There Have Been Some Rather Famous Cheat Codes
What Are 5 of the Most Famous Cheat Codes Out There?
Here are five of the most famous cheat codes that can be found there:
“BIGDADDY”
The Age of Empires series has a strange but nonetheless very amusing relationship with cheat units. For example, the first Age of Empires would spawn a Winsett’s Z, which was a man with a rocket launcher sitting in a sports car whenever the player entered “BIGDADDY.” Considering that the first Age of Empires was focused on Bronze Age civilizations, it should come as no surprise to learn that this cheat unit was nothing short of nightmarish when matched up against its counterparts.
Interestingly, the Winsett’s Z wasn’t the sole cheat unit that could be found in the first Age of Empires, as shown by the existence of both the Nuke Trooper and the Photo Man, which were exactly what they sounded like. For that matter, it should be mentioned that the cheat units of the first Age of Empires created something of a tradition for the series as a whole. One excellent example was Age of Mythology‘s Lazer Bear, which was a super-powered bear that could attack with lasers as well as monkeys, while another excellent example was Age of Mythology‘s Flying Purple Hippo, which was even more surreal when seen in action than what it sounds like.
GTA Phone Codes
The first Grand Theft Auto came out in October of 1997. Combined with its lasting popularity, this means that the Grand Theft Auto series has had a lot of impact on a lot of games. For example, it isn’t exactly a mystery that the Saints Row series started up as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Grand Theft Auto series, though the signs of said series turning into its own thing could be seen as early as the particular sense of humor found in both Saints Row 1 and Saints Row 2. Regardless, the influence of the Grand Theft Auto series means that some of its elements are well-known, with an excellent example being how the phone feature in its games can be used to input cheat codes. Of course, it is helped in this by the intuitive nature of the system, which is in addition to the amusement derived from the jokes made using the letters assigned to the numbers on a phone-pad.
Konami Code
The Konami Code is perhaps the single most famous cheat code to have ever existed, so much so that a lot of people who play video games will have some awareness of it even if they have never picked up one of the Konami games that included it. In short, the Konami Code is used by pressing a sequence of buttons on a game controller, which would be Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, and A. Once used, the Konami Code would provide players with a wide range of effects depending on the exact game in question. For example, the first game to use the Konami Code was Gradius, which provided players with a full set of power-ups.
However, people in North America became more familiar with the Konami Code because of Contra, which would provide them with 30 lives. These examples are but two of the dozens and dozens of Konami games that have included the Konami Code in some manner, which do a great deal to explain why the cheat code has even seeped into pop culture. Examples of non-Konami mentions of the cheat code include but are not limited to Alexa, Wreck-It Ralph, and the Bank of Canada, which is of course the one and only central bank of Canada.
“Power Overwhelming”
Starcraft remains one of the most influential games to have ever been made. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that there are some rather well-known Starcraft cheat codes. For instance, one of the best examples is “Power Overwhelming,” which was used to provide the player with what amounted to God mode. In part, said cheat code was memorable because of its suitability for its intended use. However, it should also be noted that it was one of the phrases of the Protoss Archon, which was one of the more memorable units from Starcraft. After all, the Protoss Archon had to be created using an unusual process, which resulted in a powerful unit that could have a big impact on the course of the game one way or the other.
XYZZY
XYZZY isn’t a cheat code that most people will be familiar with in the present day. This is because XYZZY is so old that even the references to it can be decades-old, which is more than enough time for its meaning to elude people of younger generations. Regardless, those who are curious should know that XYZZY was a command that could be used to teleport the player between “inside building” and “debris room” in a text adventure game called Colossal Cave Adventure, which is often abbreviated to just Adventure. Said game came out in 1976, meaning that it predated everything from Zork to Rogue and Nethack. As a result, Adventure had a profound impact on not just text adventure games as their first example but also on semi-related genres of games such as RPGs and rogue-likes. Due to this, it is no coincidence that the awards for interactive fiction are called the XYZZY Awards.
Likewise, XYZZY has seen use in the earlier versions of Windows’s Minesweeper, in the name of a boss in the MMORPG Dungeons & Dragons Online, and in a mention in the first Deus Ex. Amusingly, the origin of XYZZY has even inspired a fair amount of debate, with some claiming that it came from a mnemonic for cross products while the creator of Adventure has always stated that he made it up himself because he wasn’t aware of said mnemonic.
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