FEATURE: On Cheating; or Every Fucking Game Is On Easy Nowadays

Hi, it’s Rab Florence here. I’m 41 years old and I’ve never cheated at a computer game in my life.

Or maybe I have. I can’t remember. But I don’t think I have. And I come from the past, that place where 95% of all computer games were hard as fuck and made you feel like punching a hole in your bedroom wall. And your bedroom was in a council-built house, so the walls were like paper. And your mammy would be raging.

I didn’t cheat at computer games because I felt that people who used cheats were losers. I mean, cheating at a game that you bought yourself? Cheating yourself? Why would you cheat yourself? What would be the point? Surely the pleasure you got from a game like Ghouls ‘n Ghosts was in a mad zombie popping up exactly under you and killing you for the millionth time for fuck’s sake. Why would you cheat yourself out of continuously going back to the start with your eyes full of tears of rage?

See, I never cheated, and so I finished very few games. For that reason, I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of computer games, but only an encyclopaedic knowledge of maybe the first 20% of most of them. That’s mental, intit? That’s like being a Pope who knows everything that happened in the Old Testament but doesn’t have a single fucking clue who Jesus is. But that’s where I am, because I’m not a cheat.

I win. Well, I lose. But I’m not a cheat. Hoo rah.

Absolute breathless panic and controller-flinging hard-as-fuck nightmare fuel from hell, forever, Amen.

It’s been amusing to watch this big debate about using cheats or including easy modes in computer games. It’s been particularly amusing to see all these extreme hardcore gamers getting their knickers in a twist about anyone using cheats. I’ve even seen some guys talking about people not being real gamers because they play games on “easy”. I’ve got news for these wee arseholes - every fucking game is on easy nowadays.

Sekiro is a hard game. No doubt about it. But compared to some Mastertronic C64 shiter you would buy from John Menzies on a Saturday afternoon in 1984, it’s a walk in the park. Oh, you, you’re such a real gamer - playing your unbelievably polished, sophisticated, continuously rewarding hard game about a cool ninja fighting beautifully designed enemies. Gaze upon me, you privileged pile of trash, and the many people like me - middle-aged people who spent hours of their childhood trying to struggle their way through insanely difficult, shoddily built games about fucking lawnmowers or parking attendants or postmen, on the promise that if they do well enough they might - only might - get an ending. Yes, some of our games were so hard and impossible the designers didn’t even bother putting a fucking ending on there. And if there was an ending, often it was just some text telling you to do your punishment exercise all over again, from the start, but even harder.

The hardcore vs casuals crisis* was a thing that happened about ten or so years ago, and — newsflash — the casuals won. The casuals won so hard that nowadays there is a “hardcore” that identifies as “hardcore” but is actually totally casual. They’re out there, claiming hardcore status, playing those supremely casual Battle Royale games on Twitch, with no idea that they are actually a casual, playing a casual game, for an audience of casuals. Are they playing some obscure Japanese mecha game, using a 300 page translation guide from GameFAQs, printed out as a hard copy? Are they fuck, mate. They’re playing shoot-em-up pachinko in the hope of a five quid donation from some guy who hasn’t even heard of Dangun Feveron.

For normal people, like me and you, who don’t care about all that hardcore/casual terminology, it’s just all so amusing to watch. For me, it’s like - do whatever you fucking want. Cheat if you want, play it on easy if you want, manipulate your gamepad using the dismembered hands of one of your victims if you want. Why does it matter to anybody how anybody else plays their games?

Should we demanding that game developers include easy modes, though? Absolutely not. Let these artists (because that’s what they are) make their art. How you want to play is a question for yourself. It’s yours, for your heart and mind alone. The only place you can ask for play to be exactly how you want it is in the bedroom, if you have a strong and respectful relationship, and aren’t a wee virgin.

And me? I know I’m not a cheat. That’s all that matters. Not cheating has made me amazing at a few games, and absolutely shite at the rest. But absolutely shite with integrity. That’s me.

Bury me under a stone angel, for a real gamer dyeth here, as usual.

Difficult, but entirely fair and not full of cheating sprite bastards, you lucky young shite.

*further reading: The Hardcore vs The Casuals, 2004, Dr Jeremy Pevenpies, Whogeezafuck Press.