Cheating in the XBox 360

Mekt-Hakkikt

Mpanty's bane
A question to which I fear I already know the answer but I have to ask anyway.

Are there no cheat codes for the console games anymore? I remember with the first consoles, there always were cheat codes (AABBSelectB or something like that) but it seems to have disappeared from the new consoles.

I admit, there are games I never play seriously: I only have them to have some fun, mostly with friends, so I am annoyed when these games feature unlockable contents I can only access by repeatedly playing the game over and over again, even though I paid money for the full game.

This mostly applies to fighting and racing games. I only play fighting games against my friends (not online) and when I do, I want to have access to all characters, costumes and arenas, so that we have the most variety.
I have DoA 4 and I have very little intention to perform every move of every character in the training area as well to unlock every costume for every character (that means beating the game sometimes 6 or 7 times with a single character) - it just is not fun to do it all. And that means that I'll never be able to unlock the last unlockable character because to unlock him, I have to unlock everything else first.

Another example is PGR 3: I only play against friends on split screen and don't have access to all cars or tracks. I would have to play the single player "campaign" to collect money or kudos or something like that (I am not even sure) to get it all.
When I play alone, I only want a quick race but I want all the variety for which I paid and not be limited to the starting cars/tracks only because I have neither time nor willingness to play all the tedious single player challenges.

I can guess that cheat codes are removed because of the online gaming and achievements. But I couldn't care less if my achievements were deleted, my gamerscore set to -10,000 or my gamertag read CHEATER in pink because I used a cheat.

So, am I too blind/stupid to find the correct sites with cheat codes to unlock the unlockable contents in games like DoA 4, PGR 3 etc... or are they really gone?

Edit: Sorry, it should read "Cheating on the XBox 360". Though maybe that's not even better.
 
Yeah, games don't have codes like that very often these days. You're not losing anything you paid for, because codes weren't included with games to begin with (or else they'd just be game options). Even if cheats were just limited to single player, it would disrupt most games' achievements and pretty much ruin the achievement system.

Right now I'm working on unlocking stuff in Ghost Squad. Sure, it'd be convenient if I could just put in some code and get everything. I would have just done that, and it would have ruined the game for me. Instead, I've spent like 15 hours working to get the panda bear costume, and it will be quite an accomplishment when I do. Before this post, I actually never even thought about how cheat codes disappeared, but I've gotten a lot more for my money since they did.

Unfortunately, it looks like you'll just have to play the games you buy from now on.
 
My thoughts on cheats was it was always a bit of a waste. Why buy a game you dont want to really play? I used the goofy cheats that change game mechanics and stuff, but only after I was finished, like the Skulls in Halo 3. That's actually an example of how cheats can be used in an Online world, by making the cheats part of the games Achievements. But other than that the cheat is starting to go away.
 
I have used cheats in the past on certain games and found them helpful. Cheats like the Konami code from the original NES (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, b, a, select start). I don't think I could have gone through Contra without that code.

There are games I like but that I can't get through a certain point for whatever reason. Maybe I can't beat a certain boss, or get through a section in a given amount of time. In those cases I'd still like to be able to continue and enjoy the game rather than get frustrated and mad dying over and over again.

Newer games don't seem to have them, and sometimes I wish they would, I wish they'd have an invincibility I could turn on for a certain part of the game, or a level skip to move ahead to the next stage I am stuck. I wouldn't care if these would only work in single player games, or two player co-op on the same console, that is what I would want. I agree with Mekt-Hakkikt that if there were codes for X-box 360 I would be fine if achievements were not counted for that game.
 
My thoughts on cheats was it was always a bit of a waste. Why buy a game you dont want to really play? I used the goofy cheats that change game mechanics and stuff, but only after I was finished, like the Skulls in Halo 3. That's actually an example of how cheats can be used in an Online world, by making the cheats part of the games Achievements. But other than that the cheat is starting to go away.

The skulls aren't really cheats as none of them really provide an advantage to the player. They affect difficultly and scoring (if it is turned on).
 
I have used cheats in the past on certain games and found them helpful. Cheats like the Konami code from the original NES (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, b, a, select start). I don't think I could have gone through Contra without that code.

There are games I like but that I can't get through a certain point for whatever reason. Maybe I can't beat a certain boss, or get through a section in a given amount of time. In those cases I'd still like to be able to continue and enjoy the game rather than get frustrated and mad dying over and over again.

Overall though, games today are a bunch easier than they were 10 or 20 years ago. If they don't include invincibility as an option, they often include some kind of difficulty level selector - and the easiest mode in a lot of games is very very easy today. And while level-selector codes are rare now, games often simply include the ability to pick any level in the game once you've reached it for the first time. With these two things, kids today have it easier today than I did (when there was no internet to get codes - you had to buy code books in stores).
 
Very true, I've noticed that many of my 360 games are easier than my original X-box games, especially because the newer games have several differing difficulty levels. I have several original X-box games that I am stuck on because I can't get past a certain part, but I only have one 360 game that I am stuck on for that reason.
 
Whether or not to include a cheat code is (still) something that's decided on a developer level. You will still occasionally find them in modern releases.

A few factors additional to 'achievements' (which are largely Xbox 360-specific) has worked to edge them out, though... the foremost being multiplayer. We've moved from a point where almost *no* games had multiplayer components to a point where it's almost a requirement.

(Another is that cheat codes were originally one of the reasons to buy a game instead of playing in the arcade -- you could fool around with it to your hearts content instead of pumping quarters in over and over in public... that day has passed.)
 
The skulls aren't really cheats as none of them really provide an advantage to the player. They affect difficultly and scoring (if it is turned on).

Grunt Party Hat Skull. Just get one head-shot and you get a plasma grenade explosion. If that doesn't count, I don't really know what does.
 
I think the idea of 'earning' your sandbox-style cheats through gameplay is fairly common today -- in my modest library, both Tomb Raider and Lego Star Wars include that feature.
 
Grunt Party Hat Skull. Just get one head-shot and you get a plasma grenade explosion. If that doesn't count, I don't really know what does.

The Grunt Birthday Party skull makes it so when you get a headshot on a grunt it's head explodes in confetti and you hear children cheering.
 
I thought Soul Calibur 3 handled "unlockables" perfectly.

If you wanted to unlock things like costumes, characters, or weapons the "approved" way, by beating the game in certain ways, or executing certain moves perfectly, or winning certain matches without taking any damage, you could, and if you were good at the game, you could unlock things quickly.

But if you weren't that good, or if you only played the game "socially" rather than single player, then you could still get all the unlockables. The game keeps count of how many times it has been played, and once certain thresholds are reached (measured in the thousands, or so), certain items become unlocked even if you haven't earned them. Hence, simply by playing the game a lot you get stuff, and it doesn't matter if you never learn how to execute a triple dragon star pile driver after a guard impact, because as you play the game keeps evolving and changing anyway...

I thought it was a great idea. Far better than forcing you to do non-fun things just to unlock something, and far better than just giving you everything off the bat.
 
Nope, just grunts and just in 3. The skulls in 2 are quite different and work in a different fashion.

Yeah, and like you mentioned, none of those actually make the game any easier. But those that do in other games are just bonuses. It's like working hard to get a stronger gun in Privateer - it's a reward, not a cheat - and like achievements, they help replayability and increase the value of games today.
 
Yeah, and like you mentioned, none of those actually make the game any easier. But those that do in other games are just bonuses. It's like working hard to get a stronger gun in Privateer - it's a reward, not a cheat - and like achievements, they help replayability and increase the value of games today.

Yeah I really enjoy the campaign scoring. There's nothing like running through a level and at the end being able to compare scores and see how actually did the most damage throughout the level.
 
Ok, thank you all. The answer is what I feared (except for LOAF's small glitter of hope).

It's still annoying to me. I have no problem in replaying a mission over and over to get further on in the campaign of Priv or something like that, I even have much fun, spice by a little bit frustration. But being forced to do some things over and over again for a new car/costume/character in racing or fighting games is no fun for me (regardless of whether it's hard to do or not). At the pace I play games these days, I guess it'll take me at least the rest of the year to unlock everything in DoA 4, sigh.
 
At the pace I play games these days, I guess it'll take me at least the rest of the year to unlock everything in DoA 4, sigh.

DOA4 isn't too bad with getting everything unlocked. Before I had my own gamertag I did it on my old roommate's ybox and it took me may be a week to unlock 95%. My main drive was to unlock the Spartan Nicole. Playing DOA4 as a Spartan was pretty cool, but it quickly lost its appeal to me after that.
 
At the same time, other games not only have cheats - but have achievements for using them. Superman Returns featured a 0 point achievement called "Not That Super" when you put in any cheat code.
 
there are places you can buy savegame files with everything unlocked, I think.

that might be the way to go.
 
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