Did you ever use a tip or a cheat to help you with a game?

[Goemon]

Reading through some old magazines I was surprised at the size of the tips section with some going on for like 8 pages.

 

I made me wonder how much people used the tips and cheats in magazines to help them in there quest to finish a game.

 

I personally remember using the the Gaiares invincibility cheat to help me finish the game as the game was just so hard.

 

Which tips/do you remember using?

[Camel]

Definitely used the infinite shurikens cheat every time I played Revenge of Shinobi back in the day. 

[FishyFish]

Crash printed a POKE for Lunar Jetman (can't remember if it was infinite lives, or invincibility) which didn't work. I was gutted - I just wanted to see the sprites for the next waves of aliens.

[Qazimod]

I still remember a few tips from Commodore 64 magazines:

 

Often with multiloads you had to rewind the tape when you lost all of your lives (so that you could return to the title screen); a lot of multiload Ocean games let you skip to the next level if you pressed Play on the Datasette instead of rewinding. If you did it on the last level it would load the ending sequence.

 

In Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts you could enter your high score name as WIGAN RLFC and then on your next game you could reset your armour at any time and skip to the next level at will. Pretty much the only way to see past the first stage of such a brutal game.

 

I think I typed out an enormous POKE listing for Creatures 1 that turned off collisions with enemies or something - I ended up getting to the penultimate stage and falling in some lava or spikes or some miscellaneous death pit, and the game effectively locked up because it didn’t know what to do, so I was screwed and had to reset the machine.

[Alexlotl]

I wrote into The One (I think - whichever Amiga mag had The Boggit!) asking for a hint for Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, as I was stuck in the catacombs.

 

They printed an answer to my question and I got unstuck, but I’d forgotten to put my name on the letter, so they also called me a numpty or something. I’d imagine there’s probably a scan of this moment of glory out there somewhere. 

[phillv85]

The main ones I remember using are all on the Mega Drive:
 

Level select on Sonic 1

Infinite shurikens on Revenge of Shinobi

The extra difficulties and level select on Streets of Rage 2

Gore code and DULLARD on Mortal Kombat

Level skip on T2: The Arcade Game

[Qazimod]

6 minutes ago, phillv85 said:

Level select on Sonic 1

 

Our school library sometimes had a rack in the corner with old magazines, and occasionally a very worn C&VG would be in there; I think that's how I found out about Sonic 1's "debug" cheat which let you place objects in the map.

[Droo]

9 minutes ago, phillv85 said:

The main ones I remember using are all on the Mega Drive:
 

Level select on Sonic 1

Infinite shurikens on Revenge of Shinobi

The extra difficulties and level select on Streets of Rage 2

Gore code and DULLARD on Mortal Kombat

Level skip on T2: The Arcade Game

ABACABB, Surely??!

[Alexlotl]

48 minutes ago, Alexlotl said:

I’d imagine there’s probably a scan of this moment of glory out there somewhere. 

 

Two things that now have me questioning my memory - first, this was from Amiga Action, which I don’t really remember ever buying. Secondly, I’d have sworn I was stuck at a point much earlier in the game. It’s definitely me though, trying to make it clear that I was very clever despite needing help. 😅

 

He’s wrong about the safe, it’s essential to see the painting inside to be able to identify the correct grail at the end of the game. But finding the combination relies on having picked up a painting from Henry’s house at the start of the game, and offering it to a very specific Nazi guard when infiltrating the castle. Such a flawed game, although I still love it a bit. 

[Ketchup]

Remember when Bad Influence had the cheat codes for Sonic 2, except they were all wrong? So many children that day spent hours trying to enter them I bet, including me.

[Unofficial Who]

I used cheats and pokes loads of times in the 8 and 16 bit eras, mainly for exploratory arcade adventures.

 

For me life and time limits for these games seemed like an unreasonable hangover from the arcade and having my eyes opened by Pitfall 2:the Lost Caverns I didn't like going back. Pitfall 2 being the first game I know of that had infinite lives and a modern style "checkpoint" system built in. I was much less likely to cheat in games that had some sort of save/load mechanic.

 

Two games I used it on in the C64 days more than once purely for my own enjoyment.

 

Cauldron 2, a paltry six lives was nowhere near enough to complete the game, especially when you lost energy when shooting.

 

 

Spindizzy. I just wanted to explore the world free of the time limit that was making me rush.

 

[phillv85]

1 hour ago, Droo said:

ABACABB, Surely??!

Yeah they were two different codes, I always knew ABACABB as the “Ethics Gore Code” because of the screen you tapped it in on 

[Klatrymadon]

I remember calling the Nintendo hotline because none of the passwords (actually grids of symbols) for Castlevania IV I'd cut out of Total magazine were working. Turned out they only worked if you hadn't entered your name beforehand!

 

(The game isn't actually that tough - I mainly wanted the cheats so that I didn't always have to play through it in one sitting.)

 

I also once looked up some passwords for SNES Dragon's Lair, and had to throw in the towel after an hour of trying to enter them. You had to manoeuvre these big unwieldy billiard balls into pits by throwing your stupid gangly body at them, for some reason. 

[Anne Summers]

Abso-bloody-lutely I used cheats.

Games back then were hard, unlike today where you basically expect to be able to finish any game you buy if you plug away at it enough. 

I must have owned 100 games for my Speccy but probably only ever saw the credits roll (or more likely the minimalist "congratulations" screen), legitimately, on 10 of them. 

 

Cheat codes were like a second lease of life for games. A few months after I'd got as far as I could on them and got bored, the cheat codes would appear in YS and I'd be back on it for a bit. 

 

I was always puzzled thinking about who worked out the codes first. Like how did someone discover that typing fluffykiwis into New Zealand Story on the Amiga gave infinite lives, or "ten pints" in Shadow Of The Beast 2. I used to think that it was probably down to the fact there were so many people playing these games that inevitably every combination of button presses would get tried and someone would find them by accident. Now it seems pretty obvious that they would generally be leaked by the developers to their mates, who would tell other people, and eventually they would end up in magazines. 

 

[Alexlotl]

Years on, I still remember that the cheat code for CJs Elephant Antics was to type ITCHY ARSEHOLES, and I never even played the game. 

[Rex Grossman]

I remember getting various SFC passwords printed in mags when the SNES launched over here because they used the same codes. For some I figured out the ‘code’ for passwords to put you in different levels with different items etc because i had so many passwords.

 

I’m sure I also used tips and cheats - I just only remember my own.

[Couch Corpse]

Always in the arcade, anything to extend my 10p. The Ghosts n Goblins infinite time exploit, which you can spam to earn lives. Also the NZ Story warp loop exploit, also used to earn lives.

[Skykid]

2 hours ago, Anne Summers said:

Like how did someone discover that typing fluffykiwis into New Zealand Story on the Amiga gave infinite lives

 

It was considerably more sweary for the ST version!

 

I still remember how to do my first cheat - Manic Miner on the Spectrum 😄

 

There were other unintentional ones, like you could finish level 1 of Bionic Commando on the ST just when the timer hit zero and the bonus counter would wrap round and give you tons of points and lives for spare time left.

[Anne Summers]

50 minutes ago, Skykid said:

 

It was considerably more sweary for the ST version!

 

I still remember how to do my first cheat - Manic Miner on the Spectrum 😄

 

There were other unintentional ones, like you could finish level 1 of Bionic Commando on the ST just when the timer hit zero and the bonus counter would wrap round and give you tons of points and lives for spare time left.

Lots of mags printed the sweary version for the Amiga, but it never worked for me. 

There were actually quite a few fake cheats that ended up doing the rounds, I seem to remember - obviously just getting copied from one mag to another without anyone bothering to check. One famous one was for Chaos Strikes Back on the Amiga. Standing in from of the dragon and typing in a long phrase definitely didn't give you infinite health but it definitely got you killed very quickly. 

There was also the cheat for Shadow of the Beast 1 which unfortunately only worked on cracked copies of the game, the actual release version didn't have any cheat modes. 

[Skykid]

For the avoidance of doubt, the sweary one was real and worked for me 🙂

 

EGM's "Fight as Sheng Long" cheat during SF2 mania was another angle - you had to do something ridiculous like fight all the way through the game without getting hit to unlock the secret character. A prank by the magazine, of course!

[dumpster]

New Zealand Story - Amiga. Type Motherfuckinkiwibastards on the title screen.

 

Led Storm - Amiga - type DAVID J. BROADHURST for infinite lives. Tried it in lower case, upper case with spaces, without spaces, no full stop after the J, never got that to work.

 

In the 80s Sinclair User gave a SU Classic award to Nemesis, so I eagerly bought it. Not only did the game look nothing like their review (which was mock up screen shots) but they had the audacity to print a double page thing of tips that was completely made up. Again they used mock up screen shots and the tips bore no relation to the game you could buy. Never bought that mag again, £7.95 was a lot of money for me aged 11.

[James Lyon]

I'll never forget this:

 

THE ONLY NEAT THING TO DO

Is play Back to the Future 2

If you type it in

Then you're sure to win

[Not Thread Owner]

I made use of the (reader drawn on graph paper!) maps of Phantasy Star III that appeared in Megatech. A life saver at the time, except one of the later maps was wrong.

 

I got my passwords for Universal Soldier printed in Official Sega Magazine even though I'd never played the game. I just nicked them from EGM.

 

Got a (small, waaaaay too small) Sega Power t-shirt for answering a reader help request on Phantasy Star III.

[SMD]

prince megahit

[ianinthefuture]

On 09/08/2022 at 18:28, Droo said:

ABACABB, Surely??!

Relevant selfpromotionspam.

 

9 hours ago, James Lyon said:

I'll never forget this:

 

THE ONLY NEAT THING TO DO

Is play Back to the Future 2

If you type it in

Then you're sure to win

Distinct memory of my brother telling me this on the way home from school one day.

 

"I know a cheat for BTTF2!"

"What is it?"
"The only neat thing to do..."
"Which is what?"
"The only neat thing to do..."
"What's the neat thing to do though?"

Repeat ad nauseam. Older brothers are all trolls who need to be stopped.

[Mr Monday]

Not just cheats but games mags

printed maps as well.  The one ls

I remember using were for 8 bit  games like Saboteur 2, Sabre Wulfe and Underwurlde.

 

My favourite cheat on the Atari ST was for

Elite.  If you typed in Sara you got to a screen with hexadecimal values and you could upgrade your ship and fill up the cargo bay.

EDIT Another one I remember is on the Spectrum version of Gauntlet if you held down symbol shift you  could walk through the walls.

 

[Ketchup]

I used to enjoy the Sonic 3 maps where they’d basically screen shot every screen and join them together. That must have taken hours of work. Of course that meant sonic appeared a lot.

[Paulando]

4 hours ago, Ketchup said:

I used to enjoy the Sonic 3 maps where they’d basically screen shot every screen and join them together. That must have taken hours of work. Of course that meant sonic appeared a lot.

I remember our local library having a fairly chunky Sonic 3 guide which was basically loads of these maps stitched together. I thought seeing the stages like this was fascinating. Not sure how it would help playing the actual game though, maybe finding the special stage rings?

 

I’m pretty sure it had a dedicated section for the barrel of death 

[matt0]

I forget which Amiga magazine it was but they had a UFO Enemy Unknown tips feature one issue which completely opened up the game for me. The best bit of advice was to research laser rifles before attempting any ground missions. Before that I'd been spending ages equipping my troops with the peashooter starting weapons and seeing them cut to shreds.

 

I used trainers on hacked games from time to time, but I liked playing them properly more.

 

And the Sonic 1 level select was near legendary, they might as well have printed it in the manual.

[Anne Summers]

On 13/08/2022 at 08:15, dumpster said:

New Zealand Story - Amiga. Type Motherfuckinkiwibastards on the title screen.

 

 

 

That one never worked for me - although I remember it was given in several variations across different mags so I may have never tried the right one. motherfucking, motherfuckin, motherfucken etc. Also maybe it was one of those cheats that only worked on a particular version of the game - like the retail release or the Flights of Fantasy OEM version. "fluffykiwis" always worked for me, though.