Why are there no cheat codes on the 360?

[UrMaMaIsFuNnY2K]

I have Assassin's Creed, Halo 3, PGR4, and a buncha other games. Anyways my point is that GTA4 is coming out soon and sure I love to play games, but its not going to be as fun if I can't spend my first 72 hours without sleep or food, not rocket launching and killing the shit outta everybody and everything, spawning tanks, and other great amounts of entertainment provided by cheat codes.

[Dameon Angell]

GTA will have cheat codes. They always do. The problem with cheats is the inclusion of online play in games. Having things in the Single Player can and will effect the Online if used. And I don't just mean "Can't you shut them off for online" yes and no. Effects of it can be sent over, if done before the Online play.

I got some achievements for Guitar Hero 3 by just putting in some codes for all songs unlocked and stuff. Which is another reason for cheat codes, the achievement system won't work properly.

I'm not saying it's not possible for cheats period, yes it is, they've already been done. But a lot of games, like Assassin's Creed or PGR4 just aren't "cheater friendly", but are games for people who want to work toward their goal. The developers probably thought that their game would be seen in a poor light and probably boring too fast if you could cheat your way though it and they want repeat business.

The same goes for these games on the Wii, PS2, and PS3.

[UrMaMaIsFuNnY2K]

Thing about it is I rarely have time to play the 360, and all I want to do is unlock all the tracks so when my boys are over we can race on the Nurburgring, rather than spend a whole year unlocking everything.

[Dameon Angell]

Well, come over here and I can unlock everything for you in a few hours.

[Stultus]

Achievements: serious business.

[GuruMeditation]

First, Contra on the 360 has the original cheat codes

Second, if you go to a movie do you just skip to the final 4 minutes? If you're reading a book (for other than school purposes) do you just read the cliff notes?

Back in the day the reason for cheat codes was that the best games were made rock hard. There's only so much content that you can fit on a 128Kb cartiridge so games like Ghouls'n'Ghosts needed to have their difficulty bar raised so damn high because otherwise you'd have spent that $20 (which back then was a lot of money ) on 30 minutes entertainment.

On the flip side I really don't understand why some games feel the need to lock down certain elements of gameplay, or to gently coach a player for the first five hours of the game. When you buy Madden do they lock out the Patriots or the Colts? No, that'd be ridiculous. They may lock out historical teams but that's a different matter entirely. They shouldn't lock out present day cars or tracks simply because you're supposed to earn them. They should actually put in a competent competition system so you feel a sense of progression and achievement if you're just starting, while allowing experienced racers to jump right in to the top echelons, the same way that when kids get straight A+'s on their tests they get fast tracked to more difficult classes, instead of some contrived and flawed donkey and carrot system. The only "unlockables" should be historic cars. I believe Gran Turismo's career mode got it as right as any racing game could, at least in the versions I played. The license system teaches you how to drive and unlocks cars in a manner that is swift if you're a fast learner, but eases you in if you're not as gifted as some. It's credit system may be slightly flawed but it blows away the likes of PGR and NFS.

For adventure games where a story has been carefully created and laid out by the designers it's a slightly different matter, but it's a shame that the creators idea of a hard mode is just to make the baddies a little tougher and timing a little tighter, instead of asking the player to think laterally or make bold decisions. This would be an intelligent "cheat" system that would reward players for tackling a problem in a different manner while providing the means for those who clamor for cheat modes (because within days of release these methods would find their way onto gamefaqs). Though there are most likely other examples the most famous example of this sort of approach was used back in the day in Mario Bros, with the hidden pipes "cheat". Running over the top of the walls wasn't a cheat, it was tackling the problem differently.

[xquisite]

nfs pro street on 360 has codes you can enter. You can unlock all cars and tracks i believe, only problem is, you don't have enough money to buy them!!!


p.s. hi kim!!!!!luvulots!!!!

[GuruMeditation]

On a side note, given the work behind it and the expectation, NFS Pro Street is one of the five worst games released this year.

No the crap Conspiracy Entertainment games don't qualify for that worst game list because everyone knew they'd suck.

[xquisite]

i agree guru, thank god i only rented it, was hoping it would have a nfs underground/carbon kind of feel and gameplay to it, but its totally garbage

[GuruMeditation]

i agree guru, thank god i only rented it, was hoping it would have a nfs underground/carbon kind of feel and gameplay to it, but its totally garbage

I was so disappointed with it. Only rented it too (using one of my free rentals from BB ) but my god ... I had such high hopes that NFS (which peaked with NFS: Porsche) was going to return to its roots after Carbon left hints that it was coming back to form. However it seems that EA Casual is having more of a say in what the NFS franchise is becoming. Such a shame. They even put the metaphorical cherry on the crap pie by adding the annoying announcer from Burnout.

Speaking of annoying announcers (and franchises that EA have destroyed), Burnout Paradise is a moderately pleasant surprise, at least from what I can gather in the demo. They seem to have listened to those who clamored for the BO2 days (who were deploring the way you could push cars all over the place as well as the bonus system) and created a rather pleasing car physics system that allows for reasonable car smacking but won't just let you run into anything. The ability to drive away from some crashes is very smart (gotta love driving away from a crash with a flat roof), the game is gorgeous, and the open world system looks like it may just work (races may not be as cool as Midnight Club 2, but we'll see) ... really this game left me gobsmacked considering what I was afraid they would do with it. The huge fly in the ointment is the stunt mode replacing the crash mode. It'd have been nice if instead of putting a stunt mode in they'd implemented a day/night progression system so you could create your own crash mode by hitting certain junctions at rush hour with a big mofo truck (or even better, a fire engine which could clear paths to junctions with the sirens).

Ah well, can't have everything.

[Dameon Angell]

I also like how in Burnout 5, you can just jump into a random (or friend's) Freeburn session while playing on the fly, like Test Drive: Unlimited.

But, the racing game I'm pining for is Midnight Club: Los Angeles, the fourth in the series. Graphically, it looks top notch with insane attention to detail. Hell, I'd be satisfied with a pretty looking Midnight Club 3, but this one looks nuts. Instead of 5 small-ish cities, one big ass Los Angeles will be sick.

[GuruMeditation]

Rofl, the wiki article for MC4 recaps all the ideas I posted on my "wanted" list for Burnout :grin: