Cheat codes that ruined games for me: The Sims

This is something that always sounds like a good idea that will make a game fun until you actually use it and then you completely ruin a great deal if not all of a game.

I'm gonna go back a ways in time to talk about the first time I discovered a cheat code and at first loved it but then later realized that I had completely ruined the experience and soon after, didn't even want to play the game anymore.

For me, that first experience was with The Sims

src

Like most people that had PC's that were reasonably powerful in the 90's, I loved Sim City. It was just endless in the possibilities and even though it looks really stupid now, it was so much fun back in the day when our expectations were pretty low as far as graphics were concerned. So when they came out with a "life simulator" I was at first apprehensive as to how they were going to pull it off and then eventually buckled and bought it.

I was hooked right from the start.

I presume this game doesn't need much of an introduction because there have now been so many of them that were made. The original was pretty rudimentary compared to what I consider to be the overly complicated versions of the game that exist today, but it was unlike anything else that had ever been released.

src

Basically you moved into one of the simpler houses and had to work your way up to more riches by getting better jobs and also had to do daily tasks like clean up your house, go to the toilet, shower, read to gain knowledge, exercise for better body image... you know, stuff like what we do in real life.

One aspect of the game that was absolutely paramount in importance was time-maintenance and namely, how much time you would spend doing various things.... again, just like real life. Sure, you could exercise for 4 hours in a row or study like crazy to get your "smarts" up but then this would cut into your other aspects of life such as the need to eat, socialize, and of course go to work.

Money was something that was ever-elusive again, just like in real life and it was the only thing that could result in you buying stuff that would make your life more efficient like a dishwasher, a nicer television, better exercise equipment and things like BBQ grills.... you know.... just like in real life.

The challenge to making more money rode on a lot of things and it was something that you were always pursuing getting more of. It was what made the game challenging because every now and then your stuff would just break AGAIN, just like in real life.

Then one day I stumbled upon a cheat code that would give you basically all the money that you wanted without doing anything. If you typed "rosebud" into the console (I think you hit ESC to engage the console) it would give you 1,000 of the in-game currency, if you typed "rosebud" and then semicolon exclamation point, it would give you as many thousands as you wanted all in one go.

such as "rosebud;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!" would result in you getting 12,000 of the in-game currency. There was no limit to how many times you could enter this into the console and now you could basically buy everything in the game.

At first this was friggin awesome but it also eliminated one of the core elements of the game: Having and maintaining a job. It sounds great and for a little while it was because you could just build ridiculous houses with no concern as to how much it would actually cost to do so.

src

From that point forward the only thing left to do was to create as much carnage as possible such as inviting your neighbors over and then luring them into an area, leaving that area and then closing the walls around them thus making them your prisoners until they died. Also, burning them alive was a bit of fun also.

So while this sounded like a good idea at the time it wasn't soon after that any accomplishments in the game were no longer meaningful and before too long, I never played the game anymore.

This has happened to me in a number of other games as well and these days, I stay away from cheat codes in all games because I know that the same thing will end up happening. I haven't even looked for a cheat code in many years because I know it will be game over shortly thereafter.

Got any cheat memories in your own gaming life? I've got a few more but this was the first for me!