How do you feel about not-quite-cheating in games?

[ajemas]

So you're fighting an important battle in Fire Emblem. But what's this? The enemy scored a bunch of critical hits, and now all of your characters are almost dead. This is Fire Emblem, so if a character dies they are going to stay dead. Should you waste all of your potions to try and make a comeback? It's going to be really expensive to replace them all. The enemy just got so lucky, it just isn't fair!
Well, you did save just before this battle. Should you save scum and not bother wasting all of those potions?
I'm sure that many of us have been in this position in a game. Something, through no fault of your own, has gone wrong. Through using a method that the creators of the game certainly didn't intend, you can get through that area a lot easier. But is it OK? If you are really lost, should you be allowed to turn on noclip until you find your way out? Or if you need a special item, is it alright to reload the game until a monster drops it?

EDIT: Damn it, I just realized that I left my own opinion out. I think that it is OK to do it from time to time, but beating an entire game that way just leaves a bad aftertaste. You get the feeling that others didn't beat the game "properly" if they didn't play it all of the way. Then again, if the player simply isn't skilled enough to play it normally, then I guess it is morally reprehensible.

 

[Cody211282]

I don't cheat/glitch in games at all, it ruins the experience.

 

[Omikron009]

I use not-quite-cheating methods sometimes, but I don't feel good about it. For example, I've been playing Dawn of War Dark Crusade a lot recently, but I hate defense missions. I use console commands to reveal the map and deep strike terminators and dreadnoughts into the enemy base to finish things quickly.

 

[Layz92]

I do it some times when a glitch has caused the problem in the first place. Like that quest in oblivion where you can get a duplicate of the same quest item and it locks up the quest. I just bumped the quest forward a step with the console.

 

[Miumaru]

If single player, go ahead. Hell, for a good portion of my prime Morrowind years, I used the health/magicka/fatigue codes to well...kill Divath Fyr and the like. I do not regret it.

 

[Ertol]

Depends on what I'm trying to do. In a lot of RTS games when I play the campaign I like to just have fun and cheat. And in Fire Emblem I have reloaded when I lost a character I wanted to keep, kind of a pain to lose someone you just spent the last few hours leveling to a random critical hit you had no chance of stopping. On the other hand I try to cheat as little as possible on my first run through a game, after that everything is allowed.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Well, I don't think Capcom intended for me to knife my way out the entire village in Resident Evil 4, otherwise they would've given me a much bigger case.

 

[joshuaayt]

Yeah, try playing Morrowind and not tripping over exploits. I usually only feel bad once I realise that I got a %5000 percent profit on that Damage Strength potion.
Crazy, crazy Alchemy.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

It works and as it is in the game, I think it is legitimate. I just try not to do it too much.

The situation would have to be completely not my fault and devastating before I'd reload a save file.

 

[Flying-Emu]

Hell. No.

To use your example, it's just like real war: Some soldiers get lucky, and some don't. And it's not always the good soldiers that survive.

 

[Zeromaeus]

cheat codes are necessary to beat dead space on impossible...

 

[J9387]

I remember I would use the health and ammo cheat in GTA IV before a mission. I didn't want to be bothered to spend a bunch of time before a mission going to the gun store to stock up on armor and weapons. It sped up the pace of the game, so I had no problem using it.

 

[migo]

The game's usually broken in some fashion to begin with, and cheating's the only way to get to the good parts.

 

[YepGeddon]

I really dont mind doing it at all, especially if your quest glitches in fallout 3 and you have a choice between noclipping into the citadel, or going back to your recent save, which is foolishly 10 hours before your quick save.