Quirky 1993 'Gamecheater' Added Super Powers To WC (February 10, 2018)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Collecting different variants, special editions and rereleases of classic Wing Commander games is a common pastime for Wingnuts, but really hardcore fans are also hunting down obscure third party unlicensed works. LOAF recently found this one, Axis the Gamecheater, which supposedly grants 'super powers' to both Wing Commander and Ultima VI. Without the internet, some of the series' built in cheats weren't as readily known, so there was a market for products like this back in the day. Actual effectiveness was pretty hit & miss...

LOAF> Behold: AXIS the GAMECHEATER! He has a code wheel built in to his box that tells us... nothing?
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Welcome, warrior, to the cyberspace game zone. In the cyber zone, your weaponry is superior, you are immortal. Because you have Axis the Gamecheater, you cannot be defeated anywhere on the game grid. You are invincible!

With the Gamecheater installed in your computer, you can override predefined game functions with assignable hot keys. In your favorite games you can add time, lives, money, extra ammo or fuel, jump to different play levels or whatever it takes for you to win.

Each game module provides you with special weapons. Rotate Axis's selector wheel to view how many weapons you have in your arsenal for each supported game.
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Original update published on February 10, 2018
 
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the box art alone is worth it. Especially the flaming clip in Axis' gun. It's clear that the Gamecheater cares not for well done fingers.
 
Yeah, the box art, and the packaging is fascinating. Someone did a calculation and determined it was worth it to add a few cents/dollars to each unit to make a scrolling thing to see each game. Obviously this could have been done just as well with a table printed on the back of the box, but that decision passed their cost/benefit analysis and someone figured Axis' interactive wristwatch would sell enough copies to be worth it.
 
Makes sense, really, given the box has to stand on its own. The people who would buy it are probably teenagers who would've been far more fascinated by the scrolling wheel and watch gimmick than a simple table printed on the box.

And the added cost is really a few cents - a few extra die punching and assembly steps by the printing press.

The big question is, though, is it only designed for those games, or was it like a Game Genie where you loaded the software, and all the powers were codes you entered?
 
Well, it looks like you could install new games ("GEMs" - game enhancement module?), so if you can find them, you can add them. I know the Mac community was generally well connected - there were even plenty of shareware CDs that were distributed on a quarterly basis which made pre-internet distribution of those kind of files possible. (You either ponied up for a subscription yourself, which got expensive later on because they were shipping 4-5 CDs every few months or you got on a Mac BBS and used their subscription. I remember one I accessed had a huge multi-CD changer because of how large the distribution was getting to keep it all online).
 
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