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I had been seeing the quote “The cake is a lie” all over the Internet recently, almost to the same level of saturation as the old “all your base are belong to me“. So I decided to look into why the cake is a lie, if indeed a lie it is. And I do like cake! So a quick  prayer to the god of all knowledge Google granted me the Divine knowledge I needed. It was from a game called Portal, which was a current popular game amongst geeks. Not wanting to loose my “Geek Card” I did my best and got hold of a copy of the game and kick it off.

The game  is a first-person action/puzzle video game developed by Valve Corporation (The guys who brought us Left 4 Dead).  The game is set in the science testing labs of the “Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center”.  You wake up in a small room and the voice of an AI informs you that you are being tested and you have to work your way through 19 test stages, where after testing has finished you will be rewarded with cake. The challenges get harder and harder the further along you go, while the AI inspires you with promises of cake.  The problems are solved by teleporting yourself, or items from one place to another by means of portals.  The Test chambers are very clean and modern, but the further you go, the more erratic the AI gets, slipping in the odd threat or gibberish. There are also parts where you can see the rooms behind the test centre, these rooms are all derelict and falling apart. With graffiti all over the place with parts of poems, or “HELP” written in what looks like blood, not to mention hand prints everywhere and loads and loads of :-

the cake is a lie…
the cake is a lie…
the cake is a lie…
the cake is a lie…
the cake is a lie…

After completing the final test chamber (this one with the sign for cake on it) the AI places you on a conveyor belt heading into a furnace, where you will be baked and there will be cake. Here you promptly escape, not to the Los Angeles underground, but the maintenance part of the testing complex. That is implying you wish to escape, you could stay and be burnt alive in the hope of getting cake I suppose. Those of you who did not wish to die and escaped now find yourself lost in the bowls of an underground massive complex, which is falling apart, and guarded by robots with machine guns. You now make use of your portal Gun to try and follow the clues left for you by some mysterious person.  All the time with the AI telling you that your going the wrong way, and if you give up now you can have cake. or my favorite one “they have already cut the cake, I told them to wait for you, if you turn yourself in now you may be in time to get the last slice!”  You eventually (if you can complete the puzzles) get to the control centre where you come face to camera with GLaDOS (The AI). Who promptly tries to kill you, with nerve gas and rocket launchers (some computer systems).  If you can defeat GlaDOS in the time you have before the nerve gas kills you, the control room explodes, and you wake up outside and free……

There is then one of the best credit sequences I have ever seen in a computer game, where GLaDOS sings a little called “Still Alive” while the lyrics are typed on a text based screen, with asci images. Its good………And it ends with CAKE!!!!

It is a straightforward question.

If you need to cheat to win, have you really won? Can you give a whoop of joy and flick you nose at the losers? Can you boast about your skills?  In fact, is anyone impressed?

I’d say NOT!

Now, I can understand how someone playing a computer game, and being stuck at the same bit for a very long time may use a cheat just to get past the point they are stuck at. Maybe they just cant do a complicated jump, or they a bit slow on the old controls so its next to impossible for them to complete the task.  Personally I’d not resort to the easy way out, I’d keep trying until I lost the will to live, Then take a break while playing a different game. But I can understand why some people would.  Playing the whole game on cheat mode I think defeats the purpose of playing the game. I have some nephews who I caught once playing a game from start to finish in “God Mode”, what was the point, they ignored all challenges and just walked through everything.  And as for cheating in a PVP multiplayer game, where you do not gain in points, rank, or anything useful, I can only assume  its to bolster some very flagging ego?

Let me give you an example…

I was amusing myself with some “Verses” Mode on Left 4 Dead the weekend. Now those of you who are unfortunate, old, or live in a draconian anti-technology cult sprung up from the teachings of the Battlestar Galactica series finale may not be aware of Left 4 Dead, so I’ll take a moment to explain. Left 4 Dead is a cooperative first-person shooter video game. Set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, the game pits its four protagonists dubbed “the Survivors” against hordes of the infected, zombie-like aggressive mutants. There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which allied characters are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the “Director”, controls level pacing and item spawns, in an attempt to create a dynamic experience and increase replay value.  In the Verses mode they players are in two teams of four, and take it in turns to play each level as either the Survivors or the Infected. It adds an extra challenge to the game, Not only do you have to deal with the AI controlled hordes of infected, You now have up to four human controlled Special infected (Who respawn when killed after a short period, while the survivors stay dead).

Right, you all up to speed now? Good then I shall continue.

I was in a verses match, and my team was loosing a bit, We had only managed to get one survivor to the safe room in one of the levels, and the other team had got all four in on every level. So I was feeling a bit frustrated, especially since every time I was one of the infected and hiding somewhere to attack the survivors I’d get shot through a wall or ceiling before moving, it was almost like they knew where everyone was. (But that’s just sour grapes right?).  So I was currently dead having been shot through a chimney pot i was hiding behind on a roof top in an out the way position, a place that is impossible to see from the street level where the guy who shot me was. So there I am, a floating ghost for the next 25 seconds until I can respawn. So I’m floating about following the survivors, wondering why one seems to have several dozen pipe bombs, while another has an equal number of fire bombs  (Especially as each person can only carry, 1 pistol, 1 big gun, 1 bomb and 1 medikit) when one of my team mates becomes the tank. The tank is a special super infected that the person doing the most damage to the survivors gets to be randomly during a level. Think a zombieish version of the HULK, only BIGGER! So the Tank catches the survivors inside an office with limited room to maneuver, and with a few smashes and punches all four of the survivors are on red (almost dead) three are so bad they are lying on the floor and need help to be picked up. The last survivor manages to kill the tank, but he’s on red and limping, it looks like we are going to win this level!

Just as I’m about to respawn as a hunter and rip the last survivor to bits winning the game he uses a medikit to heal himself (That’s ok, without the others to help he can be brought down)  and voila! all four survivors are standing up, green on full health? OK, not 100% impossible, i may have blinked while he picked up one survivor, and that survivor may have picked up the other two, and the three of them may have healed while I was watching the first one.  (Yeah right!) and since they all still have a medikit they just happened to find 4 spares on the floor right where they fell.  So I decided not to respawn after all what’s the use, and I followed the survivors as a ghost to see what they did. And I’m glad i did, as the were running I spotted the person playing bill drop his shotgun on the floor as he ran (you can only drop weapons if you pick up a new one),  he’s now holding a sniper rifle to take out the infected waiting to drop down from the higher floors. Oh there’s a horde running at the infected, the sniper rifle is dropped, and he’s now armed with a fully auto machine gun? No doubts now, this team is cheating. So I drop out of the game to find a game with decent players.

Now why would you cheat, ok, you are guaranteed to win, but is winning in that way even worth it? You could just not play the game and say you won. You couldn’t brag and say “wow, you should have seen how we trashed that other team” since you only won by cheating? The only thing I can think is that they must suck, and be the worst game players of all time, and after loosing every game they ever played must have resorted to cheating just so they could see what happens when you win?

Personally I’d rather suck from my own lack of skill, than try and pretend I’ve got skills with cheating.

So yesterday I was gearing up for a session of Zombie killing with my usual l4d wingman SuperSpiro, Booted up the ole Xbox, connected to XBox-Live and BANG.

“Updates are available for this program… Downloading Updates”

Now the last time my xbox insisted i had an update it took almost a hour to download, so I made myself useful ad headed for the fridge for a cold drink (I never made it to the fridge damn that download was fast!.) So back to the game, Start it up and blink at the menu…. Something is different…….

Not only have they opened up more of the levels for you to play verses on, they have added a whole new game style. SURVIVOR!

Now survivor sees your team of four trying to defend one small area from hordes and hordes of Zombies that just keep coming in waves, Not to mention all the hunters, smokers, boomers, and Tanks! (Yes multiple Tanks). Luckily there is a large collection of firearms, explodable items, and medikits (If you can survive long enough to actually use one). Basically you are looking at a very fast, heart racing few minutes as the horde come at you from all directions.

I’m not saying its hard to stay alive, Lets just point out you get a medal if you make it to four minutes.

Thank you Valve!