Labor Day’s meaning has
changed throughout its existence, but ultimately it equals a day off. What you
do with the day is up to you, but I recommend staying away from anything that
may be strenuous or considered “work.” Please don’t do yard work, workout, or get to work
on anything. Going through some of the games in your backlog seems like a much
better idea.
To
keep in the spirit of the day and to make things easier on yourself, you may
want to use a game cheat here and there. Guess what, you lazy bum? I’ve got a
few cheats I want to talk about. Cheats can make the impossible seem possible
or simply change the way you play. Just remember to cheat safely…cheating can
disable achievements on the Xbox 360 or Trophies on the PS3. Consider yourself
warned!
“Super Jump” from Mega Man 3 - NES
I’ve always had a love/hate
relationship with Mega Man games (except for the Battle Network series; there’s no love there). I love their
simplicity, but hate how hard they are. Luckily there exists a cheat for Mega Man 3, which is as helpful as it is
easy to pull off. To jump almost three times your normal hop, simply push
“right” on the second controller’s d-pad while you jump. That’s it! The only
problem is, you’ll have to find somebody willing to keep this held for you. If
that doesn’t work out, you could always be like me and put a chair leg on the
controller!
“The Konami Code” – NES to current
If “up, up, down, down,
left, right, left, right, B, A, start” doesn’t mean anything to you, then you
may want to check your nerd credentials. This now-legendary code first appeared
in the 1986 game Gradius for the NES,
but was made popular by Contra for
the same system. You’ll definitely need the 30 lives this gives you in Contra!
Konami
still uses this code in current generation games, with varying effects.
Non-Konami games and even websites are affected by the code. Facebook
supposedly works with it and ESPN.com would unleash pretty unicorns if the code
was input (this has since been removed). The truly devoted (or something like
that) can even get a t-shirt with the code printed on it!
“Flying Cars” from Grand Theft Auto series – PS2,
Xbox, PC
In case you ever run out of
things to do in a Grand Theft Auto
game, the developers have hidden even more insanity to be unlocked. You can get
more health, weapons, and vehicles using cheats, but that’s to be expected. To
change things up a bit more, try the cheat that slows down gameplay (the sound
also slows down…hearing the slow screams of pedestrians is hilarious).
For the ultimate in city exploration, you’ll need to
enable flying cars. While they’re pretty hard to control, you might just get
used to it. Even if you don’t, it’ll still be very entertaining. See how high
you can get and then bail out! Oh, before you get too excited, please know that
Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t have any
of these mind-altering cheats.
“Road Rage” from Saints Row – Xbox 360, PS3
Saints Row
is what all of the cool kids played while waiting for Grand Theft Auto IV to come out, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a
good game. While it borrowed heavily from the GTA games, it brought new ideas to the table as well. The story in Saints Row never grabbed me, but the
nice graphics and wonderful explosions did.
I
spent most of my time in Saints Row
trying not to get killed by psycho-vehicles in a mode I dubbed “Road Rage”.
While not really a cheat, putting in the right code caused all of the town’s
residents to suddenly hate your stinking guts. Drivers would relentlessly chase
you down in their reckless attempts to end your life, usually ending their own.
You could simply pick a slightly elevated spot and watch the carnage unfold.
There was a park I liked to seek refuge in and watch drivers kamikaze into a
low wall as they pursued me. Eventually cars would pile up in the streets all
around you, leaving you no choice but to blow them up to make way for new
victims. If you were feeling lucky enough you could try to cross the street!
“Non-firing Enemies” from Galaga – early arcade units
Remember Galaga? Remember arcades? A wise man
recently informed me of a cheat for the Galaga
arcade game that would cause the enemies to stop shooting at you. Just destroy
the first wave of enemy ships, except for the bee-like ones and avoid their
fire for about 15 minutes. Once they stop shooting, get rid of ‘em and enjoy
annihilating the rest of the pacifist ships that will come your way.
Unfortunately
this bug was fixed in later versions of the arcade units, so I guess it’s too
late to try it now. That’s too bad because I would have loved to convince
unknowing onlookers that I made the enemies surrender in fear!
Send queries, questions, answers and
acclaim to Dan at sorethumbs.news4u@gmail.com.
Comments (
