Almost every player has found a little secret inside the video game they are playing. A reference to a previous release of the same saga, a combination of keys that reveals a little hidden video game, a funny joke written on the walls . . . Those are examples of what is normally called an easter egg (term that was born as a reference to the egg hunt during Easter) which is anything that developers intentionally hide from the normal path of the player. Cheat codes are a subset of easter eggs that are normally activated by entering some kind of password or buttons combination in a particular part of the game. A a result, a new feature or uncommon behavior is unblocked and revealed. The question is why developers have used them since the first video games were published and why do they keep including these back doors?

The Konami (Contra) Code. One of the most famous cheat codes is also one of the first. Founded in 1995, GameFAQs has over 40,000 video game FAQs, Guides and Walkthroughs, over 250,000 cheat codes, and over 100,000 reviews, all submitted by our users to help you. Buying guide for best video game consoles. Video game consoles have come a long way since the days of the original Atari — in addition to playing games from your favorite franchises, they can stream movies, play Blu-rays, and in some cases, they even support virtual reality.

Cheating is Fun!

Although sometimes cheating makes things too easy due to the wider range of possibilities: You could be working hard to earn money day by day and suddenly make one million dollars by finding the right trick online. Or you could be stuck in the same level for months and find a sequence that allows you to jump directly to the next level. If you are a game developer, be careful with including cheat codes that are shortcuts. Some players will love these simplifications, but others will prefer the harder path because they find it more rewarding.

Going Through the Back Door

For example, if you are designing the final level of your platform video game but you just want to test the mechanics of the final boss it may be a little tedious to go through the level every time. Just include a cheat code and go directly to the end!

Cheat codes have been recurrent throughout video game’s history mainly because of those two reasons. Here are 5 video games examples of games that used cheats perfectly.

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of those few video games that is a synonymous of nostalgia (especially for people my age). Its debug mode is one good example of a cheat code added by developers to explore the extreme conditions of the game engine and its physics. The cool thing about this cheat is that allows the player to move, duplicate, and delete any kind of entity inside the game and then play it. Almost like a Sonic level editor inside the original game.

How to Activate?

It depends on the Sonic game and the release, but all games from the original Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis 1991) to the last re-releases for mobile platforms have contained this cheat.

In the first Sonic game from 1991 players could access debug mode by pressing:

• Up, C, Down, C, Left, C, Right, C, A + Start

In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, debug mode even allows to modify the direction of the gravity so Sonic and enemies fall upside down.

More Sonic codes.

Doom is considered to be the initial first-person shooter videogame when it was launched in 1993 and also one of the firsts to use cheat-codes extensively in order to make things easier for newbie players.

How to Activate?

For PC version, press CTRL + Alt + ~, enter one of the following and press Enter:

• “iddqd”

This code activates “God Mode”. It has been included all over the different versions of the game. It gives the player 100% health and makes him not damageable unless the Nightmare difficulty is set.

• “idspispopd”

Players can wall through walls, enemies, and other elements in the level without effect

• “idmypos”

It displays the character’s coordinates and direction in hexadecimal (Only to be interpreted by the most expert computer engineers)

More Doom codes

All GTA games can be played in two ways: by accomplishing mission after mission or by going around the vast open universe the game provides. I personally prefer the last option and it gets even better thanks to the imagination of the Rockstar people who included tons of cheat codes that change the weather, make an uncommon vehicle appear, change the traffic’s behavior, modify main character clothes, etc..

How to Activate?

From the cheat-codes list that can be easily consulted on-line for the GTA Sant Andreas (PC version) I would select as favorites:

• Type “ROCKETMAN” while playing

Spawn a jetpack. It is not as spectacular as a plane, but you can fly and land almost anywhere.

• Type “KANGAROO”

This will make CJ (your main character) jump three times higher. Get a jetpack with the previous code to get to the tallest skyscraper and jump from roof to roof. Be careful, though, since fall damage still applies!

• Type “AEZAKMI”

Basically diplomatic immunity: complete freedom to do anything without being chased by the police.

• Type “BSXSGGC”

Cars will explode when you hit them with your car. Enjoy the destruction.

• Type “CHITTYCHITTYBANGBANG”

You will be only to fly with your car as if it were a plane. If you are being chased by the police they will fly with you if going too fast.

More GTA San Andreas codes

The premise of this video game is simple: you have to live a life through your Sims, and as in real life, it is hard to save money every month. That is why the cheat codes to earn money easily became the most popular ones. It helped the players that preferred building big and fully equipped houses develop their imagination without spending too much time on the “playable” part.

How to Activate?

• Control + Shift + C + typing “klapaucius” (unpatched version)
• Control + Shift + C + typing “rosebud” (patched version)

This code gives one thousand simoleons (game’s fictitious currency). For each “!;” you add after the code, an extra 1,000 will magically appear in your family’s account.

The Sims contains an extensive list of cheat codes such as the “move_objects on” that people used to delete the shower while the Sims were having a shower in order to see them naked. It is funny how this and removing the ladder from the swimming pool are the things we enjoyed the most. People are strange.

More Sims codes

This is hands down the most famous of all cheat codes. Perhaps because it is has appeared in more than 100 games made by Konami, unlocking a different feature in each one of them. It was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto who was developing the video game Gradius back in 1985. He found the game too hard to test so he included the sequence to achieve all bonuses at once. He forgot to delete the code and the game was launched with it and included in future video games where its popularity grew to overcome the most difficult levels.

This code is so famous that is has even crossed into the world wide web. Entering the combination in Google Hangouts will change conversation’s background to a mountainside with trees and blue skies. There is a webpage that contains a list of other webpages that reveal a secret when entering the Konami Code (of course you can only access the list by entering the Konami sequence). It has even appeared in the movie Wreck-it Ralph and in one episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For decades, web developers have been hiding the Konami Code in their web sites. It never hurts to try out the code on your favorite websites and see if anything happens!

How to Activate?

You should know it by now, but just in case:

• Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start

Big Head Mode, Low Gravity, Infinite Ammo, you name it. Do you also have a cheat code you can not play without?

A console is a command line interface where the personal computer game's settings and variables can be edited while the game is running. Consoles also usually display a log of warnings, errors, and other messages produced during the program's execution. Typically it can be toggled on or off and appears over the normal game view.

The console is normally accessed by pressing the backtick key ` (frequently also called the ~ key; normally located below the ESC key) on QWERTY keyboards or the ² on AZERTY keyboards, and is usually hidden by default. In most cases it cannot be accessed unless enabled by either specifying a command line argument when launching the game or by changing one of the game's configuration files.

History[edit]

A classic console is a box that scrolls down from the top of the screen. This style was made popular with Quake (1996). There are other forms of console:

Best History Games Pc

• Quake III Arena has one or two consoles, depending on the platform the game was released for. The first is the internal console, which exists on all platforms. The second is an external console, created via the Windows API. The console printing function directs to both, likewise, both consoles can also have text input to them. The external console is used for dedicated servers and to log startup of the engine. Finally, the external console is also used to show errors and display debugging output should the game crash.
• Dark Engine's console shows output up to 4 lines in length and is accessed by pressing 3 particular keys at the same time.
• Lithtech's console has no output and is used mainly for entering cheat codes.
• ARK: Survival Evolved is an open world action and adventure survival video game is by Studio Wildcard. A lot of ARK commands will require the ‘Enable Cheats‘ command to be used before going further, as well as the Enable Cheats for Player command. It is an absolute must to use this before using to any other command.
• A single-line variant can be seen in games from The Sims series, to which can be invoked using Ctrl+Shift+C. While mainly used for cheats, it can also be used for purposes similar to most developer console implementations.
• On the Microsoft Windows version of Grand Theft Auto V, the console appears as a floating text box in the middle of the screen, and is generally used to enter cheat codes or spawn items.^[1]
• The Source engine's console is a window all by itself.

Best Video Games In History

Example commands[edit]

• sv_cheats 1: Used to activate cheats in Quake engine or Source engine based games.^[2]
• god: Used to toggle God mode.
  • buddha: Similar to god mode in Source games, where the player can take damage down to a health of 1 but not die.
• noclip or ghost: Used to toggle Noclip mode.
• fly: Similar to Noclip mode, the player is only constrained to the walls and boundaries of the map.
• impulse 101: Gives the player full health, full ammo, and all weapons in Source Engine based games. Similar to 'giveall'. ^[3]
• giveall or give all Gives every item in the game.
• addbots (number): When AI bots are available, this will add a number of bots equal to the number inputted by the player.
• allammo: Gives the player maximum ammo.
• kill or suicide: Causes the player to die, used when a player gets stuck during a game.
  • explode: In Source games, this will cause the player to explode.
    • Left 4 Dead being a notable exception, where the explode command was used to trigger the Boomer's on-death attack prematurely.
• give or summon: When used with the name of an entity, spawns that entity at the players location.
• quit: Quits the game immediately

Cheat Codes Video Games

References[edit]

1. ^'GTA 5 PC Cheats Guide – Console Commands'. VideoGamer.com. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
2. ^https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Console_Command_List
3. ^https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Impulse