To Cheat or Not to Cheat… | Adrenaline Vault

To Cheat or Not to Cheat…

Posted in Michael Smith on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

For better or worse, I seem to be Avault’s go-to guy for point-and-click PC adventure games. And that’s fine; one of the things I love about this gig is that I get to play games that I probably wouldn’t buy for myself otherwise. But a major factor in all of the Mist wannabes I’ve played in the last eight months is the need for a walkthrough to finish them. This made me recall an ongoing argument to be found on a number of gaming forums concerning whether or not using a walkthrough while playing a game is cheating.

I have about 70 games on a shelf in my apartment, waiting to be played. For almost all of those, I have found, reformatted, edited and downloaded walkthroughs from a variety of Web sites (walkthrough authors are notorious for not being able to find their spell-checker buttons). Many trees have been sacrificed for this gaming asset; the combined pages require six large ring-bound notebooks to hold them all. I try not to use them, but I’m what I call a Completionist. When I start a new game, I don’t remove it from my hard drive until one of three things happens:

I finish the game

A fatal bug prevents me from finishing the game

I get stuck and a walkthrough is not available for the game

I used to supplement my walkthroughs with the corresponding god-mode cheats, but I don’t do that much anymore; either my skills have increased or games aren’t as tough as they used to be (the latter being more likely). But I always go to the greatest of lengths to finish what I start. And this is often impossible without a walkthrough.

I’ve heard the argument before — using anything but the materials that came with the game is cheating. My attitude is that designers don’t set out to make games that you can’t finish. As long as you don’t alter the program to allow you to complete it, anything that you can use to help you get to the end should be acceptable. Is it cheating to ask a friend for help? How about calling publisher-sponsored hint lines? Taking this kind of help is just like using a walkthrough, so I say, no.

How about you?

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5 Responses to “To Cheat or Not to Cheat…”

CannibalBob Says:
August 13th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

*ahem* it’s “Myst”, but regardless…

Using a walkthrough pretty much takes fun out of the game. If it’s cheating or not, who cares. The point is if you figure out a puzzle yourself, the feeling of accomplishment is awesome.
If you’re really stuck and found the game pretty easy prior to that moment, then it very well could be a bug and you should consider a walkthrough.

There is a great program called UHS (Universal Hint System) that gives you HINTS instead of straight out solutions. It will give you the solution though, provided you keep asking for more hints.

Michael Smith Says:
August 14th, 2008 at 10:34 am

I certainly agree about the rush you get when you figure out a puzzle. But I’m willing to sacrifice the rush if getting help will get me to the end of the game, especially if I’ve paid full price for it.

Caver Says:
August 14th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

I completely agree and wholeheartedly disagree with “CannibalBob”.

People have fun with these games for all sort of reasons. Some people enjoy treating these games almost like movies, and use walkthroughs to help advance them through. They have absolutely no fun struggling through the actual puzzles.

Some people get their fun from beating through each puzzle, no matter how long it takes. In fact, a really hard puzzle that takes hours or even days to work out is much more satisfying than the puzzles they managed to complete quickly. Walkthroughs are what these people write to show off their prowess, not something they download.

I’m sure most of us appreciate the middle-ground, where we are very happy when we are solving puzzles, but get very frustrated when we hit one we just can’t seem to get by. That “one” puzzle can ruin an entire game for us, and cause us to simply move on to something else and never finish. For this middle-ground, the walkthrough is used to get by that one tricky bit so we can continue enjoying the game.

Walkthroughs can also be used after a game is completed, to see what you may have missed, or even see if you found something new that no one else has spotted. I’ll often look at walkthroughs after I finish a game, and find a new take on something.

Whatever the reason, I personally don’t think it is possible to “cheat” in a single-player game. You’re playing to have fun, and if that is how you derive your fun, why should anyone else care?

-Caver

VaultReader Says:
August 14th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

Walkthroughs are help not cheats. Especially when you’re talking about adventure games or RPGs. You are not going to think like the game creators for most of the content. And in the process of trying to figure out where they want you to go or what they want you to do a game can go from being fun and challenging to become stale, frustrating, and simply not worth your time.
Just look at Rama, an interesting adventure game based on a great book series (the first two books.) But the game can quickly become unplayable if your not a expert at puzzles games and also have a penchant for math, there is a alien adding machine in the game that has caused people to just give up and uninstall the game. Or The Neverhood who programmer’s logic just escaped many people.
Some may argue that these games were just made badly or were not play tested for accessibility before release. The fact is people just think differently and one logical step for someone may never even be considered by another (in games I mean, not life.) Walkthroughs bridge this by letting people get help with certain areas of a game they can’t get past or just easily walkthrough a game whose plot and not puzzles interest them. So they are help not cheats, at least to me.

Mike Wilkerson Says:
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am

I have to tell you - I’d be the first person to scream “cheater!!!” were I to see you using one of the guides to “get through the rough parts” - but I would be the second person in line after you at the store to buy one.

The realm of gaming manuals, guides, walkthroughs and more has now become a complete arm for the gaming industry, as surely as they’ve created another controller for you to hold while gaming with the one that comes with the console.

The $20 I paid for my Indiana Jones Lego Wii Guide was worth it, because seriously: How long can you sit in an area, and jump and “whip at shit” for a couple of hours and have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what to do next to “move on?”

Totally guide guy here, but again, just in case I hadn’t made myself clear:

You are a CHEATER!