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[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Pretty cool throwback article from Esquire - Life and Death of the video game cheat code. I enjoyed this author's style of writing and more in the link.

If you gamed in the '90s and early '00s, you know what I'm talking about. Press a comically long series of buttons into the main screen of a game like NBA Jam Tournament Edition and Bill Clinton would suddenly appear as a playable character. If you were serious about it, you'd buy a literal book of codes, so that any game, any ridiculous feature, would be there at your heart's desire. Famed Marvel heroes skateboarding? Sure. Invincibility? Why not! Playable fighting race cars? You know it. Somewhere along the way, cheat codes fell by the wayside to make way for DLC and in-game currencies. Now, consider yours truly here to call on everyone, every game—even you, Fortnite—to bring them back.

Hell yes, before the internet and YT a gamer had to discover codes through word of mouth or a magazine or buy a cheat book. Game Shark and the like were all the rage too. I suppose this was long before online multiplayer where cheat codes would be pretty bat shit insane to have exploited. That said, one does wonder if devs had a clean mode and a cheat mode where players could have at it?...

What was your favourite go to cheat code? Mine was Street Fighter II Turbo increased speed to 10.

Spoiler

I hated DOOM's God Mode cheat, ruined the game, as did no clipping.

 

[Aaron Olive]

GTA Vice City: RIGHT, R2, CIRCLE, R1, L2, SQUARE, R1, R2.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

GTA Vice City: RIGHT, R2, CIRCLE, R1, L2, SQUARE, R1, R2.

Classic

 

[jimmyd]

Sonic 2 - 19 65 9 17 4 1 2 6