I Miss Cheat Codes

Hours spent using invincibility codes and throwing my self against trains in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Playing with the debug menu of True Crime: New York City. There were countless cheat codes. There weren't games that ran at 1080p and 60fps when I was growing up. But, there was one thing that remained constant across systems and genres. Cheat codes were the DLC when I was growing up. If you grew tired of a game you headed over to your local library and picked up a copy of their latest cheat code book, or you waited until your parents weren't using the phone. Then you headed to the best cheat code site and you wrote down some codes because you better not be caught wasting your parents printer ink. Then you turn on the PS2 or Gamecube and you put in the code. Now you've got access to a brand new over powered weapon and six secret levels. I admit it. I miss cheat codes. You probably miss them too. Maybe you think you're too adult to miss them but you do. Here's why you miss them.

DLC is an awesome thing when it's not being used to milk the consumer for money. Games eventually get stale and you move on. I don't see the point in DLC for games like Pacman but I see why DLC is so cool and I secretly love it. Rockstar has done a great job with DLC for Grand Theft Auto V. It's not day one, and it's spaced out. When people start to lose interest in the game it's time to drop DLC to pull them back, except that single player story DLC. It also isn't rushed and filled with just some new skins for your favorite weapon. DLC is great, but lets walk back a little. Back to the generation of Playstation 2, Gameboy Advanced, Xbox and even Sega Genesis. There was no DLC then. If you got bored with a game too bad because you were stuck with it unless you wanted seventeen cents from Game Stop for it. That's where cheat codes came in. Secret codes to unlock mascots and sentient eyeballs for Tony Hawk Games. New weapons for Ratchet and Clank. Suddenly your game has a new coat of paint. You're once again drawn in to an old favorite. That's why you miss cheat codes, because you don't have the patience to wait for the latest Destiny or Titanfall expansions long after the game has gotten stale.

Sometimes cheat codes were much more than a secret weapon or level. They allowed you to break out of the box. What I mean by that is, debug menus were sometimes accessible. Some of the best fun I've had is replaying missions in True Crime: New York City invincible and dual wielding guns bigger than my head. Scratch that, it was more fun doing those things as Redman. Bringing him over from the Redman gone wild minigame to the main story. All it was missing was Method Man. It was a great game for it's time but that debug menu and all the golden cheats it held added countless hours to the game because sometimes you just want to cruise the streets in a pimped out police car.

I think the worst part about the death of cheat codes is it came suddenly. One day cheat codes were so well loved there were websites and books dedicated to them. Then we all upgraded to the generation of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and they were all but gone. It went from every game featuring cheat codes to the codes being few and far between until they were all gone. Every once and a while a game like Saint's Row will appear and have a few codes, to unlock things ahead of time. Cheat codes are gone and I don't think they'll ever be coming back. Instead we're forced to hope DLC comes along so our favorite games don't go stale. DLC is great but companies are greedy and it's becoming more frequent for the DLC to already be on the game disc. It's becoming more common that DLC is locked to your preorder location. It's getting crazy and maybe that's why I wish for a return to the simplicity of cheat codes.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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