Why do we cheat? No, not on your girlfriend. Why do we cheat on videogames? Most people’s first answer would be “Are you whack, yo? I neva cheated in my life, gangsta” or something more suburban if you live in a house that has a real door. The fact is, we all cheat at one time or another and you can’t lie about it. Maybe you don’t cheat now, but you did at one point, whether it be out of curiosity, desire to get more or just wishing you could get that one plasma-ray pulse gun that would obliterate all in your path. Those seem like good reasons… and it does answer the question “Why?” but does it answer the question “What good is cheating?” It takes a little more than responding, “I just wanted to access the topless mode!” to answer that question….

    Let’s rewind about a little less than a decade to understand where I am coming from (that would make me about 9-10). Yes, I was a big gamer as a kid, but I never completed a game with my own skills. One of the first accessories I owned for my Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) was a Game Genie (the equivalent to a Game Shark or Action Replay of today). Oh the wonders of a Game Genie! My horrible child reflexes no longer mattered because I had unlimited lives and health, not to mention the best weapons! In fact, I’ve owned a cheating device for every system I have owned (NES, SNES, GB, N64) except for the GameCube and Playstation 2. Rather sad, eh? But we’re not here to pity me, we can save that for a later date when I tell you about “I got beat up by a 5 year old midget” story. Nonetheless, as I rampantly used the ‘Shark (that’s leet hacker code for Game Shark) and other cheating devices, the games were tossed away as I got bored of blowing things away with little harm to myself. The one game that I had eventually completely finished was Super Mario World 2 for the Super Nintendo. Boy, I felt fantastic beating Bowser with my little Yoshi and Mario! See, that’s where the cheating fails to satisfy.

    This analogy can be placed on anything, but I learned it through gaming. You can’t feel the impact of a great game without actually putting your full brainpower, sweat and sometimes tears (curse you, Ganon!) into the game. Not only that have I discovered, but even to date I find my skills lacking. Kids who have been playing games for about 3 years kick my butt. Why? Because I didn’t have that challenge! Yes, I have the appearance of a true gamer (pasty white skin, muscles just strong enough to lift a foot-long meatball sub to my mouth and bad social skills), but alas, I am not! And this brings me to one important lesson: don’t set a monkey on fire. Please, it’s not good and that’s coming from experience. Oh wait, what I meant to say is this: don’t cheat, don’t cut corners. Please, do it for the inner-geek, do it for that kid that never wants to go outside and play because he still has one last level before he collects the all-important Triforce. Yes, do it for the Triforce…. the Triforce loves you….