Special thanks to Sorax Space for helping write and edit this week's episode! Bombard him with annoying "Larry sent me" comments here: th-cam.com/channels/eZuazW6czIWpg-bGbU93Pw.html
My favorite "cheat code" like this is in Saints Row 2. Access your cellphone in the game and dial #16. Go to the cheat mode and enable. Now every single car in the game will attempt to run you ever when you're in a location they can get to. One of my favorite things to do is enabling the cheat, as well as #15 (All NPCs are drunk) and #19 (All NPCs are trying to kill you and eachother), and seeing how long I can survive in the chaos I unleashed upon the world of SR2.
@@oz_jones 4 is better than 3, but cars are useless and it's much less a Saint's Row game and more a B-List superhero game with Saint's Row style writing. And Gat Out of Hell is ...Saint's Row 4 with a worse map and worse story.
I used to do that in grade school, after school I sneaked into the library/computer room, hid among the bookshelves and waited until everyone left the place, then spend hours finding cheats and codes and printed them. Good times 👌🏽
I think it was more a case of "HEY, they're using our sexually provocative character in a sexually provocative way AND WE AREN'T MAKING ANY MONEY FROM IT! We better put a stop to that!"
I'm glad you mentioned Banjo-Kazooie. There's one additional annoyance about it though: the Stop-n-Swap codes also mess up your game in a sense. By entering those codes (which are not legitimate as the feature was originally meant to work in a completely different way) the SnS items will appear in specific rooms and alter the music of those rooms. The problem is that once you enter the code it can't be undone: the items are present in all save files even after erasing them and starting a new game and once you pick them up (if I remember correctly) they'll appear in the inventory of every save file forever and you're stuck with the alternate music in those rooms but without the item. This is probably more of a glitch or an oversight than a punishment, but still it can be annoying since you'll never be able to start a legit brand new game ever again, you'll always start with the inventory full of SnS items and there will be random rooms with alternate music. That's not too big a deal if you already finished the game, but it can be messed up if you have like a sibling who wants to try the game for the first time or if you planned or selling the game or you're on the other end and you're buying a used game that has the SnS items unlocked. The only way to undo the cheats and put the SnS items back away is to hack the game using a GameShark.
As mentioned I'm pretty sure pulling the battery would fix the issue, as it would wipe the RAM on the cartridge. Which is what the save data technology basically was back then. That's why very old cartridges have started to lose their game saves over the years.
@@TheEDFLegacy well yeah makes sense. So I guess you can either hack the game or manually tamper with the cartridge. Arguable which solution is better.
@Mitchell Adams the memory pak was RAM, the games needed it to even operate. the expansion pak was more RAM, about 8mb compared to the N64's 4mb. this is also why n64romhacks need 8mb RAM enabled, otherwise the system won't run. RAM isn't save data, same as a PC. The battery in the cart is what saves. edited* mb not Gb
I remember the whole "Nude Raider" debacle, my older brother insisted that it was real but he couldn't show it to me because it only worked on specific PS1 models
@@TheComicRelief9001 Nobody mention that though not real there was a code you could use in Action Replay carts that would put a fake texture. it was shit and not a cheat but a mod of sorts. But still... It DID exist ... But only cause Code Masters wanted it to. Nobody mentions this.
it was a HUGE thing. I remember several issues of my favorite gaming magazine printing alleged nude-codes and even edited promo pictures with her tits and minge out. Though they made it clear those weren't from the actual game. My teen self found those a more than acceptable compromise. Seeing this video, I instantly recognised the stepping, turning and jumping 'code'. Although I dont recall Lara exploding when we tried it. A slightly smaller controversy happened some years later when Giants: Citizen Kabuto tried to have a topless (female) main character straight out of the box. Society wasn't ready for that and the game was released without toplessness. Although a way to remove that fix was easy enough to find.
I'm surprised that there was no mention of the Konami code. In Gradius III, it causes you to lose a life. I think it has similar negative effects in other games, as well.
I was really going this exact cheat would be mentioned. You can at least bypass the suiciding in Gradius 3 if you substitute the left and right presses on the dpad with the L and R shoulder buttons instead.
The one game I was expecting to see and it didn't get a nod. Yeah, do it the regular way and kiss your life good bye. Switch things around with left and right with L and R respectively, and the code still functions as normal.
@@BahamutOmega Or my favourite Konami code trick, from the SNES Parodius (which, sadly, I have only heard about): Enter b, b, x, x, a, y, a, y, up, left and start to not go boom. Yes, there is a reason behind that sequence, but I kind of want to see if any clever people in these comments can figure it out.
Honorable mention: Turok 2. Using cheats denies you the true ending. EDIT: I said that you get the bad ending for cheating. This may not be true? At the very least, you don't get the true ending.
@loliquatsch Ooh, I didn't realize that! I was just used to 16-bit games punishing you for playing on an easy difficulty. Then again, the N64 Castlevania punished really hard for that, too - it just plain ended the game about halfway through and told you to play on at least normal difficulty to get to the end.
Back when Rule34 still wasn't a fundamental law of the internet and companies still considered legal action against what is these days wildly considered unspoken parody mostly without a question.
@@lawrencein exceptions don't make the rules. I bet Disney has an entire legal team dedicated on trying to figure out how to get that delicious Goofy peen of the internets for good one day, somehow.
oh man, I hadn't thought about the nude code in ages. My friend was getting frustrated because every time she tried it, Lara would explode. At the time we figured that meant you did it wrong. Like we were making a mistake somewhere in the input and the punishment was the death. Guess it turns out death was our only reward.
That must have been painful as a kid, still remember getting to tne last level of Wonderboy in Monster Land as a kid for the first time and accidentally pressing the reset button instead of pause when I went to go to the toilet.
I used an infinite water cheat for Super Mario Sunshine with an action replay. Once you use the rocket like feature where fludd shoots you straight in the air you never ever come back down & have to reset the console.
I used an Action Replay for this cheat as well. If I remember correctly you DO eventually get down but it takes a long time, like at least 45 minutes or something crazy like that.
One of the first times playing Heretic, I remember putting in IDDQD and being baffled by what happened next. Definitely a perfect addition to this video.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention how the DKC games particularly DKC3 had a cheat to make the game deliberately harder like removing checkpoint barrels.
Great video, Larry! Another good one is Gradius III for the Super Nintendo. If you enter the original Konami code while paused, it looks like it gives you full weapons, but the moment you unpause, your ship explodes. If you substitute the L and R buttons for the control pad left and right directions, the cheat code works like it should.
Gradius 3 also pulled this stunt. If you pause the game then enter the original Konami Code from the NES, your ship will explode after unpausing. Replace "Left Right Left Right" with "L R L R" and you'd get a fully upgraded ship (one use per level)
Honorable Mention: Gradius III on the SNES, also known as "The Time When the Konami Code Killed You". To get the desired powerup effect, you have to use the L and R buttons instead.
I remember using the time skip cheat to beat The End in MGS3... Technically, the game didn't screw me over, but I did feel like utter garbage after seeing how I deprived an old man from one last shot of glory before he died...
I think that punishing people for cheating is actually stupid, imo. If it's a single player game, you're not bothering anyone, and also, you bought the game, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want with it. If you're not bothering anyone, you should be able to do whatever you want. :3 my brother always only used cheats after he completed a game to get more replayability out of it.
Games were designed and built with a lot different sensibilities back them - a lot more ephasis was put on performance, score and achievement rather than just having fun in a sandbox-ish environment. I think it's a leftover from arcade games where you had the score and being difficult was a key component of their business model. So it kinda made sense at the time while that logic didn't die off yet. Kinda.
Same. I use a cheat code in minecraft for an unbreaking diamond sword. And some cheats are needed, check out some Angry Video Game Nerd videos, some games were so badly made (be it control or ridiculous difficultly) you NEED a code just to get be able to play it properly.
You cheated not only the game, but yourself. You didn't grow. You didn't improve. You took a shortcut and gained nothing. You experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained. It's sad that you don't know the difference.
@@TheCastellan Sorry to intrude, but Preki's comment was referencing this absolutely legendary Tweet: twitter.com/Fetusberry/status/1114364382606053378
Glad I am not only one who doesn't think the reboot is Lara anymore. Also I never knew that the exploding cheat was a nude raider reference. I always found it odd. You live and learn.
I would really like to have seen a sequel to The Angel of Darkness, a shame it was scrapped. I think Eidos were too impatient. AoD sold well and I believe Core learned from their mistakes.
@@snetmotnosrorb3946 Core spent far too long making AoD that Eidos didn't want to keep spending money on the company when it produced an expensive flop.
I think it was Tony Hawk Underground when it came out on PS2, a friend of mine at the time got it on release day and he immediately out in cheat codes, might have been Action Replay. He had no intention of playing the game fairly so he just threw on every single cheat, one of which froze time limits. He got a fair bit through the game before he realised you can't win the competitions if the timer can't run out lol
Earthworm Jim had a lot of cheat codes in the SNES version. But there was also a dangerous one. If you paused the game and pressed Y, A, B, B, A, Y, A, B, it would take you to a screen saying "Nick Jones, have you already forgotten this is the old cheat code? Why not try again!" It's kind of funny, until you realize it booted you back to the title screen, no matter how far into the game you were!
You got me. I was thinking "Banjo Kazooie has to be here, right?" and you used no footage (or I completely missed it) all video long, thinking it didn't make it. Number 1 pops up and, yeah, you got me to pop.
IIRC, the Xploder cheat cartridge did have an incredibly long code that granted a nude Lara in Tomb Raider 3, but all it essentially did was overwrite the texture maps with a flat skin tone, blonde hair (for some reason), and hilarious square nips!
@Default Person oh man. I looked up Decent ps4. It's not even the same game anymore. They have been promising a remake/console port and more recently a HD remaster since the middle of the orginal Nintendo Wii. The new Decent was avalible for presale for 2 years on PS4. It's going to be multiplayer focused for some unknown reason. I don't think whoever is currently the IP holder has any idea what they are doing. But at least this information pushed me to buy the first 2 descent games on GOG.
6:55 Boy, I miss old EGM! At least Seanbaby is back to posting regularly (him and Robert Brockway have a new Patreon site called 1900HOTDOG - which is updated daily with new articles by both, alternating days, and NO I'm not being paid for this endorsement though maybe I should seeing how highly I recommend it. Seriously, it's great), but man, EGM's entire editorial staff were superstars. All hilarious and interesting and worth keeping track of on their own merits. I follow a good deal of them on Twitter now. Oh, almost forgot, excellent Fact Hunt, Larry!
Descent 2 was the first thing I thought of when I saw the video title. By the way, if you want to play Descent 1 and 2, they're easy to find out there, and there's even a GZDoom-esque launcher that enables it to run on modern systems with improved graphics. Fantastic games, I highly recommend them.
The ad is ROCK SOLID proof of what this hobby's demographic. Keep them coming. I rather and want to hear more of what's relevant to me rather than algorithm spying.
You know, I had always wondered why, when playing Banjo-Kazooie, my brother would enter 2 cheats in the sand castle, leave, then go back in to enter two more cheats. Turns out, he must have experienced having his game file deleted, and found a workaround.
"Use more than two of my secret tricks, and I'll erase your game for kicks! The only exceptions are eggs and the key, since you can't use them to wallop me!"
Honorable mention: In the NES version of "Gradius," if you pause the game and input the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A; also known as the Contra Code) will give your ship all upgrades except for laser/double. However, in Gradius III for the SNES, if you pause the game and input the Konami code-it appears to give you all your upgrades except for laser/double (you see the option pods form and all the upgrade slots fade)-until you unpause and your ship explodes, complete with a full-screen flash and a special ship death sound. And this specific flash and sound ONLY Happens if you input the Konami code (at least once, me and a friend of mind pranked someone by saying the code will destroy everything on the screen. When he blew up, we said "everything. Including yourself.") (Of course, if you instead input up, up, down, down, L, R, L, R, B, A-that is, use the shoulder buttons instead of the left and right-it gives you every upgrade except for laser/double).
Gradius Galaxies (Gradius Advance in Europe) had a sneaky well-known code. Pausing the game and entering the Konami Code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A) would give your ship all of its powered-up weapons and shields......temporarily. A few seconds later, your ship would spontaneously self-destruct and you'd lose a life. If you altered the code by using the L and R shoulder buttons instead of Left and Right on the D-Pad (Up, Up, Down, Down, L, R, L, R, B, A), the code would work as intended. It was limited how often you could actually use the power-up code. The self-destruct code, however, could be used as often as you wanted.
Of all the magazines that was around back then that was a staple along with Nintendo Power. The staff all seemed like cool folks too reading into their antics throughout each issue.
@@coryfusting9294 I know, right! I remember, for some reason, an editor talking about international track and field for ps1. She was showing you how to make a cheat stick with a popsicle stick and a rubber band. Helped me get some high scores. 🤣
Another bonus: I read in PC Gamer once upon a time that typing IDDQD in Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure brings up a group photo of the dev team with the message "Hey, this isn't Doom!"
NGL as soon as Tomb Raider 2 came up i thought, its the one where she explodes isn't it? I was right, but I remember it doing that with the weapons cheat on the PC version, never tried it on playstation version though. Great video as always
Making the butler stay for a while in the meat locker, lolz (at least they're out of the way for a bit until the game gets a reset NPC flag triggered (entering some doors/entering the ATV course/getting the pistols/attempting to leave the manor via the front gate). The Konami Code is one of my favorite examples of codes that in most games either do nothing or make you regret memorizing it, lolz
If I remember right, Banjo-Kazooie left a loop-hole regarding their "Forbidden" cheat codes. There was a word you typed in first, then you entered the code backwards. You got the effects without the potential punishment. Although, I might be mistaken. If that's the case, then entering the backwards code let you use the codes taught by Cheato before he actually teaches them to you, so you could activate them all right off the bat.
Ahhh, Descent 2... the game that inspired my love of industrial music at the tender age of 8. I don't think I've ever played a better game, & I only had the 8-level demo! Over two decades later, & I still really fucking miss playing it. :'(
@@Larry the ones that really stick out were the tomb raider and banjo kazzoie, lol i know it's not easy but having jokes like these would be a great edition in certain fact hunts. Wanna support the channel but it won't let me use my carrier billing method 😔
One of my favorite things is finding some obscure video game content on YT with like a dozen views and seeing a comment there from Larry. You're omnipotent you are!
The last one can be pretty brutal for a kid. Didn't play banjo, but would have freaked out if I lost all the save data of link to the past after making it to the second world.
Damn right. Larry really needs to start putting music credits in his descriptions or something. How you going to give us such great content and then hold out on the awesome game music?
Soooooooooo, don’t program cheats into your game if you don’t want people using them. Banjo kazooi is the worst offender. Deleting your save file is simply evil.
While it doesn't screw you over, it's amusing that entering in Classic Doom cheats into Doom 3's console will result in it saying "Your memory serves you well" and not actually do anything.
Larry seems to have skimped out on or outright rushed the research a bit on this one. The first four of these are actually just the game punishing you for trying to use their predecessor's cheats. This is acknowledged... to a degree, but it's not the game deciding "eh, I'll just get back at you later" (unlike, say, the "Weapons Never Jam" cheat for Space Hulk Vengeance of the Blood Angels, which softlocks one mission because a trigger waits for an ally's weapon to jam, which it won't if the cheat is enabled). There is no separate "Health and Shield" in Descent, your shield IS your health. Trying GABBAGABBAHEY (or any cheat code from Descent 1) drops your shield AND WEAPON ENERGY down to 1. Descent II does still count trying to use the previous game's cheats as a cheat and freezes your score to 0 (with "CHEATER!" appearing when you would otherwise gain points). Heretic just punishes you for basically using any of the Doom cheat codes in more or less the same way that the later doom-engine game Hexen would punish you for trying codes from Heretic. Also, Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders was the updated version of Heretic with two additional episodes (which were made available as a free patch for the original retail release of Heretic). It was not the European-specific release of Heretic. It is to Heretic what Ultimate Doom was to Doom. Nothing more, nothing less. The last example is the only one that actually does straight-up screw you over with no way to recover from it, as it blocks saving altogether as well as wipes your save file... unless you're playing on the XBox platform, in which case your save data isn't affected (though you still get penalized with no saving and no leaderboard access)
Always worth mentioning, while not a 'code' exactly.. in Link's Awakening (new and old version I believe.. definitely the old one for sure) if you trick the shopkeeper into looking away from the door while you walk out with an item, you get it for free.. but if you ever go back to the shop again, he kills you, and changes your save file name to THIEF
Honorable mention: SimCopter on the PC had a code that allowed you to gamble with potentially having the game crash for a chance to get a player-specified amount of Simoleons appropriately named “Give me bucks or give me death!” I’m pretty sure it only crashed the game if you were unlucky at using it, but knowing how save games can easily get screwed over by improperly exiting out of a game, it’s reasonable to assume some folks had to start back at the beginning of the campaign mode due to their saves getting busted by what amounts to an unlucky roll of the dice. 😆
oh man ... used to stay up all night Descent 1&2 with my trusty old Logitech Wingman Extreme. After I was done playing I had to sometimes close my eyes and lie down for a few minutes because my brain would still think it needed to self correction my mental orientation . Loved it!
I loved it when you put in the Konami code in Gradius III SNES and the game said "Nice try" and then your ship exploded! Turns out you had to use L an R in place of left and right for it to work lol
I never played Tomb Raider 2, but that cheat code makes me want to play it just to activate Laura Croft's self-destruct sequence. I love making the main characters randomly explode for some reason, it ruins the mood of the game in the best way possible.
As a huge Ramones fan, I truly appreciate all the puns you included when talking about that Gabba Gabba hey cheat code. I can tell that you're definitely a real fan, since most of the song titles, you mentioned, were not just their radio hits 😎
I only knew about the "nude codes" from CVG magazine, which claimed you had to tap the buttons to the beat of a pop song. I discovered the explosion as a result of localisation: the different "This gives you all the items", "This skips the level" and so on were swapped around from UK to AU and one of them caused the self-destruct. Also, interesting that the creator of Crusader: No Remorse/No Regret did in fact have some regrets.
Actually there is one more way a lot of game companies screwed over players with cheat codes.... the Game Guides. In the 90's I was a 'ghost' manual writer for a technical writer who farmed out all the contracts they got from the game companies to his pack of ghosts. We would get from him a beta version of the game (before release), a format the company wanted the writing to be done in... and cheat codes. Cheat codes we were ORDERED from the game company to use when writing the game guides from playing the game. Result: You got told to do certain things and go in directions that if you didn't have cheats enabled, you could not possibly survive. The companies both saw game guides both as a way to make money and a way to punish players for using them to win the game. And did so with making sure the instructions for winning the game relied on cheats. People who dug up cheats wouldn't be buying the guides. Buying the guides made sure you would have to find the cheats to win. Punishing the player too lazy or inexperienced to dig up the cheat codes before buying the guides. This is also why game guides of the time got such a bad rep and well deservedly so. The final straw for me in this was when I was given a WW2 battle game. And told to "Play it Once and write exactly what you did with what units." Along with a cheat code that make all my units completely invulnerable to damage. I still tried to make the play reasonable and after one play through I knew would be utterly impossible to win. I restarted the game to find a strategy that might actually work for a player without the cheat... and got completely different set of units. From a selection of a few infantry, several tanks and three planes, the second game went to having no planes, couple artillery, two tanks and the rest was all infantry. Meaning it would take completely different strategy. So any thing I wrote, would be useless even if I took in downplaying the cheat cause every player would get a different selection of units to start with, every time they played. It literally was a game you could NOT have a game guide for.
Special thanks to Sorax Space for helping write and edit this week's episode! Bombard him with annoying "Larry sent me" comments here: th-cam.com/channels/eZuazW6czIWpg-bGbU93Pw.html
He clearly did a "decent" job XD
...Well, SOMEONE had to say it.
@@TheZotmeister For the record, I didn't edit those parts 😂
I miss "Games that Yanks Cant Wank" but I do love a good Fact Hunt
@@TheZotmeister not once, but twice.
Larry, what music did you used at the beginning? The bass is amazing!!!
My favorite "cheat code" like this is in Saints Row 2. Access your cellphone in the game and dial #16. Go to the cheat mode and enable. Now every single car in the game will attempt to run you ever when you're in a location they can get to.
One of my favorite things to do is enabling the cheat, as well as #15 (All NPCs are drunk) and #19 (All NPCs are trying to kill you and eachother), and seeing how long I can survive in the chaos I unleashed upon the world of SR2.
Great game. I tried 3 and was bored out of my skull. Haven't tested four or Gat Out of Hell yet.
@@oz_jones 4 is better than 3, but cars are useless and it's much less a Saint's Row game and more a B-List superhero game with Saint's Row style writing. And Gat Out of Hell is ...Saint's Row 4 with a worse map and worse story.
What about cheats in Saints Row 3 on the Switch?
@@TheAmazingSpiderPunk But dang is it fun to fly
SR2 is a special gem ahead of the time
i remember printing out the cheat codes on paper, put them in organizers and put them next to me when i played the games
I used to do that in grade school, after school I sneaked into the library/computer room, hid among the bookshelves and waited until everyone left the place, then spend hours finding cheats and codes and printed them. Good times 👌🏽
We had a PC in the living room that was always on. So I had a favorites folder for gamewinners dot com and gamefaqs.
I did this for fatalities from mk and kept them in my game case.
I still do.
@@DeathDontWait4NoOne I did that for every game. Just stick any info you want right in with the case.
"Decent 2"
Yo, Descent 2 was far more than decent :)
That's why it's called decent 2
If Decent is so decent, why was there so Decent 2
Hahaha!
it was the sequel to decent.
It was a shame that they never released the prequel, Indecent.
"HEY, they're using our sexually provocative character in a sexually provocative way. We better put a stop to that!"
- Core Design 1999
*claps slowly*
Remove "sexually provocative" and replace "character" with "video game" and you have online only games.
Ah yes. Create sexually provocative character that is also a badass woman, then get mad when people use her as a badass, sexually liberated character.
sonic team @ rouge the bat r34 be like
I think it was more a case of "HEY, they're using our sexually provocative character in a sexually provocative way AND WE AREN'T MAKING ANY MONEY FROM IT! We better put a stop to that!"
I'm glad you mentioned Banjo-Kazooie.
There's one additional annoyance about it though: the Stop-n-Swap codes also mess up your game in a sense. By entering those codes (which are not legitimate as the feature was originally meant to work in a completely different way) the SnS items will appear in specific rooms and alter the music of those rooms. The problem is that once you enter the code it can't be undone: the items are present in all save files even after erasing them and starting a new game and once you pick them up (if I remember correctly) they'll appear in the inventory of every save file forever and you're stuck with the alternate music in those rooms but without the item.
This is probably more of a glitch or an oversight than a punishment, but still it can be annoying since you'll never be able to start a legit brand new game ever again, you'll always start with the inventory full of SnS items and there will be random rooms with alternate music. That's not too big a deal if you already finished the game, but it can be messed up if you have like a sibling who wants to try the game for the first time or if you planned or selling the game or you're on the other end and you're buying a used game that has the SnS items unlocked.
The only way to undo the cheats and put the SnS items back away is to hack the game using a GameShark.
You know, I wonder why Rare didn't use the N64's Memory pack for it, once the new model of the N64 came out?
As mentioned I'm pretty sure pulling the battery would fix the issue, as it would wipe the RAM on the cartridge. Which is what the save data technology basically was back then. That's why very old cartridges have started to lose their game saves over the years.
@@TheEDFLegacy well yeah makes sense. So I guess you can either hack the game or manually tamper with the cartridge. Arguable which solution is better.
@Mitchell Adams the memory pak was RAM, the games needed it to even operate.
the expansion pak was more RAM, about 8mb compared to the N64's 4mb.
this is also why n64romhacks need 8mb RAM enabled, otherwise the system won't run.
RAM isn't save data, same as a PC.
The battery in the cart is what saves.
edited* mb not Gb
@@TemmiePlays You mean Megabyte not Gigabyte.
I remember the whole "Nude Raider" debacle, my older brother insisted that it was real but he couldn't show it to me because it only worked on specific PS1 models
But did you believe it?
@@lmno567 No, my brother was THAT kind of brother
@@TheComicRelief9001 Nobody mention that though not real there was a code you could use in Action Replay carts that would put a fake texture. it was shit and not a cheat but a mod of sorts. But still... It DID exist ... But only cause Code Masters wanted it to.
Nobody mentions this.
it was a HUGE thing. I remember several issues of my favorite gaming magazine printing alleged nude-codes and even edited promo pictures with her tits and minge out. Though they made it clear those weren't from the actual game. My teen self found those a more than acceptable compromise.
Seeing this video, I instantly recognised the stepping, turning and jumping 'code'. Although I dont recall Lara exploding when we tried it.
A slightly smaller controversy happened some years later when Giants: Citizen Kabuto tried to have a topless (female) main character straight out of the box. Society wasn't ready for that and the game was released without toplessness. Although a way to remove that fix was easy enough to find.
I spent an afternoon on the site with my dial up modem from Net zero
LMAO taking legal action because a character is being shown nude online, that sounds hilarious in 2020
Overwatch.
roflmao
@@forden9125 what did overwatch do?
@@notagreatname2715 started trying to take down the colossal pile of overwatch r34 before they realised they were fighting an uphill battle.
@@forden9125 wait...Overwatch is a game? So that's what the tag means.
I'm surprised that there was no mention of the Konami code. In Gradius III, it causes you to lose a life. I think it has similar negative effects in other games, as well.
I was really going this exact cheat would be mentioned. You can at least bypass the suiciding in Gradius 3 if you substitute the left and right presses on the dpad with the L and R shoulder buttons instead.
The one game I was expecting to see and it didn't get a nod.
Yeah, do it the regular way and kiss your life good bye. Switch things around with left and right with L and R respectively, and the code still functions as normal.
@@BahamutOmega Or my favourite Konami code trick, from the SNES Parodius (which, sadly, I have only heard about):
Enter b, b, x, x, a, y, a, y, up, left and start to not go boom.
Yes, there is a reason behind that sequence, but I kind of want to see if any clever people in these comments can figure it out.
thats entering the konami code with the controller turned 180, neat, never heard of that one before actually, the more you know ;)
If you entered it in the North American version of Super Monkey Ball Jr. (GBA), it would present the message "Super NICE TRY" and unlock nothing.
Honorable mention: Turok 2. Using cheats denies you the true ending.
EDIT: I said that you get the bad ending for cheating. This may not be true? At the very least, you don't get the true ending.
...That game had multiple endings? You're referring to the N64/PC game right?
@@LonelySpaceDetective Yep. Cheating would punish you at the last second.
@loliquatsch Ooh, I didn't realize that! I was just used to 16-bit games punishing you for playing on an easy difficulty. Then again, the N64 Castlevania punished really hard for that, too - it just plain ended the game about halfway through and told you to play on at least normal difficulty to get to the end.
@Damian 2000 I could have that wrong. If not the bad ending, then at least you don't get the true ending.
Holy moly! Its (the) Lotus Prince!
Ooh bet that last one caused some tear-soaked pillows back in the day LOL
Back when Rule34 still wasn't a fundamental law of the internet and companies still considered legal action against what is these days wildly considered unspoken parody mostly without a question.
And when Nintendo bought the rights for a Mario Porn series, just to nuke it out of legal existence.
@Bruce Wanker, The Incredible Sulk Super Mario's Hoes.
My deviant art account would be done for without it! XD
Didn't Blizzard try to get loads of Overwatch porn taken down in 2016?
@@lawrencein exceptions don't make the rules. I bet Disney has an entire legal team dedicated on trying to figure out how to get that delicious Goofy peen of the internets for good one day, somehow.
Can't wait for the "hellooo yooouuuu" to last two minutes
I want a 10 hour hello you edit.
0:56
Alot better than looking at Moleneux's ugly mug...
moment of silence for anyone who thought using HESOYAM during the auto scroller in Just Business in GTA SA would fix their bike
Chat Cheat run flashbacks
F
Fun fact, HESOYAM is actually supposed to be INEEDSOMEHELP
rip hugo one
And anything mission with vehicle health in general in SA
oh man, I hadn't thought about the nude code in ages. My friend was getting frustrated because every time she tried it, Lara would explode. At the time we figured that meant you did it wrong. Like we were making a mistake somewhere in the input and the punishment was the death.
Guess it turns out death was our only reward.
She.
>she
Girls play games too.
Girls find stuff like that funny too.
@@Dragnfly_mynamewastaken shameful lies
She..
I actually had my game deleted in Banjo-Kazooie as a kid. This video brought back all of those horrible memories
That must have been painful as a kid, still remember getting to tne last level of Wonderboy in Monster Land as a kid for the first time and accidentally pressing the reset button instead of pause when I went to go to the toilet.
Why would you take that risk???
@@Larry That's Horrible!😟😠
😠Why the fuck did they program that in the game?!
@@pferreira1983 Curiosity killed the cat
"We want to take down sites with nude pictures of our game heroine."
[Laughs in Rule 34]
The wealth of Ramones references in this video warms my heart - there's a fair few obscure cuts in there too I'm absolutely overjoyed
I used an infinite water cheat for Super Mario Sunshine with an action replay. Once you use the rocket like feature where fludd shoots you straight in the air you never ever come back down & have to reset the console.
I used an Action Replay for this cheat as well. If I remember correctly you DO eventually get down but it takes a long time, like at least 45 minutes or something crazy like that.
One of the first times playing Heretic, I remember putting in IDDQD and being baffled by what happened next. Definitely a perfect addition to this video.
"Hellloooo youuuu" would have been a successful code entry confirmation sound back in the day.
Some bright spark actually needs to do that.
Always ready for a new video from Guru Larry. You and AVGN are all we have left still producing quality content from ye olde internet
I’m surprised you didn’t mention how the DKC games particularly DKC3 had a cheat to make the game deliberately harder like removing checkpoint barrels.
Pretty sure these are meant for cheats that seem to do a good thing but do somthing bad instead, not ones that are meant for making the game harder
I'm so early that Descent 2 is still typo'd as "Decent 2"
...twice 4:04
I noticed both of those misspellings too...
404 Typo Not Found
amazing editor
@@MasterOfKnowledge. I just saw it. Idk how you missed.
@@TheGauges420 I was making a joke about the timestamp, I'm not blind -_-
Great video, Larry! Another good one is Gradius III for the Super Nintendo. If you enter the original Konami code while paused, it looks like it gives you full weapons, but the moment you unpause, your ship explodes. If you substitute the L and R buttons for the control pad left and right directions, the cheat code works like it should.
Gradius 3 also pulled this stunt. If you pause the game then enter the original Konami Code from the NES, your ship will explode after unpausing.
Replace "Left Right Left Right" with "L R L R" and you'd get a fully upgraded ship (one use per level)
Honorable Mention: Gradius III on the SNES, also known as "The Time When the Konami Code Killed You". To get the desired powerup effect, you have to use the L and R buttons instead.
I remember using the time skip cheat to beat The End in MGS3... Technically, the game didn't screw me over, but I did feel like utter garbage after seeing how I deprived an old man from one last shot of glory before he died...
That is Kojima’s sense of humor for you
2018: "Hello you!"
2020:"HEEEeeeeeeLLLllooooo YOOUUUUUuuuuu"
Getting like DeMuro's "Ttthhhiiiiissss"
Just set the playback speed to 2x or even better 0.25x🤣.
2022: "HeeeeeeeLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YooooooooooooUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"
Aaah...the late 90's, when companies thought they stop the internet from making nude images of their trademarked characters.
I think that punishing people for cheating is actually stupid, imo. If it's a single player game, you're not bothering anyone, and also, you bought the game, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want with it. If you're not bothering anyone, you should be able to do whatever you want. :3 my brother always only used cheats after he completed a game to get more replayability out of it.
Games were designed and built with a lot different sensibilities back them - a lot more ephasis was put on performance, score and achievement rather than just having fun in a sandbox-ish environment. I think it's a leftover from arcade games where you had the score and being difficult was a key component of their business model. So it kinda made sense at the time while that logic didn't die off yet. Kinda.
Same. I use a cheat code in minecraft for an unbreaking diamond sword.
And some cheats are needed, check out some Angry Video Game Nerd videos, some games were so badly made (be it control or ridiculous difficultly) you NEED a code just to get be able to play it properly.
You cheated not only the game, but yourself. You didn't grow. You didn't improve. You took a shortcut and gained nothing. You experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained. It's sad that you don't know the difference.
@@PrekiFromPoland Agame is for fun and relaxation, not philosophic reasons.
@@TheCastellan Sorry to intrude, but Preki's comment was referencing this absolutely legendary Tweet:
twitter.com/Fetusberry/status/1114364382606053378
God bless you for referencing The Ramones. Considering everybody has a Poison Heart, it's really touching to see.
That Tomb Raider 2 code is hilarious. Really miss classic Tomb Raider and og Lara Croft.
Glad I am not only one who doesn't think the reboot is Lara anymore.
Also I never knew that the exploding cheat was a nude raider reference. I always found it odd. You live and learn.
I would really like to have seen a sequel to The Angel of Darkness, a shame it was scrapped. I think Eidos were too impatient. AoD sold well and I believe Core learned from their mistakes.
@@snetmotnosrorb3946 Core spent far too long making AoD that Eidos didn't want to keep spending money on the company when it produced an expensive flop.
It would have been even more hilarious if the giblets were nude.
"We weren't lying!"
I finally got my Fact Hunt book in the mail and I must say I love it so far. As an OG gamer, it has tons of things in it even I didn't know at 46.
I think it was Tony Hawk Underground when it came out on PS2, a friend of mine at the time got it on release day and he immediately out in cheat codes, might have been Action Replay.
He had no intention of playing the game fairly so he just threw on every single cheat, one of which froze time limits. He got a fair bit through the game before he realised you can't win the competitions if the timer can't run out lol
That last pun was just... Genius.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic had a similar reaction when using Heretic's cheat codes in it as Heretic had for Doom's.
I was hoping this would get mentioned.
Earthworm Jim had a lot of cheat codes in the SNES version. But there was also a dangerous one.
If you paused the game and pressed Y, A, B, B, A, Y, A, B, it would take you to a screen saying "Nick Jones, have you already forgotten this is the old cheat code? Why not try again!"
It's kind of funny, until you realize it booted you back to the title screen, no matter how far into the game you were!
"The Jingle Bells (Evil Elves Remix)" of Crusader: No Regret is one of the defining computer musical moments of my teenage years.
15:53 "But this surely would have disgruntled players"
You cheeky bastard
You got me. I was thinking "Banjo Kazooie has to be here, right?" and you used no footage (or I completely missed it) all video long, thinking it didn't make it. Number 1 pops up and, yeah, you got me to pop.
IIRC, the Xploder cheat cartridge did have an incredibly long code that granted a nude Lara in Tomb Raider 3, but all it essentially did was overwrite the texture maps with a flat skin tone, blonde hair (for some reason), and hilarious square nips!
Ah, Heretic! Got that knowledge in a hard way! What a beautiful game!
Another Guru Larry classic. Who am I kidding, watching 5 minutes of a Guru Larry video is more entertaining than watching everything on Netflix.
17:05
Never heard of that game before. Seems decent.
I think it seems decent too.
But after the 2nd one came out, it was cubic but still decent.
One of my favorites.
@Default Person oh man. I looked up Decent ps4. It's not even the same game anymore. They have been promising a remake/console port and more recently a HD remaster since the middle of the orginal Nintendo Wii.
The new Decent was avalible for presale for 2 years on PS4. It's going to be multiplayer focused for some unknown reason. I don't think whoever is currently the IP holder has any idea what they are doing.
But at least this information pushed me to buy the first 2 descent games on GOG.
When you described Descent 2's cheat, I immediately thought of Heretic. Glad to see that one turn up too.
6:55 Boy, I miss old EGM! At least Seanbaby is back to posting regularly (him and Robert Brockway have a new Patreon site called 1900HOTDOG - which is updated daily with new articles by both, alternating days, and NO I'm not being paid for this endorsement though maybe I should seeing how highly I recommend it. Seriously, it's great), but man, EGM's entire editorial staff were superstars. All hilarious and interesting and worth keeping track of on their own merits. I follow a good deal of them on Twitter now.
Oh, almost forgot, excellent Fact Hunt, Larry!
@@MisterCasket Right on! Tell em I sent ya!
Is this another defective cheat code?
@@AnonymousFrogNG Yes. If you look up 1900HOTDOG it corrupts your whole life with awesomeness.
@@mikemayberry7121 No shit, who the fuck would pay someone else to promote a product on the comment section of a TH-cam video with 100,000 views?
If there's anything I learned from this video, it's Gruntilda's rather squicky surname. Thanks, Larry! Keep up the brilliant work!
Descent 2 was the first thing I thought of when I saw the video title.
By the way, if you want to play Descent 1 and 2, they're easy to find out there, and there's even a GZDoom-esque launcher that enables it to run on modern systems with improved graphics. Fantastic games, I highly recommend them.
The ad is ROCK SOLID proof of what this hobby's demographic. Keep them coming. I rather and want to hear more of what's relevant to me rather than algorithm spying.
After all those Ramones puns I want to be sedated.
Any more jokes like that and I'll give you a Blitzkrieg Bop.
Hey ho let's go...
Finally someone mentioned the Ramones puns they were Wonderful
Hello Larry, I always enjoy your fact hunt videos. Keep it up
You know, I had always wondered why, when playing Banjo-Kazooie, my brother would enter 2 cheats in the sand castle, leave, then go back in to enter two more cheats. Turns out, he must have experienced having his game file deleted, and found a workaround.
"Use more than two of my secret tricks, and I'll erase your game for kicks! The only exceptions are eggs and the key, since you can't use them to wallop me!"
The music in the beginning of the video is making me wanna groove.
Honorable mention:
In the NES version of "Gradius," if you pause the game and input the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A; also known as the Contra Code) will give your ship all upgrades except for laser/double.
However, in Gradius III for the SNES, if you pause the game and input the Konami code-it appears to give you all your upgrades except for laser/double (you see the option pods form and all the upgrade slots fade)-until you unpause and your ship explodes, complete with a full-screen flash and a special ship death sound. And this specific flash and sound ONLY Happens if you input the Konami code (at least once, me and a friend of mind pranked someone by saying the code will destroy everything on the screen. When he blew up, we said "everything. Including yourself.")
(Of course, if you instead input up, up, down, down, L, R, L, R, B, A-that is, use the shoulder buttons instead of the left and right-it gives you every upgrade except for laser/double).
Back then everyone was looking for the Lara Croft nude cheat... XD
Indeed. Even though she barely looked humanoid. We had different standards back then.
Them polygonal titties had me feeling funny
Gradius Galaxies (Gradius Advance in Europe) had a sneaky well-known code. Pausing the game and entering the Konami Code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A) would give your ship all of its powered-up weapons and shields......temporarily. A few seconds later, your ship would spontaneously self-destruct and you'd lose a life.
If you altered the code by using the L and R shoulder buttons instead of Left and Right on the D-Pad (Up, Up, Down, Down, L, R, L, R, B, A), the code would work as intended. It was limited how often you could actually use the power-up code. The self-destruct code, however, could be used as often as you wanted.
This time we also take a look again at wonderful wordplay, liberal literacy and alluding allegories.
Are you Larry’s ghost writer
@@kyles.8332 No. :D
If I was Larry, I'd politely ask to steal that.
That ryhme at the end was brilliant
Tips & Tricks was a magazine here in the is back in the 90's and some of 00's. I have almost every edition. Miss that mag.
Of all the magazines that was around back then that was a staple along with Nintendo Power. The staff all seemed like cool folks too reading into their antics throughout each issue.
@@coryfusting9294 I know, right! I remember, for some reason, an editor talking about international track and field for ps1. She was showing you how to make a cheat stick with a popsicle stick and a rubber band. Helped me get some high scores. 🤣
Their fighting game guides were great. I remember picking up an issue with a Bloody Roar guide back then.
@@atomysktrue loved that one. They did one for mk4 that was amazing. It was even better than the Brady guide book.
God bless Tips & Tricks. Still use some of their guides today when playing old games.
Another bonus: I read in PC Gamer once upon a time that typing IDDQD in Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure brings up a group photo of the dev team with the message "Hey, this isn't Doom!"
NGL as soon as Tomb Raider 2 came up i thought, its the one where she explodes isn't it? I was right, but I remember it doing that with the weapons cheat on the PC version, never tried it on playstation version though. Great video as always
It's indeed the weapons chear of TR2 that makes Lara explode in TR2, and so on with TR3 (RR2's cheat makes her asplode).
The weapons cheat in TR2 required holding a flare, otherwise you exploded. Some of the cheat sites may have forgotten to mention that part.
Making the butler stay for a while in the meat locker, lolz (at least they're out of the way for a bit until the game gets a reset NPC flag triggered (entering some doors/entering the ATV course/getting the pistols/attempting to leave the manor via the front gate). The Konami Code is one of my favorite examples of codes that in most games either do nothing or make you regret memorizing it, lolz
"Decent"? I'm having LGR flashbacks.
If I remember right, Banjo-Kazooie left a loop-hole regarding their "Forbidden" cheat codes. There was a word you typed in first, then you entered the code backwards. You got the effects without the potential punishment.
Although, I might be mistaken. If that's the case, then entering the backwards code let you use the codes taught by Cheato before he actually teaches them to you, so you could activate them all right off the bat.
You're thinking of Banjo-Tooie.
Ahhh, Descent 2... the game that inspired my love of industrial music at the tender age of 8. I don't think I've ever played a better game, & I only had the 8-level demo!
Over two decades later, & I still really fucking miss playing it. :'(
I'll get me coat is one of my favorite catch phrases
"Decent 2" is obviously a tribute to LGR, guys.
Oh my god I'm an idiot
Please enlighten me.
13:00 Oh I'm so glad you picked this one. Who doesn't love all the Stop N Swop controversy those Sandcastle Codes gave us on top of this.
Omg a hilarious fact hunt loved the jokes that were made had my stomach hurting from laughing tara for now Larry until we meet again
lol, no worries matey :) any particular faves?
@@Larry the ones that really stick out were the tomb raider and banjo kazzoie, lol i know it's not easy but having jokes like these would be a great edition in certain fact hunts. Wanna support the channel but it won't let me use my carrier billing method 😔
One of my favorite things is finding some obscure video game content on YT with like a dozen views and seeing a comment there from Larry. You're omnipotent you are!
My procrastinating is debilitating, probably have twice as many videos on here if I didn't. :D
"After exploding on the scene, Lara exploded on your screen :)"
I love it
And plenty of sad teenage boys exploded on magazines (whenever they featured a photo of Lara Croft).
@@BobMonkeypimp Mostly copies of The Face Magazine.
The last one can be pretty brutal for a kid. Didn't play banjo, but would have freaked out if I lost all the save data of link to the past after making it to the second world.
I NEED the name of that intro song
Damn right. Larry really needs to start putting music credits in his descriptions or something. How you going to give us such great content and then hold out on the awesome game music?
It very distinctly reminds me of Thousand Knives by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
@_ Pobert-Eii _ Good looking out!
I was wondering why Christmas music was playing during one of the segments. I’m glad I waited before commenting lmao
Soooooooooo, don’t program cheats into your game if you don’t want people using them. Banjo kazooi is the worst offender. Deleting your save file is simply evil.
Never stop Larry I'm buzzing everytime you upload, true legend
What's that song at the beginning of the video? That tune is pretty fly.
Also wondering
@_ Pobert-Eii _ Thanks :)
@@sodiumoverdrive1507 This version has better audio - th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
Great video as always keep up the brilliant content
In fan made "doom 2d" (which is a pretty fun shooter platformer in and of itself) typing "iddqd" would also kill you on the spot
iddqd is a unity default cheat code, lol. unity has built in cheats for debug purposes
It's been many years but iirc using IDDQD in quake kills you.
While it doesn't screw you over, it's amusing that entering in Classic Doom cheats into Doom 3's console will result in it saying "Your memory serves you well" and not actually do anything.
Larry seems to have skimped out on or outright rushed the research a bit on this one.
The first four of these are actually just the game punishing you for trying to use their predecessor's cheats. This is acknowledged... to a degree, but it's not the game deciding "eh, I'll just get back at you later" (unlike, say, the "Weapons Never Jam" cheat for Space Hulk Vengeance of the Blood Angels, which softlocks one mission because a trigger waits for an ally's weapon to jam, which it won't if the cheat is enabled).
There is no separate "Health and Shield" in Descent, your shield IS your health. Trying GABBAGABBAHEY (or any cheat code from Descent 1) drops your shield AND WEAPON ENERGY down to 1. Descent II does still count trying to use the previous game's cheats as a cheat and freezes your score to 0 (with "CHEATER!" appearing when you would otherwise gain points).
Heretic just punishes you for basically using any of the Doom cheat codes in more or less the same way that the later doom-engine game Hexen would punish you for trying codes from Heretic.
Also, Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders was the updated version of Heretic with two additional episodes (which were made available as a free patch for the original retail release of Heretic). It was not the European-specific release of Heretic. It is to Heretic what Ultimate Doom was to Doom. Nothing more, nothing less.
The last example is the only one that actually does straight-up screw you over with no way to recover from it, as it blocks saving altogether as well as wipes your save file... unless you're playing on the XBox platform, in which case your save data isn't affected (though you still get penalized with no saving and no leaderboard access)
thats....thats a lot of 'tism.
Make sure mom gives you extra tendies tonight
I mean, he never said this was a list of "eh, I'll get back at you later" codes.
Now that was an awesome comment.
When I walk outside to grill, I always go "Hellooooo youuuuuu" just like Larry. I'm living like Larry!
The Descent 2 code was the first thing I thought of when I clicked the video.
I knew of the Descent 2 code. A few gamers used it for an extreme mode. Plus from what I've heard it also prevented any picking up of shield refills.
Cheat codes are gone but at least we still have trainers.
I have Doc Martens.
I use trainers for apex legends it makes it very easy to win matches
@@8bitorgy Sandals give you extra energy.
As long as they don't disable achievements.
@@pferreira1983 Who the hell cares about achievements?
Always worth mentioning, while not a 'code' exactly.. in Link's Awakening (new and old version I believe.. definitely the old one for sure) if you trick the shopkeeper into looking away from the door while you walk out with an item, you get it for free.. but if you ever go back to the shop again, he kills you, and changes your save file name to THIEF
Did you watch the video before commenting?
Larry for Prime Minister 🇬🇧🇬🇧
Ocheeva He’s got my vote.
Honorable mention: SimCopter on the PC had a code that allowed you to gamble with potentially having the game crash for a chance to get a player-specified amount of Simoleons appropriately named “Give me bucks or give me death!”
I’m pretty sure it only crashed the game if you were unlucky at using it, but knowing how save games can easily get screwed over by improperly exiting out of a game, it’s reasonable to assume some folks had to start back at the beginning of the campaign mode due to their saves getting busted by what amounts to an unlucky roll of the dice. 😆
8:02 Yeah, that’s definitely what a lot of perverts deserve to have happen to them if they want someone to be naked
😠Riiiiight, You know you were one of those perverts too.😆
oh man ... used to stay up all night Descent 1&2 with my trusty old Logitech Wingman Extreme. After I was done playing I had to sometimes close my eyes and lie down for a few minutes because my brain would still think it needed to self correction my mental orientation . Loved it!
7:23
Yes, posted on a 'Google forum' over 4 months before Google was founded as a company. *Makes sense to me.*
Might be one of those "intentional errors" Larry claimed to slip into these videos a while back. Same with spelling Descent as Decent...
I loved it when you put in the Konami code in Gradius III SNES and the game said "Nice try" and then your ship exploded! Turns out you had to use L an R in place of left and right for it to work lol
My ex-wife used a cheat code on me but it glitched her body to the bottom of the ocean.
N I C E
Yes, murder.
I shouldn't have, but I loved that comment.
She did a 'Dizzy'?
I never played Tomb Raider 2, but that cheat code makes me want to play it just to activate Laura Croft's self-destruct sequence. I love making the main characters randomly explode for some reason, it ruins the mood of the game in the best way possible.
If you do the weapon cheat code wrong, it has the same effect.
As a huge Ramones fan, I truly appreciate all the puns you included when talking about that Gabba Gabba hey cheat code. I can tell that you're definitely a real fan, since most of the song titles, you mentioned, were not just their radio hits 😎
I only knew about the "nude codes" from CVG magazine, which claimed you had to tap the buttons to the beat of a pop song. I discovered the explosion as a result of localisation: the different "This gives you all the items", "This skips the level" and so on were swapped around from UK to AU and one of them caused the self-destruct.
Also, interesting that the creator of Crusader: No Remorse/No Regret did in fact have some regrets.
I guess cheaters never win! Sometimes...
Actually there is one more way a lot of game companies screwed over players with cheat codes.... the Game Guides. In the 90's I was a 'ghost' manual writer for a technical writer who farmed out all the contracts they got from the game companies to his pack of ghosts. We would get from him a beta version of the game (before release), a format the company wanted the writing to be done in... and cheat codes. Cheat codes we were ORDERED from the game company to use when writing the game guides from playing the game. Result: You got told to do certain things and go in directions that if you didn't have cheats enabled, you could not possibly survive. The companies both saw game guides both as a way to make money and a way to punish players for using them to win the game. And did so with making sure the instructions for winning the game relied on cheats. People who dug up cheats wouldn't be buying the guides. Buying the guides made sure you would have to find the cheats to win. Punishing the player too lazy or inexperienced to dig up the cheat codes before buying the guides. This is also why game guides of the time got such a bad rep and well deservedly so. The final straw for me in this was when I was given a WW2 battle game. And told to "Play it Once and write exactly what you did with what units." Along with a cheat code that make all my units completely invulnerable to damage. I still tried to make the play reasonable and after one play through I knew would be utterly impossible to win. I restarted the game to find a strategy that might actually work for a player without the cheat... and got completely different set of units. From a selection of a few infantry, several tanks and three planes, the second game went to having no planes, couple artillery, two tanks and the rest was all infantry. Meaning it would take completely different strategy. So any thing I wrote, would be useless even if I took in downplaying the cheat cause every player would get a different selection of units to start with, every time they played. It literally was a game you could NOT have a game guide for.