Level Select Codes for super long games. Cheating?

[Anthony1]

You know, there are an awfully lotta games out there that are super, super long, yet don't have any kind of save feature, or even passwords.

This requies you to play the freaking game from beginning to end in one sitting, or you have to put your system on pause for extremely long periods of time, which isn't a really good idea.

So if you find a cheat in a mag or on a website that allows you to use level select, do you feel that this is a form of cheating?

Let's say that you can get to level 5 of a game pretty much 90 percent of the time. Is it wrong to just use a level select to just get you to level 5 from the very beginning, without going through the first four levels?

Or is this a easy way out?

[Dire 51]

Easy way out, I say. It's just another way to skip through the game without using any real skill.

[zmeston]

It all comes down to the individual player's tolerance for repetition. My tolerance gets lower as I get older, so I generally avoid sprawling retro-games without at least a password system. I don't agree with your sweeping generalization about there being tons of super-long/save-skimpy games, however. The NES era was plagued with saveless platformers, but from 16-bit up, nah.

It can be argued that modern games and their cushy save systems have made gamers weak, but I'd argue that it was a necessary step in the evolution of game design for games to evolve and grow beyond the hardcore segment.

-- Z.

[Oberfuhrer Hamm]

It can be argued that modern games and their cushy save systems have made gamers weak, but I'd argue that it was a necessary step in the evolution of game design for games to evolve and grow beyond the hardcore segment.

-- Z.

What about earning cheats, like GoldenEye (Before the PBC's were discovered)?

[zmeston]

It can be argued that modern games and their cushy save systems have made gamers weak, but I'd argue that it was a necessary step in the evolution of game design for games to evolve and grow beyond the hardcore segment.

-- Z.

What about earning cheats, like GoldenEye (Before the PBC's were discovered)?

Unlockable content (cheats, costumes, et cet) is a whole 'nuther topic, and again, there are valid arguments in both directions. GameSpy did a column on this very subject a while ago at http://www.gamespy.com/counterspy/april03/spy01/. They also did one on save points: http://www.gamespy.com/counterspy/july03/spy06/.

-- Z.

[SoulBlazer]

I can say this -- thanks to Emultors, and the awsome ability called 'Save States", I've been able to finish FINALLY several NES and SNES games I never could back when I first played them.

Got to love save states.

[NE146]

Yep.. it was a different time when I could sit down and play a whole game of Blaster Master from Start to Finish.. Now with save states, even with limited game playing time I can play it over a period of weeks and finish it without having to play the same early levels over and over :P