Cheat Codes

With some games, perseverance will only take you so far!

Completing a video game from start to finish used to really mean something. In fact, in some games it was impossible. The game simply sped up incrementally, until the gamer was forced to relent. It seemed with some games, perseverance would only take you so far but now the internet has made "cheat" codes readily available to help gamers get past certain stages of their game.

Cheat codes are activated using a sequence of text or a series of commands from a controller or keyboard to create an advantage or disadvantage beyond normal gameplay, giving players the chance to skip levels, alter a character's looks and abilities, score infinite lives, or access other hidden features within the game.

Although some consider cheat codes as “shortcuts” rather than actual cheating, many games which use in-game purchases consider cheating to be not only wrong but also illegal, seeing as cheats in such games would allow players to access content (like power-ups and extra coins) that would otherwise require payment to obtain.

Of course, cheat codes used to be guarded jealously by the software developers and had to be discovered by gamers. The first cheat codes were put in place for play testing to help make testing games easier for their developers. Game testers needed to be able to easily skip levels, heal their characters, or gain an item in order to effectively test the game. The term Cheat Code is now commonly used for anything that helps a player with their game.