What Games Forced You to Use a Game Genie?

[Ascending Wordsmith]

Remember how hard some games were? No matter how well you played, the game would thrash you without mercy. This was the case for numerous games that I owned. But thanks to Galoob, I was able to smash the AI that had once decimated me during play.

One game that I could never beat, despite my very best efforts, was Contra III: the Alien Wars. Until I bumped heads with the boss of the sand stage, I was an extremely formidable gamer. Then, once the sand stage boss and I went at it, he destroyed me rather easily. Giant sandworms, surprise flames, and dizziness pretty much put an end to me in no more than 20 seconds.

It was no use; I had to employ the Game Genie. Even with unlimited continues, it took me 14 lives to finally beat the Sand Menace. Later on in the game, I discovered that there were even more bosses that I couldn't have beat if played the game honestly! Red Falcon itself took on about eight forms.

Other games that prompted me to use the 'Genie' were MERCS, Midnight Resistance, Super C, NBA Jam, Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball, and others.

What are some games (NES, SNES, GB, or Genesis) that forced you to use the Game Genie? Oh, and did it even help?

[mattpfeil]

Oi vey...Spider Man and X-men: Arcade's Revenge
and that saddest part was, i still couldnt beat it with the Game Genie
to damn hard...id still love to here if anyone has ever beaten this game

[NESCollector75]

Super C for NES man i couldn't get past the 5th level with out it.

[Raedon]

Wizards & Warriors

[Mike]

Sesame Streets ABC's.

Man, I STILL can't find bert.

[biggamer]

wolverine (impossible game) :mad:
silver surfer
batman vs joker
low g man
blaster master
strider
road runner

[CrazyImpmon]

Wizards & Warriors

Wimp! i finished that game long before Game genie even came out. :D

As for games that stumped me:
Athena (still can't finish it :P)

*scratches head*

Hmmm... that's all I can think of. over 1,000 games, Game Genie and Game Shark and I can't think of any games that I had to use the cheat device to finish. More often than not the devices were used to make gameplay much harder.

[Raedon]

Wizards & Warriors

Wimp! i finished that game long before Game genie even came out. :D


What can I say, I'm not good at some platform games.. you should see my game of Megaman 2.. whew! stinky.. luckly you get a lvl password with megaman.

[TheRedEye]

Sky Kid. That game got deranged, but I beat it.

[Six Switch]

Hmmm... that's all I can think of. over 1,000 games, Game Genie and Game Shark and I can't think of any games that I had to use the cheat device to finish. More often than not the devices were used to make gameplay much harder.

You know,I think the same goes for me.I don't think I have played that many games but still I never used one,and needed one.Hmmm... :D :?: :?

[E Nice]

Super C wasn't that hard, well not if you put in the 10-man code. Though I did need a Game Genie for Double Dragon 3. Fiddling around with the health code I made the guys have like 250+health meter. That helped a lot.

[SuperPsycho]

I was thinking about it and really..... I'm too embarassed to say what games I had to use with the Game Genie to beat.

[maxlords]

I've never owned a cheat device and never used one for any system. If a game is that hard, I put it down and come back later. I've found VERY few impossible games, and most of them are Japanese :)

[NESCollector75]

[quote="E Nice"]Super C wasn't that hard, well not if you put in the 10-man code. quote]
Ya but without the 10 man code how far could you get? The game is really hard to beat without any cheats!

[Ascending Wordsmith]

Ya but without the 10 man code how far could you get? The game is really hard to beat without any cheats!

Damn straight. Late in the game, there's one part on Super C where you must jump over a series pits, while the ceiling presses down on you, and bubbles began hovering towards you. The ceiling doesn't kill you (much), but once you duck to avoid it, the bubbles have no qualms about taking your life. Even without the bubbles, the ceiling can bump you down into a pit.

I run into so many people who claim to have beat Super C or Contra III (on the highest difficulty) without a Game Genie or codes. Until I actually see this done, I'm a hardened believer that it's an impossible task.

[E Nice]

You're joking around, right? After a couple days play thru using 10 lives you eventually learn the patterns and how to handle the levels. You can play it through with using only 3 lives, maybe not on one continue but Super C is not hard.

The ceiling section of level 8 is giving you trouble? Just stop and shoot the bubbles as they form rather than just moving on. I think it was also possible to outrun them, though you do have to kill a few of them so they don't gain on you, but this only applies to 1 player games.* It's even more handy if you have the firegun, the one that shoots that ball of fire that fragments when it hits something. That can save you when you're trapped in the pits and the ceiling comes down. If you have the spread gun you can just take them out as they materialize.

*When the ceiling crashes down and you are stuck betwen pits and have to wait to jump, there's no reason to, except on the very last one or whichever pit was the longer one. Just jump as you normally would. It is possible to simply roll on the surface of the ceiling and you'll make it across. 2nd player can not do this. If 2nd player tries to roll on the ceiling he/she will get stuck on the ceiling roll helplessly and most likely fall into a pit and die.


Oh, and the ceiling can't kill you. Only if you jump, at the wrong time, and it pushes you into a pit, as it messes up the jump when it comes down.

As for Contra 3 on hardest difficulty, I have yet to do that and gave up. There must be people who can. I beat Contra Hard Corps, which people say is really hard. It's just a matter of learning patterns. I got all 6 endings, though I used Brownie. Things get a bit more difficult using Ray or Sheena and more so with Brad Fang.

I mean Double Dragon 3 was hard, given that you only had 1 life, and the only other lives you got where if you switched into whoever else was with you, your twin brother, Chin, or that ninja guy. But after playing it so many times I did manage to beat it without a Game Genie, though the final boss gave me the most trouble.

[ventrra]

I discovered that I couldn't beat Star Wars on the NES even USING 2 Game Genies and 6 codes :(

[rbudrick]

I can beat Super C on one life and have a videotape to prove it (yeah, ok , so I'm bragging...who else will listen to me?).

By the way, I thought sky kid had no ending....

As for Alien Wars, I beat that in two days on hardest difficulty...it was tough, but there is a trick w/o game genie (Works for NES Rush N Attack and many other games too).

Get a 2 turbo controllers and find a spot where both players can stand back to back and continuously fire and enemies keep coming on screen. Put a clamp over the fire buttons on each controller. Come back LATER...probably much later, but you will have racked up enough points for mucho lives. Nice trick when you're ghetto and have no game genie (I used this on many games before Game Genie came out). Cheating, yes, but no game genie.


As for games I NEEDED Game Genie for, Legacy of the Wizard, Starforce, ans Star Soldier. I actually made it to Level Tau in Starforce...I was so pissed when I died....then along came game genie...it was a drem come true, that little device.

-Rob

[WiseSalesman]

air fortress.........air fortress!.....AIR FORTRESS!!!!

[Tetsu]

I guess here is a good place to brag. I beat Contra III without any cheats, and without the "button clamp" trick. It was the greatest moment of my life. Shit went downhill from there.

[gamergary]

my nes doesn't work without the game genie. the connector is screwed up so i can't play my games without it

[BenT]

Never used a cheating device. Just never seemed interesting enough to persue, or necessary.

Beating Contra III's hard mode on one credit isn't impossible; Super C is downright easy, probably moreso than the original. Just takes some practice.

A tip for Contra III. When you get to the early form of the final boss that keeps spitting out flying and ground-running aliens, hang around for about five minutes just killing them repeatedly, letting the boss's head live for the moment. You can hang out in the center of the screen by holding the R button and take all the baddies out with ease. They seem to be worth a lot of points, and 1-ups can be accumulated pretty quickly. These lives will prove useful if you get unlucky on the brain boss and gets some of its more trying forms. I find this is only really necessary on hard mode. I'm not THAT good. ;)

[ubersaurus]

Amagon. Good god, that game was hard!

[BenT]

I feel bad saying it, but Amagon is another game I more or less conquered... when borrowing it from a friend no less. (I think I used the NES Advantage's rapid fire feature, though.)

Funny how I could tolerate crappy games like this so much better back then.

[rbudrick]

Amagon...now there's a paradox.

There's those that can beat this game like it was Super mario Brothers and ther's those that will never make it pst the main boss.

There is no in-between. There just isn't. I just don't get it. I'm in the "this game is a frikkin bitch and I'll never beat it w/o Game genie" camp.

-Rob

[pa_nes_ian]

BATTLETOADS!!! I still havent beat that goddamn game
Road Runner as well

[vintagegamecrazy]

Come on Battletoads is easy. Games that I haven't beaten without a game genie is friggin Bayou Billy.

Ghosts and goblins
the Punisher on NES
Robocop on nes
Double Dragon 1 and 3
adventure Island

Vintagegamecrazy

[MarkM2112]

The only reason I got mine is so I can play the older Genny games on my system.... Zany Golf, anyone? :-) Don't know if that counts... :-)

[Zettaijin]

Sorry, but this game is downright impossible without using either a Game Genie or save states... unless you're VERY talented and lucky.

The Japanese version is HORRIBLE - about 5 times longer with faster, cheaper foes and more fat opera singers than you can shake a stick at! Plus, some of the women you ahem "visit" take away your life!

You know, I always wondered what the ladies in that game saw in that old slowpoke Dr.Jekyll... I guess it's a mystery akin to the USELESS CANE POKE OF DOOM~ and the WELL FORMED ECONOMY SIZE BIRD DROPPINGS~ that fall on your head. Any game where you need to avoid bird droppings and dirt HAD to be made by a neat freak...

I mean, you lose health and sanity from being hit by dirt! DIRT for pete's sake!

[kainemaxwell]

Battletoads cause I could never beat the freakin' speed bikes level!!

And I've actually beaten Super C with the 3 continues and the 10 life code in the past.

[Andy Rampage]

[quote="Kaine23"]Battletoads cause I could never beat the freakin' speed bikes level!!


"YEAH! those bikes on BATTLETOADS WERE a-Bitch!!" >:(
FREAKin' fergot about those!! >:( "FLAME - ON !"
i'd Say: PRINCE OF PERSIA ...
Some Of those "jumps" WERE IMPOSSIBLE for my little legs
a freakin' KONOMI GAME , wasn't it !!

[Ruudos]

Come on Battletoads is easy. Games that I haven't beaten without a game genie is friggin Bayou Billy.

Ghosts and goblins
the Punisher on NES
Robocop on nes
Double Dragon 1 and 3
adventure Island

You say Battletoads is easy, but you put up RoboCop in your list. RoboCop is an easy game, much easier than Battletoads for 100%.
Wizards & Warriors isn't hard too, only for the fact that if you die you start at the exactly point where you died.

I've only used a Game Genie once, I'm not a fan of cheating. I used it to beat TMNT, but I beat the game without the GG a few months later (the last level was the big problem).


Double Dragon and Double Dragon III are games I haven't beaten yet. I run out of time in the first one while fighting the last boss.

[Ruudos]

Some Of those "jumps" WERE IMPOSSIBLE for my little legs
a freakin' KONOMI GAME , wasn't it !!


No not from Konami. I think they did publish the SNES version, but they didn't made it. Jordan Mechner did.

[Tempest]

He also wrote on of the best games for the Apple IIe (and various other systems)... Karateka!

Prince of Persia wasn't bad, but the sequel was a bitch! Not only did you have all those maze like puzzles with impossible jumps, but you had to use your "Shadow power" and flame throwing to beat the game. As I remember there was actually a point in which you had to die and wait for the bird guys to walk away then seperate your shadow and kill them. The game was alot of fun, but very hard. Did the make it for any other system but the IBM? I lost my disks years ago.

Tempest

[Master_System]

I´m not a genious of the video game world, and also i play a lot of hard games, but i never used Game Genie, because i think that is very stupid.
:D
Matias

[ShinobiMan]

Contra: Hard Corps= IMPOSSIBLE (Starting with level 3)

They made that game way to hard... I had to use the genie.

[lionforce]

I always went over to my friend's house across the street because he always got the new releases before me, and when he bought the game genie for the NES and I saw how it was messing his games up while giving him invincibility, I decided that was one cheat device I could live without, that sucker was like steroids for the system, how wicked those people at Galoob were :)

[Andy Rampage]

MAN! i don't 'CARE who put it Out!!
' if it wasn't for the Guy AT KONAMI :o givin' me The PASSWORDS, i wouldn't 'have Made it PAST The First or 2nd level!!
the sword - Fights, later on, were a 'snap', .. Once ya 'got the
timing down!! ~kinda like "MAGIC" ... Once You "know" the secret ...
Still, was a "difficult GAME! ~took me MORE than a Year to conquer...

KONAMI, i 'mention them because THEIR GAMES A "HARD"!
"GOOD, HARD, GAMING CHALLENGES!"
"CHALLENGING - GAMES!! ~As MANY as i 'have
'Beaten ... there IS The SAME amount that i have not ... :hmm:
'SOME MENTIONED HERE already!
BATTLETOADS anyone? :hmm:

[Andy Rampage]

Someone 'mentioned a-couple Of "doozies" earlier ...
SILVER SURFER ... i would NEVER HAVE SEEN THE ENDING WITH-OUT THE G.G.!! ... "DAMM-SHAME i forget that
ending now.." ... x_x

LOW G MAN , man! i coundn't BEAT dat GAME ....
even 'with The GENIE!!! ~"Yeh, i SUCK, i KNOW !!" x_x

[Andy Rampage]

just remembered ...
" PITFALL !! for The snes!! "
now that was: "Damm Hard!" @_@
coudn't Make it Past the 2nd/3 levels to 'Save My ...
well, You know ...

[vintagegamecrazy]

The games you all listed are all very beatable in my opinion. No, I haven't finished them all but I know I could, given enough practice. Some games that are truely brutal in my book are Ghosts and Goblins, howabout Cobra Triangle. I will honestly give anyone on this board who can honestly prove to me that they have finished that game. Other hard ones I've found are Spelunker, Shatterhand, Bayou Billy.

Anyone on for Cobra Triangle?

[ashbourn]

there are so many hard game and im not in the mood to think of any other then TMNT

[Alex Kidd]

Oi vey...Spider Man and X-men: Arcade's Revenge
and that saddest part was, i still couldnt beat it with the Game Genie
to damn hard...id still love to here if anyone has ever beaten this game

Man, it may be hard at first, but it doesn't stay hard by any means.

No game has ever MADE me use a game genie. I don't use cheat codes at all. I really don't like them...
I remember one time I decided to use the debug mode in Shadowrun so I could max out my stats and make myself like a one man army...
Took me about an hour to input the code, reset, input the code, reset, etc... to get the karma for it. And when I did, I didn't even enjoy playing...

However that's not to say I've NEVER used one... I've never beaten Thunder FOrce II on the genesis, excpet once, with the game genie.

Hehe, I remember one time I made a code for Sonic The Hedgehog that made each ring worth so much that the FIRST ring you picked up caused the ring counter to crash out. I went thru the level collecting EVERY ring I could (approx 235 or so if I remember correctly) and finished the level, and at the end when it does the cash register bit adding up your rings.. it sat there for about 45 minutes counting up rings... I have no idea how many I had cause the ring counter crashed, and the score counter crashed... just garbled nonsense was all it showed...

I also created some cool codes for X-Men on the genesis... one I like to call the tornado attack... with said code, each time you attack, you attack both sides alternately and rapidly, so it looks like your spinning... crazy... luckily I kept copies of some of my homebrew codes...

Alex Kidd

[NE146]

the original SNES Street Fighter 2.. to try and get the bosses to play! LOL (it sort've worked.) Anyone else remember that trick from the old Gamefan magazine?

[NE146]

Incidentally there's so many other ways to use cheating devices to fuck with a game besides the old boring 'infinite' or invincibility codes to finish them. One thing I like to do in Mame for example is customize the levels so I'd can pull out one type of enemy or obstacle and just play it over and over. Like to take out the Hulks. Or to play level after level of 100+ grunts w/ nothing else (not even the mines .. whatever they're called). good fun! :D

[gwaine]

Radiant Silvergun...but I don't mind playing to the same spot every time...it's so much fun.

[adaml]

Oi vey...Spider Man and X-men: Arcade's Revenge
and that saddest part was, i still couldnt beat it with the Game Genie
to damn hard...id still love to here if anyone has ever beaten this game

Heh, I had to beat this game using a Game Saver+

This game haunted me for years.

[Jasoco]

In the olden days, I couldn't beat ANY game without a Genie.

Now I'm a lot better and don't need cheating devices most of the time.

[Moon Patrol]

It would actually be the opposite for me.... the game genie made me cheat, he made me do it! I swear, there aren't many games for the NES that I actually beat without using that damn contraption.