are many other ways to get help finishing games that technically aren't you using your sweet skills to complete strategy guide you used to be a big thing these would basically give you a walkthrough on any given game along with maps pictures and other hints Nintendo Power was pretty famous for having detailed strategy guides every other issue there are also websites like game facts which offer written walkthroughs on just about any game you can think of granted it's just boring text but the better guides are written well enough where you don't need pictures to help guide you would you call this outright cheating or maybe just hand-holding I've never used a strategy guide as I didn't want to pay money for such a thing well actually I did use some maps for Alex Kidd published in a magazine back in the day I've used two game facts to help me get through tough areas of different games which I could just not figure out some guides on there though are written so poorly that they only made things worse in the long run can you say you've beaten a game if you've gotten some kind of help or hints be it from a guide a friend or even people in your live stream chat how about if you beat a two-player game with a friend can you say that you beat the game as I asked in this videos thumbnail and title where is the line drop and does their even really need to be aligned is this all really that important

[Music]

the last area of cheating I want to look at is something that doesn't go all the way back to the days of 8-bit gaming things like save states exist in emulators and on modern console flash cartridges basically a safe state will let you save exactly where you are in any game at any time if something bad happens you can reload that safe state and try again from there in my opinion this is a great way to learn the game however it is absolutely cheating if you're using it for a speedrun or for high score championship purposes there are some speedruns out there that are called TAS or tool assisted speedruns which use safe States to get the best run imaginable and they don't try to hide that fact and that's perfectly fine then there's the rewind feature which is popular in some emulators it's also available in classic games on the switch and mini consoles like the SNES classic personally I feel the rewind feature is great if you mess up you can actually rewind the gameplay for a few seconds and try that same thing again you can keep doing it until you get it right it's similar to a safe state but it differs in that you don't have to constantly worry about creating a safe state to begin with the console keeps track of it for you the rewind feature is perhaps the best way to learn the difficult parts of any game and the quickest way to train many racing games like Forza horizon 3 here actually have the rewind feature built in and they encourage you to use it so even though that this is cheating it really isn't since it's part of the game if you use the rewind feature or save States and end up beating the game can you brag about it to those kids on the playground that are still waiting to be impressed no no not in my opinion but you know what I bet you're in a far better position now to beat the game without any assistance because you were able to quickly learn thanks to the rewind feature should you be forced to learn the game the traditional way by playing the early levels over and over and over again just to get up to the spot that's giving you trouble I don't think so learn the game anyway you can doing it this way or that way doesn't make you a better or worse person what can kind of ruin the experience are the white tanuki suits and lots of modern Mario games for example in Super Mario 3d World on the Wii U here if you die five times on a single level you have the option to get this white suit and in some of the upper levels dying five times is really not hard to do anyway this suit makes you come lelee invincible for the entire stage fortunately it's optional other games like Mario Kart 8 deluxe on the switch default to an extremely easy mode do you see that little antenna sticking up that means assisted steering is on and you're cheating without even knowing it unless you make it a point to learn what that antenna even means of course there are still many different kinds of cheating like paying Chinese companies to level up your character in an MMORPG while you sleep I don't play those types of games at all there's also some hacking methods so you get tons of headshots in first-person shooter games overall though I feel like any kind of cheating in any online game is bad and malicious I can certainly understand why such players have their accounts band and they were 100% deserve it aside from that do I feel that cheating in games is a bad thing no absolutely not just as long as you're having fun that's all that matters I never really cared that much when someone says that they beat a video game though I can certainly be impressed at some feet that some people can perform like this rad trick I'm doing here in Super Monkey Ball check out my skills here see that don't my skill that this game make me sick cool like I'm a better human being because of this rat I am so skilled at this video game okay no no I'm just being silly I'm not better than you well I'm better than you at this game but I'm not better than you as a human being or even as a gamer it's just like I said silly others might have lots of fun trying new ways to make it to the goal and that's what I feel gaming is all about fun and if you're having fun I'm not gonna crap all over you for using any other method other than just brute forcing your way through a game the only time that is bad is if you claim your skill is actually better than it is please don't do that if you suck at a certain game or even all games that's okay I still think you're cool just as long as you're having fun trust me there's plenty of games I suck at plenty if you beat a game using codes or rewind features more power to you that really doesn't bother me in the least and it shouldn't bother you either

[Music]

so those are my thoughts on cheating and honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal at least outside of competitive game play I may be way better at ghouls and ghosts and Super Monkey Ball than you are but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy them any way you want so what are your thoughts on the subject I expect each and every one of my rhetorical questions to be answered by every single one of you from memory don't go using that rewind feature on YouTube to see what I asked that's cheating let me know in the meantime thank you for watching games

[Music]

you you know I really want to beat metal storm on the NES but I'm not very good at it I don't want to look up game genie codes and have to punch him in and that press buttons all the way through the game there's got to be an easier way I can beat this one

[Music]

oh yes and done I found the long play on YouTube barking this one off as a game might be hmm what game should I beat next