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New Super Mario Bros. Wii To Include Official "Cheat"
phlack writes "Yahoo Games has an article describing a new mode in Nintendo's upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii that will allow the player to activate a 'demo' mode to get out of a hard situation. Nintendo plans on incorporating this into future games. Is this a good idea (to help relieve frustrations) or just sanctioned cheating?"
They actually patented this system as well.
Getting rid of the stupid moments and rushing towards the fun ones. Hope they include a 'unlock-all-so-i-dont-have-to-just-to-play-the-whole-game' cheat as well.
Way to many games assume that i want to grind 25 hours to get that tiny little game mode which just happens to be the most fun part of it all.
Is this a good idea (to help relieve frustrations) or just sanctioned cheating?"
Yes and yes. It does help who just want to see the next level and it does let people bypass the essential struggle of the game, thereby 'diminishing' the meaning of playing it.
But, hey, you paid for the game, I say you should be able to access all of its content, regardless of your playing skill. I would never use the cheat option, but I'm not going to fret myself into a furor that elsewhere in the privacy of their own homes people are enjoying the game differently.
(I will however mercilessly mock any of my friends who are less uber than me. :p )
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Extended frustration isn't good when playing videogames. Most people play them to either relax, have fun, or spend time with friends/family.
I don't care about this Demo mode, because I won't use it. If someone actually has to use it, then I'm glad it enhanced their game experience. If someone is foolish enough to use it to get to the end quicker when they didn't have to... then thank goodness they'll never have enough patience to get good at the online games I play. :)
+1 Insightful for you.
The need for such a feature at all is a design failure in itself though. A game can still be difficult and not frustrating because of it. Instead of this feature, Nintendo should be going back and looking at what they did wrong and fix that instead.
For the hard-core gamer I'm sure that this is considered the height of EVIL and is something of a hell-worthy trespass for them.
However for the casual gamer (say someone who doesn't have the time required to develop the "Mad Skillz" needed to play these games) this is a godsend.
There are games out there with very in-depth stories and as the game progresses and gets harder, many find that a particular section is flat-out beyond them and the only way they'll ever get to see the end of the story is to look up cheats, walkthroughs...or now this new system.
There are times when I've asked someone to get me through one little annoying section that I've tried for hours to defeat...at times even WITH the walkthrough. Being told how to do something is not the same as being able to do it with some of the "twitch" games out there where the solution involves precise timing that many hard-core and/or avid gamers develop. I get help with that "one" spot and I'll beat the rest of the game on my own in my own time.
This is a good thing and it gives an option and a choice for the players. They can choose to beat the game on their own, or they can choose to get a little help. Let the game give these options and let the players decide. It's the best way.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
... especially for casual gamers and kids. I have a young daughter who loves the original SMB that I downloaded through the VC, but her frustration level can get to the point where she doesn't want to play it anymore. Something like this would be nice for her and casual gamers if implemented properly. But I also think they should also insert some sort of bonus ending or perk for players who don't need to cheat to win.
Is it fair to give her an advantage when I didn't have one myself at her age? I think so. At least maybe she won't start throwing nintendo controllers across the goddamn room like I used to.
When I'm competing against other humans, "cheating" is an appropriate term.
In a single-player game, that I paid for, the interaction is between me and something owned by me. Its purpose is my entertainment. Challenge is part of that, but if I want to use an easy way, what could anyone possibly have against it? Seriously, that's like saying your favourite poet can only be read in candle light on a stormy night, because doing it any other way would ruin the atmosphere.
No, "cheating" does not describe this at all. There's no party that is being cheated on, after all.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Winning by cheating just isn't the same as winning 'for real'.
True, but sometimes it's necessary to bypass some ridiculously hard part of a game. For example, in one WWII game (Medal of Honor?) I was stuck at this one point where I was in a town with a sniper. I tried everything I could to get the guy and he just kept nailing me. After hours of game time spread over a few weeks of realtime, I finally activated a god mode code and went outside and looked for him where a walkthru said he would be. Even with all that, he was hard to see. Once I nailed him, I switched off the cheat and enjoyed the rest of the game. If I hadn't done that, I would have simply given up.
I recently have had an experienece in a game where I was really frustrated by the final battle. I looked it up and it turned out I simply wasn't strafing around that much, I was trying to use cover, which didn't work. That was cheating too, to get the strategy, but it's the same thing... I gave it a good try of many, many attempts and finally gave in and looked up a cheat.
Ultimately, looking up a strategy or using a code isn't as satisfying as doing it on your own, but sometimes you just want to move on and see the rest of the game.
Justin Bailey doesn't count and you know it.
Why, exactly, shouldn't it? For that matter, Contra also had a cheat built-in. Or does that one "not count" too?
There's nothing wrong with having cheats available, really. For players who want to just breeze through the game, it saves them frustration, and for players who want a challenge, they don't have to use it. Everyone wins.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
If it ruins the game to use it, then don't use it. Problem solved. A cheat simply being there doesn't affect you in any way at all.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Up-Down-Up-Down-Left-Right-Left
Help Me
Heck, I'm 39, and after being killed by Rift Entities one too many times I decided to go to "Casual" mode in the Ghostbusters video game. You know why? Because I don't care anymore...
This is because after a hard grueling day of work (or for a child, school), I don't want to come home to a hard/grueling video game, and never did.
We challenge our kid by making sure she keeps her grades up, if she wants to play Cooking Mama in her free time, that's her own affair.
I'll admit, I always thought it was dumb to play through a game on God mode from the very start. I knew kids who did it, and I didn't understand the point. I never thought it was bad to have God mode though.
On the other hand, the games where I get to "that one boss" and give up in frustration, what do those teach a child? If life is too hard you can always give up?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
But what a 7 year old or someone who is 60 and has never played games finds frustrating may be pretty easy for a 30 year old who has played games off and on since they were a kid.
This would allow the game to occasionally present a challenge to the 30 year old and give the 7/60 stuff to work against. If it's too hard, they can use it to "skip" that one moment.
How many people here have had a brother/sister/friend get through a "hard part" of some game for them?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I would call you someone who doesn't have any empathy. You apparently can't conceive that someone might want to "play" in way that is different from the way you like to play. Some people like to play full out and backcountry ski down mountains, risking their lives every second. Others want to relax with a bit of solitaire or bejeweled. The level of challenge that you want in your "play" is by definition something personal. I've "played" by running marathons, so I know something about challenging myself, but I don't consider you to be apathetic if you haven't run a marathon.
You have a very valid point, as do others who have said the same thing about other games. However, as also stated by other commenters, such highly difficult and frustrating parts are signs of a poorly design game.
It's one thing to look online for "cheats" or walkthroughs to aid you in overcoming some unreasonably difficult part of an otherwise enjoyable game, which you already purchased; you probably couldn't tell such challenge was part of the game until you encountered it, and therefore had no recourse except that, or stop playing altogether and forfeit part of your investment in the game.
It is another thing entirely to build this facility into the game itself--in essence making "cheating" part of the experience of playing, ab initio. At such, the game designer has little incentive in correcting his practice and invest resources into making a better gaming experience for the user. They are, to all intent and purposes, accepting as a matter of course that the game experience is going to irritate or frustrate you, and so it is easier to offer you a crutch or "cheat" than to actually improve it.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
You have a very narrow-minded view of games. Games are only about 2 things? Problem solving or competition? Really?
Have you ever played a sandbox game? I don't think that me driving around in GTA aimlessly is either problem solving or competition. The bottom line is that games are supposed to be FUN. And as you yourself admitted, a person's sense of fun is subjective. If people find that they have fun "playing" some sort of weird autopilot version of a game, then I have no problme with it.
Playing games is either about solving problems, competition, or both.
I thought playing games was about having fun.
You seem to confuse the means by which a goal can be achieved with the goal itself.
Walking isn't about putting one leg in front of the other, it's about going somewhere.
Eating isn't about moving your jaw and swallowing, it's about getting nutrition in your body.
Gaming isn't about solving problems or competition, it's about having fun.
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