Cheats always prosper

I've recently been playing a game called Zack and Wiki. It's a point-and-click game on the Wii where you play as a boy pirate with a flying monkey sidekick. You have to get the treasure chest in each level by finding solutions to various puzzles, ranging from mixing shrinking potions to dumping a vat of water onto a fire-breathing dragon. All well and good.

I consider myself an enthusiastic but not particularly gifted gamer, and this has led me to become unstuck and frustrated when I can't find a solution. I end up wandering around the level randomly pushing things, hoping that the answer will come to me. You can 'buy' tips in the game but even then it's not always obvious what you should do next.

Back in the heady days of my ZX Spectrum, this would be the end of the game for me, unless a friend had worked out the puzzle. You could normally guarantee that all your friends had the same games, because the mighty tape-to-tape ghetto blasters had come out and all the game-playing children in the country were copying each other’s game cassettes.

Fast forward to 2008 and all I have to do is a quick search on Google and there are a wealth of walk-through guides popping onto my screen. I generally try not to look at them unless I have been really stuck for at least half an hour, but this seems to be happening more and more frequently.

There are two ways of looking at this. One is that checking a solution is cheating and ruining the game by not playing it all the way through without any help, as its designers intended. This opinion is wrong. The second (and correct) way of looking at it is that it means I get to finish most of my puzzle and adventure games now with only a little online 'assistance'.

Unfortunately, the guides still don't help me out in Gears Of War when one of the enemy jumps out at me. My reactions still tend to favour the shooting wildly at the sky and ground in a panic before I'm killed. One step at a time though.

Comments

[grimlock]

todays games are nowhere near as hard as they use to be, to use cheats u have would have to be really c*** (no offence). but this is y games are easyer because people know the cheats are there an would rather use them. which is quiet sad because yes i like my games i am sad like that, an find it irratating when people have to cheat because it defeats the point of the game. so cheating only fuels the dulling of computer games an is completey pointless, if ur stuck leave it for a bit or keep trying soon or later u get there

ugh, crimes against the english language

[WarDialler 3.0]

The previous comment by Grimlock (apart from the shameful lack of accurate spelling and any concept of grammar), is utterly and totally mind-boggling.
The broad generalisation that "todays games are nowhere near as hard as they use to be..." shows only the author's ignorance.
Games are more varied then ever due to the constant development of new technology.
Cheating your way through an entire game defeats the purpose of playing it, but David Hutchinson's idea of using help from websites when needed is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Not all of us can be úber-elite lateral thinkers and work out every new puzzle set for us by the developers. Small-minded attacks on people who can't work out a puzzle will only drive away the casual gamer and add fuel to the "Videogames kill people!" arguements that us consciencious Gamers fight so hard to against.

[Javier]

I have Zack and Wiki and it is frustratingly hard at times. But half an hour?? Come on!

There is no satisfaction in finishing a level in that game if you have cheated. I have spent a whole week just on one level playing maybe half an hour at a time figuring out bit by bit what to do and then coming back to it the next day. The smile on my face once its done is enormous.

Cheats and guides have their place, but use them sparingly as they can ruin your experience.

Grimlock, i totally agree that games aren't as hard as they used to be but id say that Z&W is definitely an exception.

[Tom]

Looks simple and has great use of the wii-mote but the game is deceptively tricky. Will give your brain and logic cells a good work out. Would recommend it to anyone. Great to play with your kids or on your own.

Agree that cheating ruins the game but sometimes its worth it to overcome that tricky level that just seems too hard.

[ewan]

Its indicative of todays imediate gratification society when people feel that a problem that takes more than half an hour to solve isn't worth putting any more effort into.

grimlock, despite his spelling is right. Games these days are tailored for the console generation. Much easier, shorter and with less depth.

Would the author give up on a cross word after half an hour? or resign a game of chess?

[Linzoy]

"Small-minded attacks on people who can't work out a puzzle will only drive away the casual gamer and add fuel to the "Videogames kill people!" arguements that us consciencious Gamers fight so hard to against."

WarDialler, what the hell are you talking about? Where's the connection between killing people and cheating on video games?

[Abbey Normal]

We are talking about a game here. The developers main intent should be that it's fun, that's the main function of a game. If one person wants to endure the frustration and reach the end with no help, and another person wants to be told exactly what to do the entire time (or any variant in between), that's their choice - and if they have fun doing it, then it's a successful game in both accounts. True, a 'cheat' may detract from that sense of accomplishment at the end, but one can argue that they would rather enjoy the hour it took to get through the puzzle than spend 3 frustrating hours for that pure sense of accomplishment. To each their own - there's no need for derision. If other people cheat, that doesn't take away from you.

For me, I like struggling through Zack & Wiki and figuring it out, but with some other games, looking up a 'cheat' when I'm really stuck means the difference between continuing to play the game or never returning to it. After all, I have plenty of problems in real life to solve, I don't need games to feel like work. To quote Yahtzee, "I'd rather be stupid and having fun than bored out of my huge genius mind." Games might be easier than they used to be, I wouldn't know since I grew up mostly playing 2D platformers. But, if there aren't any games out there that you find challenging enough, put your massive intellect to more productive pursuits.

[Trinca]

good posting