Cheat Codes Article

Gaming Cheat Codes

Cheat codes are codes that can be entered into a video game to change the game's behavior. The practice of cheat codes and secrets in a video game was started in the Atari 2600 game Adventure. Afterwards, codes were implemented and used by game developers to playtest certain aspects of their games; for example, a common use of a cheat code is to skip to a level in a game. In moddable games, such cheat modes are often left in released titles specifically for modder use.

The practice became widespread, and now many games have cheat codes intentionally included as a form of easter egg or unlockable reward. Some video game magazines have had sections devoted to providing these codes since the late 1980s, and occasionally codebooks are produced, which provide cheat codes for a large number of games. These magazines are usually intended for a younger audience. There are entire magazines dedicated to cheat codes for new games. Many codes, for both older and more recent games, can be found at websites such as GameFAQs, Cheat Codes Galore, Cheat Happens and GameWinners.

The method of entering cheat codes varies; on video game consoles, the code is frequently a sequence of button presses. On computers, the code may be textual and entered using the keyboard. In some more recent games, the cheats are also often enabled through adding special settings in game configuration files.

While normal cheat codes are built into the game by the programmers, unofficial cheat codes can be created by manipulating the contents of memory address for a running game. On video game consoles, this is done using a cheat cartridge. Cheating like this is considered "hacking" because the user must use external software or hardware to change values in the game memory.

Cheat codes are, by definition, considered cheating and most serious players only use them for experimentation, if at all. Sometimes, though, using cheat codes is necessary, particularly in case of bugs. If a serious game-stopping bug is encountered, a cheat code may be able to bypass it without the need to start the whole game over again from the beginning.

The Game Micro Machines for the NES had a bug where the game would freeze if the player reversed over the start/finish line at the start of the race. This was due to a single zero being a one in the code. Discovered after thousands of games were made, rather than throw the cartridges away, which would be very costly, Codemasters used technology from their Game Genie cheat cartridge to rewrite the code in every game.

Often cheats spell a word, usually comical or in relation to the cheat. An example is the famous "A", "B", "right", "A", "C", "A", "down", "A", "B", "right", "A" from the game ToyStory which spells Abracadabra or "Down" "Up" "Right" "A" "Left" which spells Dural the name of the Boss from Virtua Fighter. This code lets the player select her on the Saturn version of the game. In addition, Mortal Kombat had a perplexing code hint in the beginning about wisdom and courage. One of the codes included "down" "up" "left" "A" "right" "down", spelling "DULARD". As another example, the Amiga CD32 version of Worms features a Cheat code to unlock the secret weapons within the game. The player must enter "green", "up", "pause", "pause", "yellow", the initials for which spell "guppy".