Poll: Cheat Gamers

[IGNOREME]

I'm going to start off by saying, I'm a cheater. I cheat in games like mad. In Fallout I'm on god mode, same way with Oblivion, in Cities XL I take advantage of the "cheat" tab, in the Sims I use the multitude of Motherlode cheats and mood altering cheats, the list goes on. Now to some, this completely takes the fun out of the experience, but for me, it adds to it. I like being able to run amok in Saints Row, blowing up cars and causing all sorts of wanton destruction without the penalty of dying. I love the satisfaction of a V.A.T.S kill in Fallout and not having to scrounge around for medkits. I love playing as a metaphorical and literal god.

A few of my friends lambasted me for using cheats in Faster Than Light, their justification is that it's supposed to be hard and completely ruins any type of challenge the game has to offer. I like to think that I just play games for a different reason than challenge or the preconceived notion of fun. I picture games as a source of escapist fantasy and one of my favorite fantasies is being the all powerful, all knowing, all vengeful god of the Wastelands!

Is anybody else like me? Or am I what is called a minority? (Bonus points for rhyme?)

 

[NoMercy Rider]

A big part of the reason I play games is for the challenge, so I don't like to cheat. But with one caveat... for sandbox games like Saints Row 3, I like to cheat for a more robust sandbox experience. But usually I like completing the storyline first.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Meh... depends on what the game is and why I'm playing it.

If I'm playing for the challenge, nope, it defeats the point... If I'm there for story or whatever, being a content tourist basically, and the game play is giving me the shits, certainly... If I'm running amok as a catharthis, why the hell not?

In essence, it all comes down to whether cheating will enhance my enjoyment of a particular game or not.

 

[Daft Time]

Eh, cheating is probably not the right term. When I find a mechanic in a game particularly frustrating for it's own sake, I then find a way to circumvent it or modify it. I found the ship unlocking system for FTL to be rather prohibitive considering that many relied on very specific, random events happening. Rather than waste dozens of hours trying to achieve something that may never happen, I marked the event as happened myself.

On the other side coin; I wouldn't have made the game any easier in terms of play-troughs. I may think it is ridiculous to have my progress limited by the results of a random number generator but taking away any and all effort on my part in scenarios I have control over defeats the purpose of games like FTL. There is almost nothing to the game outside of challenges, and to remove them would remove content.

In more story driven games, if the game play feels like a tacked on method of unlocking the next chunk of exposition rather than a method of giving the player a sense of agency and/or not enjoyable I stick the game on easy as I can so I can progress to the content I'm really there for. The Uncharted games, for instance, I'd almost certainly do this for if I had the chance.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I mostly cheat when it comes to money in games, and mostly when it is second playthrough. As in when I decided to play proper Persona 3: FES on PS2 emulator, I made myself multi-millionaire using Artmoney just so that I wouldn't have to care about extra grinding or Elizabeth's outrageus compendium prices.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

The games I play usually have no cheats. Only unintentional bugs that can be exploited for fun & profit. Nowadays I no longer take advantage of them.

 

[Guffe]

Often I play a game through the first time as it should be done.
Then play throughs after that I might go a bit crazy and shit, for me the challenge thing and playing the game is "fun" at the same time, althou I completely agree your type of "fun" is also very... fun!

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I usually play a game legit the first time, then go mad with cheating. Especially if there's any grinding to do, I'll usually bypass that in some way. Also, for games like FTL that are all about the challenge and randomness, I enjoy more being able to finish them rather than play and fail time and time again, so cheating it is.

 

[purplecactus]

I prefer to play a game without cheating, though I have to admit sometimes going godmode and having unlimited ammo is fun... Never on a first or second run through though. I like to beat the game without the cheats, and to be honest, I prefer to reply without the cheats. Sometimes, though, I just want to splatter everything in sight and not worry about taking damage as I'm doing it.

 

[THeFraz]

I would always use cheat codes as a kid. I wasn't too good at anything, so that was the way I was able to progress in anything. As I have grown older, I realize that A. challenge is rewarding and B. the developers made the games this way, and if I want to experience the game right, cheats shouldn't be used.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Depends on the game, something like GTA then I'll put some cheats in when I'm bored of the story. After all, who didn't spawn a tank in GTA3 and go on a rampage? Free weapons? Yes please! Automatic full wanted level? Bring it on! Then see how long you can survive. I think I also used a game shark to make my party level 99 in FF8 once, but I didn't realise it made everything in the game level 99. It took me ages to finish off a V-Rex. Ever since I've not really used cheats in games where they would have a long lasting effect, I'd rather just use cheats to make the game more enjoyable for a short while if it's getting a bit repetative.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

It heavily depends on the game, scenario, and mood I'm in. For example, my younger brother and I will fully abuse the teleport command when playing together in Minecraft (sometimes deliberately spawning the other 100 blocks into the air > ) and may spawn in beds to set the spawn points. We will avoid doing anything else, however, as that's not what we want to do. There's also Fallout: New Vegas, where I'll use every cheat in the book to test out my mods and settings but will never use cheats otherwise unless it's to fix a glitch (unless you count mods as cheating).

Long story short, I typically avoid using cheats at all under normal circumstances as they can make a game become quite boring very fast. However, there are definitely certain cases where I'll use one for convenience or to fix the game as well as times where I just want to fuck around or test certain things out, in which case I definitely will not hesitate to use cheats to my heart's content.

 

[SecondPrize]

I'm going to start off by saying, I'm a cheater. I cheat in games like mad. In Fallout I'm on god mode, same way with Oblivion, in Cities XL I take advantage of the "cheat" tab, in the Sims I use the multitude of Motherlode cheats and mood altering cheats, the list goes on. Now to some, this completely takes the fun out of the experience, but for me, it adds to it. I like being able to run amok in Saints Row, blowing up cars and causing all sorts of wanton destruction without the penalty of dying. I love the satisfaction of a V.A.T.S kill in Fallout and not having to scrounge around for medkits. I love playing as a metaphorical and literal god.

A few of my friends lambasted me for using cheats in Faster Than Light, their justification is that it's supposed to be hard and completely ruins any type of challenge the game has to offer. I like to think that I just play games for a different reason than challenge or the preconceived notion of fun. I picture games as a source of escapist fantasy and one of my favorite fantasies is being the all powerful, all knowing, all vengeful god of the Wastelands!

Is anybody else like me? Or am I what is called a minority? (Bonus points for rhyme?)

Whatever you find to be fun,
whether it be god mode,
or perhaps a badass gun,
I, however, think you'd have to be a chode,
to cheat in FTL,
That game is about the journey, not the destination,
seriously, what the hell?

Where my bonus points?

 

[Rack]

Cheat? Sort of. I like making little tweaks that wear the edge off aspects in games I find annoying. So I give myself infinite carrying capacity in Skyim, make it so the knockouts in Human Revolution cost 99% of a bar and other things that make games a little easier and a lot less annoying.

With FTL I did end up making the game easier in that I designed custom ships that started with a little more equipment. The base ships were all pretty boring and I never liked starting over. I would have made a counter-tweak to increase the general difficulty back to default (scaling income down 10% or something) but I never got round to it.

 

[Tayh]

I prefer to avoid cheating, since I'm usually playing a game for the challenge, or "the way the developers meant it to be played".

 

[Bat Vader]

I am a cheater and I am not ashamed to admit it. Every time I play Skyrim I turn on God Mode, give myself about 50,000 gold/septims, and increase my favorite skills to maximum. I love being an immortal warrior that brings forth death and destruction wherever he/she goes. I do use trainers as well for the games that don't have cheat codes or that won't let me access the developer console. Whenever I play a game on my PS2 I still use my Gameshark first to turn on god mode and other cheats. It sucks they don't make gameshark cheating devices for the PS3.

I understand why some people dislike cheating and see it as ruining the game. At the same time though I am not ruining it for anyone else but myself. What I do in single player doesn't effect what anyone else does in single player.

I hate multiplayer cheating. Cheating in single player is fine because I am not ruining the game for anyone else but myself. Cheating in multiplayer however ruins the game for everyone involved and I can't stand when people do it.

 

[Yopaz]

Depends on the game and the cheat. I wont use god mode cheats unless I'm really bored with a game and then I wont save if I make any progress.

However playing Saints Row 2 pretty much requires that you test out some of the cheats. Getting increased range of explosions, getting cheat weapons that can't be accessed normally like the pimp slap or playing as a giant.

Basically, I like playing the game for the challenge, but cheating can be fun too.

 

[Spambot 3000]

I don't cheat very much, however if you choose to cheat during your own singleplayer experience then go right ahead, I do not care nor do I feel that I have the right to tell you how to play the game.
On the other hand, if you cheat on a multiplayer game you deserve to be flogged to death with a length of rusty barbed-wire.

 

[chadachada123]

I consider it pretty akin to eating junk food or desserts.

Yeah, you could technically live off of only junk food instead of something healthy, but your body will destroy you for it, and your immediate sense of satisfaction probably won't be as nice as the overall sense of satisfaction gained from something healthier (that is, played the way it was meant to be played, or the satisfaction gained from overcoming a challenge).

It doesn't really apply to Oblivion/the like for minor tinkering or just to reduce grinding, or for just plain dicking around.

And like junk food, if everyone (or at least a large chunk of people) start cheating constantly or begging for easy modes without ever even trying to challenge themselves or grow as a gamer/person, gaming as a whole gets more and more casualized (and for our analogy, society as a whole gets worse because everyone is now fat and lazy).

That's my opinion for single player games, at least. Cheating in multiplayer is just a dick thing to do.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I voted "It" because I feel it best sums up my feelings on the question. *serious nod*