The Purist versus The Cheat

Axleuk

Axleuk

Axleuk

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Back in the days when I used to own an XBox there was a very active community here in work. We used to discuss the games we were playing, offer each other tips and hints etc.

There was a few colleagues who used to take it a little bit further an enable cheat modes or play through a game with the help of a strategy guide.

Now this begs the question...Why would anyone want to buy a game (and quite often pay a premium) and then hack the experience? Why would they want to ruin the excitement of discovery and having the satisfaction of completing something using nothing more than your own intelligence and skill.

I would consider myself a purist....to a certain extent anyway. I like to play a game without someone detailing every nook and cranny for me (at least the first play through). I like to get as many of the achievements as I can. Then, and only then will I consider another play through with guidance, which is not very often if I am honest.

What about you? Which team do you bat for...or do you bat for both sides?
 
If it's a game like Final Fantasy, then playing through with a guide second time around is a bit of a must. You tend to miss out quite a lot of stuff if you don't :p
 
Interesting question in there. I imagine that the reason is incredibly variable.

In a single player context:

For example, when I was playing through the campaign of star trek armada 2, the maps would sometimes get incredibly tedious. You complete your objective, but still have to 'defeat the remaining forces' which could often take a really long time. To be honest, it was simply boring. So sometimes I'd cheat and just skip the rest of the level.

In general I'm a 'purist'. If the game's too difficult then just lower the difficulty. Maybe there's an ego thing, where people just dont want to admit that they cant do it, or maybe they cant do it even on the easiest difficulty i dunno. I've never really had that sort of problem personally.

In a multiplayer context:

Pro - Griefing is fun yo.

Con - total douche, just ruining the experience for other people.

Definitely Purist on that one :p
 
I could never understand this either, if it's not enjoyable to learn to play a game then don't bother playing.

Achievements are the bane of gaming, sacrificing real content for a pointless cheap system that many people lap up, allowing more developers to follow. If there is no reward then why on earth do you need the game to tell you that you are doing things?
 
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Jazzerman said:
I could never understand this either, if it's not enjoyable to learn to play a game then don't bother playing.
Click to expand...

How about people play their games in the way that they enjoy them the most? You don't like cheats, great, good for you. However, some people like to cheat.

I will quite often go back through a game that I have completed and cheat, and I generally always cheat with civilisation/total war games as I like strategy games very much but am rubbish at them.
 
For me it really depends on the game.

Skyrim for example. Everyone is raving about it, not really my sort of game but want to play it and don't have 150 hours to pour in to it. I've used a couple of console commands to help out, nothing game changing like god mode etc. I get to experience it and know what people are talking about without really missing out on a great deal. Think I am 40-50 hours in so far.

Playing the new assassins creed and no cheats, the game isn't living up to my expectations and is a little to easy but I want to play it.

Online games where the point it to beat the other human, never cheat. I don't see the point, if I am not good enough i'll play until I am!
 
Purist, but I do use cheats and trainers for increased playability.

An example would be SupCom. Pitted myself against several ALX AIs, no rush 20 minutes rule. Insta build your base, await armageddon.
 
Smokey Deza said:
Purist, but I do use cheats and trainers for increased playability.

An example would be SupCom. Pitted myself against several ALX AIs, no rush 20 minutes rule. Insta build your base, await armageddon.
Click to expand...

By definition you are not a purist then.
 
If I wanted to find a unique weapon or something on Fallout 3 then I would look it up, but that's about as far as I would go.
 
I myself also dont see the point in cheating your way through a game. I always play first time through with no assistance but as i am also a trophy whore i will then play it through a as minimum assistance to achieve 100%. i Have 19 Platinum's this way and some ive spent some time on.
 
I would only use a trainer/cheats after I had already completed the game, just for some fun, otherwise there wouldn't be any real satisfaction for me.

I would never consider cheating in an multiplayer games, just one line I wouldn't cross.
 
I'm definitely not a purist, as if I'm struggling working out what to do in a game I'll go online and look for a walkthrough, this could be anything from working out how to beat a boss in a FPS game, to where I can find a character in an RPG.

In my eyes, spending 30mins trying to deduce/stumble upon a (sometimes arbitrary) solution is not a good use of my time, I like to keep my game flowing. I don't mind things being difficult, if I spend 30mins on something just because it is hard then that's fine, it is more the black&white scenarios you get in some games where you can only progress if you take a particular approach (say, enemies that are immune to all but a single type of damage, but there is no feedback e.g. healthbar to tell you this).

Also in some cases games have bugs that would literally mean you could be there for years trying to progress the game and still failing, examples being the 88% bug in Far Cry 2 and one of the doors in the Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta expansion. A purist would never look online for solutions and thus would never discover that such bugs exist, wasting days of their lives trying to get past those sections of the games.

For me, gaming is about having fun and storytelling, and that can be interrupted by getting stuck in a game. I don't have enough time to play all the games I want to, and that's in spite of the fact that I play on medium difficulty and consult walkthroughts where I feel necessary.
 
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Depends on the game really.

For COD, BF3 etc often it can take a long time to level up. You've paid for the game but have a miserable time running around, being dead and waiting for a respawn. I can see cheating being a tempting prospect to get some value from a game. If you're new to games like this it can be a really tough learning curve with a lot of very short lives.

As for walk throughs, I agree with the above post. It depends on the game. If I can't figure it out in a decent time or get stuck and frustrated I'll read the bit I'm stuck on and carry on enjoying the game. Often it can be that or throw it in a draw never to see the light of day.

AD
 
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If you play a game for the story then it's an art form. And you wouldn't cross out or add lines to a book, nor would you even think about adding to somebody else's painting. However, you don't miss anything when you're reading through a book. Not anything that's actually there, at least. A book is a story told from a specific perspective. A (good) game is an entire world in which you create, or at least you feel that you create the story.

But if you play a game for the competition... well that changes everything, doesn't it? Interesting question, thanks :)
 
i call myself a purist, but i have been known to look at some guides. generally i try to avoid doing so, but on some games you just have to. take this example on dynasty warriors 6:

how to unlock 'red hare' horse on dynasty warriors 6 said:
change the date and time on your xbox or PS3 to the following:
DD/MM/YYYY
04/08/2008 00:01 AM


level: Battle Of Guan Du
side: Wei Forces
difficulty: Easy

characters to use:
2 Level 50 characters with Lady Luck

horses to use:
Both mounts have the FIND SADDLE ABILITY

Requirements-

Complete Target 2: Do not allow Guan Gu West Gate or Guan Du East Gate to be
breached
Complete Target 3: Yan Jin Fort and Bai Ma Fort do not fall
Pick up saddle from Crate/Saddle Box
Kill Yuan Shao

Guide to Unlocking the horse: Once you have done the time trick and selected
your characters, you must (with yoursecond character) run over and jump down
the cliff to get the saddle, you must then run round to yuan shao's main camp,
where you must quickly, kill him. after the level has been completed, you will
get a horse called ginger striker, save it, and repeat the whole process

so reset the time to 00:01 and then do the exact same as last time, the horse
your looking for is called Ultimate Dream, so save that in what ever slot you
want, and once it levels up to level 5, it will look exactly like Red
Hare.

the Horse is called ULTIMATE DREAM
Click to expand...

so, to unlock the red hare you have to set the consoles time and date to an exact value, use two characters (in multiplayer) with a certain ability, use two horses with a certain ability, complete some sensible goals, save in exactly the right location, then change the time on the console again and do exactly the same.

its the same story with all the other special horses in the game

i'm pretty surer that anyone who called themselves a purist would resort to looking at a guide on how to unlock these horses.

for online gaming the only time i cheat is when messing around with friends (generally in lan play or some other mode where we wont annoy anyone else)
 
I don't usually cheat but I do often look up a walkthrough if I am very stuck.

For example: I was playing Psychonauts a few days ago. It's my first play through of it. Halfway through the game I arrive at a portion in which I need level 20 and however many Arrowheads. I didn't cheat, but I was rather tempted. I wasn't too happy at the prospect of running around grabbing collectibles for 30 minutes.

And today, playing the same game, I am on the Milkman Conspiracy level. It's an excellent level but I spent 60+ minutes running around trying to get an item I needed. In the end I looked it up and discovered it was because I was jumping over a gate rather than walking through it.

And again, I was level 26 and you need to be level 30 to complete the final part of the level as you need the invisibility power. I didn't have this, and had I not looked it up I never would have known.

Games like Portal that are completely based around puzzles and have literally nothing else though, I wouldn't cheat on them because it would simply ruin the game. Neither would I cheat on a purely skill based game.

I think partially some of it is due to bad game design. I've said I wouldn't cheat on portal but neither have I ever had the desire to. Games need to give you more feedback about these things. Portal never makes you wonder if something is caused by a glitch or an extremely cheap mechanic on a puzzle. If you are fighting a boss, and a boss needs 1 of 50 abilities, it needs to be giving you some form of visual clue about that. Perhaps that's just a case of polish?
 
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Purist without a doubt, probably even more strict than the OP.

If i can't do something in a game i will switch off and go back to it time and time again.

If i do use a cheat then it is only after i complete the game at all skill levels and/or am satisfied that i have seen all of what the game has to offer. Then i will use a cheat to replay a favourite level or maybe slow down time to enjoy the animation.. blah blah that sort of thing.
 
Depends.

In MMOs some things are so complex they take weeks if not months to figure out..... I will read a guide for something in an MMO because not doing so can put you at a severe disadvantage progress/power wise. That is not to say I guide up everything in an MMO because I have played for years at the cutting edge of progress in guilds where there were no guides and you HAD to work it out for yourself.

In anything else I am a purist.
 
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