The early versions of the SMS control pad had a spot in the middle of the D-pad where you could screw in that mini stick, and a little rubber piece that covered the hole if you weren't using it. I used the stick for a while since the concept of a D-pad was a bit new and strange to me at the time, having only had experience with Atari / Colecovision controllers prior. Having that thing poking into your thumb wasn't comfortable at all, and I imagine that's why in later versions it was removed.

It's still cheating, the English word cheating at this point doesn't require somebody else to be harmed, if it ever did. Most of the time you don't hear it used without a victim because nobody noticed or cared, but it doesn't make the word require a victim in order to be used.

Psyringe, I've seen first hand the results of this sort of rationalization and legal gerrymandering in the US. And yes, it clearly does cause moral and societal decay. It's what permits corporations to not provide the services that they're promising because they technically buried a disclaimer in fine print on the back of a sheet of paper that they don't know that you read.

And it's clearly getting worse. These sorts of rationalize around the hard question is why it's getting worse. It's not just that people are choosing to cheat, lie and steal, it's that they aren't considering whether they're really doing anything wrong. If you don't exercise the parts of the brain that process that information, you lose those portions of brain to atrophy, just like the rest of the brain.

Actually, it was a quite common occurrence "back in the day..." Old school gamers can relate to using such crude controller mechanisms that accompanied systems like Atari 2600, turbo graphics and NES (the original). Gaming marathons on these old systems were a true test of spirit and willpower lol.

Guitarist/weightlifter, so yup. I,trim them 2-3 times a year.

Well I feel obligated to give the after-school special response: You're cheating yourself out of the genuine experience.

XD

I don't really care but it's interesting. I used to cheat a lot, I was one of those kids who'd complain when there weren't any cheats built-in.

My best friend decided to get 100% completion on GTA Vice City, apparently on the PS2 there's a glitch where you cannot get 100% if you cheat even just once. After he finished he said the game was actually a lot more fun without cheating.

I tried it out myself and he was right, it was a lot more fun to go through that game, and the later games, without cheating. Even the rampages were much more fun because I was actually vulnerable and had to learn to escape without replenishing my health on the fly. I did use cheats on the occasional rampage but not on the scale that I used to.

Anyway, like I said I don't really care if others do it, it may be more fun for them to break the rules, but I did find out just what I had been missing all those years by playing on super-easy mode.


Ehhh... I kind of went off-topic there. In fighting games it is pretty much cheating, just like in real martial arts there's a lot of moves and crap you have to learn before you're a good player but I definitely completely understand someone not wanting to scale that learning curve.

You work out? Yeah you look like it.

Ever work out at Vince's? No, of course not, I would have seen you; I'm there every day.

I got a CORN on one of my palms from playing sonic adventures 2 in my Nintendo gamecube when I had one it's still there Too?!? oh god did I get sore arms after playing games on my Nintendo wii and I have NO FINE MOTOR SKILLS so I'm more of a PC gamer kind of guy

I use Mouse 2 to move forward in all games anyone here do the same or am I the only one?

Yes, I know. :) I'm simply pointing out that the word (as used in this videogame slang) is used differently from many other contexts (moral ones, legal ones, relationship ones), and that it makes sense to differentiate clearly between these contexts. The post that I replied to stated simply "cheating is cheating", and then drew a connection to an alleged general corruption of society. I disagree with both the undifferentiated view on the term "cheating" as well as the connection between using aids in video games to enhance one's enjoyment, and a general corruption of the society. Hence the argument.

Have you asked him if it was just a hyperbole? Because in his latest post he makes a point that he indeed meant that in the way that I read it, and not just a hyperbole.

It's very self-serving to say so, but I have to agree with Psyringe.

Context matters.

Cheating, when spoken of in a pejorative way, usually involves some other person.

For example, had I been playing with another player who had not been using the controller, I would have been cheating.

Had I bragged to my friends about my gaming prowess exceeding theirs at fighting games with the controller, I would have been cheating.

I think that people, as a whole, often place on themselves a lot of silly obstacles whose rationality don't stand up to closer scrutiny.

A code of conduct, whether legal or moral, will find greater adherence amongst the populace if it makes sense.

Ok, but what if the genuine experience is retarded?

I don't know about you, but I hadn't envision sour thumbs as a positive aspect of my gaming experience.

If anything, I'd blame the game designer for their bad design which forced me to go to such lengths to avoid sour thumbs.

Yes, the word can be used in both contexts. But does it still describe the same thing? I don't think so. The fact that in one context the result is a victim that has been harmed, and in the other there just is a gamer who feels a bit happier playing his game, makes that pretty clear imho.

Well, I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that this particular slippery slope actually exists.

I don't believe that someone who knows what entertains him and what's enjoyable for him, and is confronted with an entertainment product that partly contradicts that (e.g. by demanding inputs that hurt him physically), and is using a playing aid to make the game more enjoyable for himself while not harming or even impacting anybody else, is contributing to a general corruption of society by not "exercising" his moral compass.

I believe that this person is rather taking a mature stance towards an entertainment product. Instead of mindlessly jumping through the hoops that the programmer _thought_ might be enjoyable for the player (but which aren't), he's taking control of the situation, and secures his enjoyment by adapting the game (or the situation surrounding it). As long as that isn't taking place in a competitive environment where people pit their skill against each other, I can't see anything wrong with that.
Exactly. :) And, as a mature player who knows the difference between genuinely enjoying something and just struggling grimly, shouldn't it be my decision whether I prefer the "genuine" experience, or one that I adapted so that I can actually enjoy it? :)

Then it's a bad game.

Okay but you're playing a fighting game, it's a genre that necessitates lots of fast button pushing and joystick moving and more importantly it's a genre that started out in the arcades.

What I mean by that is that modern day controllers aren't as well suited for fighting games as an arcade stick would be, it's actually part of the reason why a lot of fighting games allow you to map button combinations to a single button; because it's just not as easy to pull off combos and such with the controller.

A lot of people still prefer the controller and it's becoming much less of an issue as the developers make the games designed around the controller rather than the stick (Mortal Kombat 9, for example, and Street Fighter is the only game I can think of sticking to the 6-button layout instead of the now-standard 4) for the obvious reason that hardly anyone goes to arcades anymore.

If you really enjoy fighting games I'd recommend investing in a good arcade stick. It'd definitely help you avoid sore thumbs for one and pulling off those combos by yourself is much easier, of course some skill is still required.

After I got one I can't imagine playing fighting games without one; to me it's like the difference between using the plastic guitar in Guitar Hero vs. a standard controller. You have four fingers on the buttons rather than just your thumb and possibly your forefinger and you use your entire hand to manipulate the stick rather than just your thumb.

To each his own, if you still like the controller stick with it but if sore thumbs really kill the experience for you than changing the controller might help out a lot.

Of course, which is why I said I don't care, as a mature gamer I understand that how you decide to play the game doesn't affect how I decide to play it (barring multiplayer, of course) and we may be enjoying it on equal levels but from different angles; also a lot of people simply don't have time to play the game fairly or just want to experience the story line as easily as possible so I'm not trying to invalidate cheating just pointing out that from my own experience it was more fun to play within the rules of the game rather than eschewing them.