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.