cheat in local games only because I only have an hour or so of game time and I just want to have an enjoyable experience and not a challenge.

sigh I'm old, but I last "cheated" with a Gameshark, and I used to beat games in their entirety before replaying with mods. But back then, it was only single player stuff. (R.I.P. Dreamcast!)

I also was thrown into a lobby once in CoD 4 MW where if you jumped you'd hit the ceiling of the map, and if you threw a grenade, it'd stick to you. That lobby apparently was a rank-hack lobby so I was rank 55, 15th prestige at the end. It was annoying because I felt it torched all my progress and ruined the climb and challenge for me.

Growing up on single player RPGs in the 90s...I'd play those games until they got boring, then entertain myself deciphering and editing save files with a hex editor. Not as fun once they started using plain text, or encryption. Not as fun once the internet let me just download someone else's editor, but godlike powers would still add a few hours of fun, tromping around the map absolutely squishing formidable enemies.

Very rarely. Pretty much the only recent instance I can think of is spawning some items for me and others on my own Minecraft server. Other than that, I don't really bother with cheating and prefer playing games how they were designed. Back in the day, it was pretty fun spawning cars in Age of Empires though.

Generally no, multiplayer hate it with a passion(you suck if you do), single player only if dying to bugs and it's clearly a bug. Like being launched of a motorcycle through 3 concrete buildings onto landmines in 7 Days to Die. (thanks game/s)

Sometimes it can be fun to mess around. In Crysis 1 I used cheats to make myself super strong, I would punch people and they would go flying, it was great.

But then I increased the strength higher and when I punched someone I would die for some reason. I realized if I backed away while punching I would survive. Turns out the physics of the game, with the enemy ragdolling, actually calculated that the enemy's legs would swing up and kick me and that's what was killing me.

Usually no, but it depends on the game. If there are a lot of unlocks to grind and I just want to play the damn game, I may just hit Unlock All. Or if I've beaten the game normally and cheat let me explore funny sandbox things, I'll fiddle with those.

That's increasingly rare with modern games anyway though.

100%, but it’s really just to cut down on grinding JRPGs stuff.

Like adding 999 Rare Candies to a Pokemon game.

Or maxing out Materia for FF7 Remake.

I will also occasionally use a save editor, for example. To unlock a late game companion in Mass Effect 2, because they’re one of the most interesting squad mates in the game and you only get them for about 3-5 hours in most playthroughs. Plus they have a bunch of dialogue in the game naturally, and seemingly were meant to be unlocked earlier.

It’s

Only in online multiplayer games. /s

I grew up with 8 and 16-bit games as well. When playing single player games seriously to have fun or beat, or complete them, then cheats aren't allowed. But just like Romhacks and Mods, cheats are another way to add replayability or more fun to the games I already know.

We also have to make the distinction what type of cheat it is. In example cheats to make the game easier, or to jump to different levels to train specific parts, or is it to change graphical appearance or add variety to gameplay with new weapons. Some games even expose additional features and options in "cheat" menus, such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark as examples. Or allow to play with boss characters in fighting games, or add blood code in Mortal Kombat. Other games would have these options in a normal menu or in today's day and age, these are DLCs! So "cheats" are not always "cheating" to me.

Do I cheat? Sometimes in old retro games.

Almost never. The one exception I can think of is Environmental Station Alpha. I was expecting moderate difficulty and got wildly inconsistent, boringly easy sometimes, brutally insane at others instead. 'Cheating' was just a matter of changing a number in a text file that gave me like 4X the usual amount of health. Great game despite the inconsistent difficulty.

If guides are considered cheating, then yeah, sometimes I'll look something up if it's taking me forever to figure it out.

Fun fact, I had a hard time beating La Mulana with a guide. What an insane game.

Not sure if its cheating but, using turbo mode on a controller.

idchoppers

I never used cheat codes to beat the game. I always beat the game without them.

Cheat codes, for me, were about playing with the game without needing to actually play the game. Why not blow through Doom with the BFG? Why not build my dream house in The Sims without needing to budget?

I’ll do it for Soulslike games to spawn late game weapons in the beginning so I can do an entire run with that weapon as opposed to only getting it 1/2 - 3/4 of the way through the game.

Yeah, once I understand a mechanic and realize the rest is just grinding I tend to skip the repetitive grinding.

Sometimes cheating can lead to an interesting new way to play a game.

Diablo 2's Open Battle.net was an interesting place that really was a kind of wild west that showcased some of the silliest items people could make.

After joining a few random lobbies, I remember being given a charm that did something like adding 99 to all skills, as well as a ton of movement speed, experience gain, and resistances.

That got me into using the D2 Hero Editor and the hacked character dueling scene which had its own meta of transforming your character into the Amazon Valkyrie skill and using a shield to Paladin Smite people to death.

Yeah, but not the way you'd think. I've used cheats to go back and re-fight bosses and such in silksong or to make the funny hahas in Skyrim (thomas the tank engine dragons are funny).

But not really for anything meaningful that would affect progression of the game.

I've been gaming since the early 90s and I've used cheats over the years. I don't take games too seriously (for the most part).

Around the Xbox 360 era I stopped cheating because of the achievement systems reduced built-in cheats for many games. That same time I also played a lot of multiplayer with friends so I didn't cheat in those types of games (Halo 3 multiplayer was so much fun).

But I also remember grinding COD4 on veteran difficulty or grinding The Last of Us for that max difficulty backpack. Until your post today I forgot I even did all those things and none of it even matters today.

These days I don't take games too seriously anymore. I only play solo now so I play games on easy mode and I resort to cheats/trainers/mods if I need to. I've gotten to that place in my life where gaming is less important than other things and I simply don't have the time to play a game all day long.

Some memorable ones from back in the day:

• IDDQD
• F2+F3+F6
• NO TALENT
• DIFFICULTY_SCALE = 0.00

I have a backlog that I refuse to leave untouched. And sometimes the games take too long, not to cheat. So I do like to speed things up so this backlog actually shrinks.

When I feel like it, yes.

I'm not a gamer nor have I ever been but it would seem that you'd stop playing the game if it frustrates you enough to cheat, that can't be fun.

In single player games, if it's more fun for me, then yes.

I played the shit out of Mario Odyssey but the final stage is extremely frustrating so I turned on assist mode to finish the course.

In Tears of the Kingdom I'm riding a hoverbike all day long and cheesing the shrines.

In Factorio, I turn off all enemies because I just want a cozy factory game without the added stress of managing defenses.

Whether or not you'd call these cheating, they're examples of things I'll do. I play video games primarily for fun and relaxation, not to challenge myself. If I'm challenged in a way that's fun and engaging, I'm for it, but it's not my main concern.

but there just comes a point where you ask yourself if it is fun dying a hundred times at some part of a game. I don’t think so, personally.

Honestly depends on how the game handles it and what your expectations going into it are. When it makes you go through a long death animation and a long walk back to just try again? Perhaps not. Otoh, I've possibly died 10,000's of times in a single level that I never beat after like 60 hours and I still had fun with it. So many of the deaths happened within seconds of each other though.

Anyways, cheats and glitches can be fun. I had action replays growing up and some cheats are fun or allow you to focus on the things you care to spend time doing. Like using cheats to get extra rings to buy stuff for your chaos or the glitch to reuse animals/chaos drives because you don't want to spend forever in levels when you could be hanging out in a chao garden more.

Skill issue

No, cheating is pathetic and pointless and takes away the fun of a challenge