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This is my first, er, "discussion" topic so its probably a little rusty around the edges.
Anyway, if you stroll down to your local Tesco's or Service Station and glanced at the magazine stand, no, lower, not the top shelf (wonder whats up there), if you look at the selection of gaming magazines you will notice a huge abundance of cheat books included free with them. This gets me on to what this topic is about - cheats. Don't get me wrong, cheats can be fun ( eg. pedestrians riot cheat or otherwise in Vice City) but they are a main thing that spoils gaming. They make the game easier to complete, destroying the whole essence of the game. The atmosphere is ruined and you have a guilty feeling in your conscience " I completed the game - but I used cheats".
Take Age of Empires oh, lets say 2 for example. A magnificent strategy game, that takes skill as well as patience. You watch your empire grow, and your villagers mining rock and chopping down trees, and your army increasing in size. You feel proud at your accomplishment, this was built by you, it's all your work. Then some idiot comes in, hits the console window and types in a series of wimpy cheats. No skill, and the game is won and completed in a short time. Like I mentioned before, some cheats are fun, it's just the pathetic gamers that use the cheats like invincibility because they are to crap to do it without them. I prefer games that ensure you complete them before you unlock the cheats, that way its more fun and doesn't spoil the experience. It is stupid to think that all games will be like this, it is inevitable that "complete game easy" cheats will be devised by some programmer or other, as there are to many rubbish gamers among us and the demand will not go down.
Anyway, thats my opinion on the subject, and if you read this then thanks.
Anyway, if you stroll down to your local Tesco's or Service Station and glanced at the magazine stand, no, lower, not the top shelf (wonder whats up there), if you look at the selection of gaming magazines you will notice a huge abundance of cheat books included free with them. This gets me on to what this topic is about - cheats. Don't get me wrong, cheats can be fun ( eg. pedestrians riot cheat or otherwise in Vice City) but they are a main thing that spoils gaming. They make the game easier to complete, destroying the whole essence of the game. The atmosphere is ruined and you have a guilty feeling in your conscience " I completed the game - but I used cheats".
Take Age of Empires oh, lets say 2 for example. A magnificent strategy game, that takes skill as well as patience. You watch your empire grow, and your villagers mining rock and chopping down trees, and your army increasing in size. You feel proud at your accomplishment, this was built by you, it's all your work. Then some idiot comes in, hits the console window and types in a series of wimpy cheats. No skill, and the game is won and completed in a short time. Like I mentioned before, some cheats are fun, it's just the pathetic gamers that use the cheats like invincibility because they are to crap to do it without them. I prefer games that ensure you complete them before you unlock the cheats, that way its more fun and doesn't spoil the experience. It is stupid to think that all games will be like this, it is inevitable that "complete game easy" cheats will be devised by some programmer or other, as there are to many rubbish gamers among us and the demand will not go down.
Anyway, thats my opinion on the subject, and if you read this then thanks.
This is my first, er, "discussion" topic so its probably a little rusty around the edges.
Anyway, if you stroll down to your local Tesco's or Service Station and glanced at the magazine stand, no, lower, not the top shelf (wonder whats up there), if you look at the selection of gaming magazines you will notice a huge abundance of cheat books included free with them. This gets me on to what this topic is about - cheats. Don't get me wrong, cheats can be fun ( eg. pedestrians riot cheat or otherwise in Vice City) but they are a main thing that spoils gaming. They make the game easier to complete, destroying the whole essence of the game. The atmosphere is ruined and you have a guilty feeling in your conscience " I completed the game - but I used cheats".
Take Age of Empires oh, lets say 2 for example. A magnificent strategy game, that takes skill as well as patience. You watch your empire grow, and your villagers mining rock and chopping down trees, and your army increasing in size. You feel proud at your accomplishment, this was built by you, it's all your work. Then some idiot comes in, hits the console window and types in a series of wimpy cheats. No skill, and the game is won and completed in a short time. Like I mentioned before, some cheats are fun, it's just the pathetic gamers that use the cheats like invincibility because they are to crap to do it without them. I prefer games that ensure you complete them before you unlock the cheats, that way its more fun and doesn't spoil the experience. It is stupid to think that all games will be like this, it is inevitable that "complete game easy" cheats will be devised by some programmer or other, as there are to many rubbish gamers among us and the demand will not go down.
Anyway, thats my opinion on the subject, and if you read this then thanks.
Anyway, if you stroll down to your local Tesco's or Service Station and glanced at the magazine stand, no, lower, not the top shelf (wonder whats up there), if you look at the selection of gaming magazines you will notice a huge abundance of cheat books included free with them. This gets me on to what this topic is about - cheats. Don't get me wrong, cheats can be fun ( eg. pedestrians riot cheat or otherwise in Vice City) but they are a main thing that spoils gaming. They make the game easier to complete, destroying the whole essence of the game. The atmosphere is ruined and you have a guilty feeling in your conscience " I completed the game - but I used cheats".
Take Age of Empires oh, lets say 2 for example. A magnificent strategy game, that takes skill as well as patience. You watch your empire grow, and your villagers mining rock and chopping down trees, and your army increasing in size. You feel proud at your accomplishment, this was built by you, it's all your work. Then some idiot comes in, hits the console window and types in a series of wimpy cheats. No skill, and the game is won and completed in a short time. Like I mentioned before, some cheats are fun, it's just the pathetic gamers that use the cheats like invincibility because they are to crap to do it without them. I prefer games that ensure you complete them before you unlock the cheats, that way its more fun and doesn't spoil the experience. It is stupid to think that all games will be like this, it is inevitable that "complete game easy" cheats will be devised by some programmer or other, as there are to many rubbish gamers among us and the demand will not go down.
Anyway, thats my opinion on the subject, and if you read this then thanks.
By the way, feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Ok. That was good for a first try, sorry to be patronising. I dodn't read all of it, tohugh, but from what i read, well done.
Ah. I have so many mixed feelings about cheats. I mean yeah, like you said, they can add extra life to a game, or even help your enjoyment of it if you honestly can't do something (like the Garden on Naboo from Star Wars Episode 1), and by doing so help you complete it, not complete it for you. So in moderation, cheats are wonderful.
Now, many people would agree that walkthroughs are the same as cheats. Well listen, they're not. For instants, I wouldn't dream of touching FF without an official walkthrough, but I wouldn't dream of cheating. That's strange, but true, I'm not the best gamer, and I do like to have a little help whilst doing it. That's not to say I couldn't complete the game by myself, it's just that it really does get boring if you play the same part over and over again.
Now, many people would agree that walkthroughs are the same as cheats. Well listen, they're not. For instants, I wouldn't dream of touching FF without an official walkthrough, but I wouldn't dream of cheating. That's strange, but true, I'm not the best gamer, and I do like to have a little help whilst doing it. That's not to say I couldn't complete the game by myself, it's just that it really does get boring if you play the same part over and over again.
I only use cheats once I've finished a game to get more life out of it. Using cheats to actually beat a game sort of defeats the whole purpose of gaming, really.
But then I suppose today's generation of gamers are used to 'quick fixes' in terms of entertainment, and don't want to have to bother with the hard slog of simple things like levelling up a character, finding their way through a maze, developing the skill and coordination to blast their way through a particlarly hard level on a shooter, or actually having to look for items in an RPG. *puffs on pipe*
Back in my day, some games didn't even have save points. You had to either sit and complete the game in one sitting, or that was it, next time you played it you'd have to start all over again. There weren't even any cheats published for these titles, they were hard work I tell ya, but they honed our gaming skills into the finely balanced twitch mechanisms that they are today. *puffs on pipe a little faster*
And then there's the internet. Today, if you're stuck on a game, you don't even have to leave your home and cycle around to a mate's house through a blizzard 10 miles the road to see if he knew what the solution was. You just type in the name into a search engine and there you have it, 25 walkthroughs and cheat code websites at your finger tips. When I were a lad there were none of these luxuries. We had to use our brains! We had to use our cunning! We had to use our Gaming Skills!! *waves away the smoke now billowing from his pipe*
Now there's 3000 page walkthroughs that are published the day the game gets released. If I'm buying a game, I want to actually discover things for myself, not have some bright spark pretend he knows it all telling me what to do when in fact all he did was work alongside the developers of the game for a few months to get all the details. If I get stuck on a level, I like to be able to learn from the experience and try it again, maybe discover a few more things along the way in doing so, not just turn a page and find out that all I needed to do was turn left by the tree instead of right. There's no point to it!! There's no challenge anymore!!! *pipe catches fire*
And as for Datel, what kind of rubbish is that??? Now you can use Freeloader or ActionReplay or Gameshark systems to beat a game before you've even taken it out of the box!! What's the point!!! Where's the fun!!!! Where's the challenge!!!!! YOU KIDS TODAY DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT REAL GAMING IS ALL ABOUT!!!112222222
*jumps up from rocking chair, trips over slippers and lands on top of a dusty ZX81*
But then I suppose today's generation of gamers are used to 'quick fixes' in terms of entertainment, and don't want to have to bother with the hard slog of simple things like levelling up a character, finding their way through a maze, developing the skill and coordination to blast their way through a particlarly hard level on a shooter, or actually having to look for items in an RPG. *puffs on pipe*
Back in my day, some games didn't even have save points. You had to either sit and complete the game in one sitting, or that was it, next time you played it you'd have to start all over again. There weren't even any cheats published for these titles, they were hard work I tell ya, but they honed our gaming skills into the finely balanced twitch mechanisms that they are today. *puffs on pipe a little faster*
And then there's the internet. Today, if you're stuck on a game, you don't even have to leave your home and cycle around to a mate's house through a blizzard 10 miles the road to see if he knew what the solution was. You just type in the name into a search engine and there you have it, 25 walkthroughs and cheat code websites at your finger tips. When I were a lad there were none of these luxuries. We had to use our brains! We had to use our cunning! We had to use our Gaming Skills!! *waves away the smoke now billowing from his pipe*
Now there's 3000 page walkthroughs that are published the day the game gets released. If I'm buying a game, I want to actually discover things for myself, not have some bright spark pretend he knows it all telling me what to do when in fact all he did was work alongside the developers of the game for a few months to get all the details. If I get stuck on a level, I like to be able to learn from the experience and try it again, maybe discover a few more things along the way in doing so, not just turn a page and find out that all I needed to do was turn left by the tree instead of right. There's no point to it!! There's no challenge anymore!!! *pipe catches fire*
And as for Datel, what kind of rubbish is that??? Now you can use Freeloader or ActionReplay or Gameshark systems to beat a game before you've even taken it out of the box!! What's the point!!! Where's the fun!!!! Where's the challenge!!!!! YOU KIDS TODAY DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT REAL GAMING IS ALL ABOUT!!!112222222
*jumps up from rocking chair, trips over slippers and lands on top of a dusty ZX81*
Heh, fantastic old ma... I mean, er, FM....
*runs*
*runs*