The Cheesiest Tactics in Video Game History

High heels, perhaps?

High heels, perhaps?

7. Oddjob - GoldenEye 007

I'd bet dollars to donuts that, back in the day, any group of 007 split-screeners had a "no Oddjob" rule in their multiplayer sessions. Oddjob was the only GoldenEye multiplayer character with the distinct advantage of small stature. Like a flexible Gary Coleman in a limbo contest, a tall person just can't win. Because he is so small, it was commonplace to shoot well over his noggin in a flurry of frustration.

A + B = C you later, extra life!

A + B = C you later, extra life!

6. The Life Snatch - Contra

Everyone's favorite NES side-scrolling shooter not only had what is arguably the most memorable cheat code of all time, but it also had the cheapest of the cheap -- a move that effectively snagged an extra life from your unsuspecting buddy. If you ran out of lives in a two-player game, all you had to do was perform a simple little tap of the A and B buttons after death to steal the life of your flourishing pal.

"But Ammu-Nation is all the way across town!"

5. Grand Theft Auto Cheat Codes

The GTA cheats have to make the list simply for being the most widely used cheat codes in gaming. Starting with GTA3, even the most honest of players gave in to temptation at one time or another, either loading up on health, armor, cash, or a bevy of destructive weaponry. It was only occasionally that anyone witnessed an "acclaimed" GTA wizard play through the entire game without cutting a few corners. For shame.

4. Bunny Hopping - Quake III: Arena, Counter-Strike

As legend has it, virtuoso Doom and Quake programmer John Carmack coined this term in 1999 when he complained that "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sigourney Weaver don't get down a hallway by hopping like a bunny rabbit." So-called "bunny hoppers" had already infested Carmack's popular online shooters Quake and Quake II, and the programmer wasn't about to let this cheesy tactic ruin his upcoming game Quake III: Arena. But after massive backlash from Quake-aholics, Carmack sheepishly re-added the feature with a cryptic note in his .plan file: "removed tripple bunny-hop protection, it was too arbitrary and didn't accomplish its goal."

The primary reason for bunny hopping is two-fold. First, it keeps the player from being an easy target, an especially important goal in a twitch shooter like Quake III, where rockets whiz by like falling leaves on a crisp autumn afternoon. Second, some games (particularly Counter-Strike and Painkiller) actually apply a slight movement boost by jumping; repeatedly jumping, as you might guess, stacked exponentially to give rampant bunny hoppers inhumanly fast speed. Though the worst bunny-hop exploits have mostly been smoothed out, it's still a widespread tactic (cheat?) in online shooters.

What's your favorite (or least favorite) exploit? Click here to email Mr. Marbles and be heard! We'll take the 10 best and publish them.

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment