aaron
1-31-02, 11:40 PM
Something that seems like not too many people know about video games is many that have methods of cheating already in them but you have to know how to use it. Almost all games of today have cheat codes enabled, so that's no surprise. Whether you have to move the controls up, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, press fire twice, up, down, or have to "game.exe +enable_console_cheats +local_codes", or what have you, most games already have them.
Even the old 80's arcade games. I don't know any right off the top of my head, but I do know they are there.
Here are some not so well known facts about them:
Ever played any shoot-em-up (Galaxian, Space Invaders, etc) and you shoot at the enemy ship, and you SWORE you hit it, but the game registered it as a miss? That's because when the programmers were writing it, moving the missile one pixel at a time is VERY slow, so what they do instead is move it in increments of 5-10 pixels at a time, on average. What does this mean? Well, since the numbers jump so much, by all means your missile did hit the enemy, except that it jumped so many pixels that the game said "ok, you x,y and enemy x,y don't match up", therefore, you didn't hit the ship. Yes, you DID hit it, but the missile is sped up so the game plays fast and it looks like you missed. Nope, they just want the game to move along.
In several games (Donkey Kong being one of them), MOST of the collision detection (eg. you hitting enemy) this is done by color, not by coordinates. One way you can cheat is if you know how the game works (old video game mastery books tell you this), or if you know that a certain item gives you points and an enemy has the same colors. You can hit the enemy in certain ways so you will actually GAIN points. For example, maybe the game has a yellow bell in it, and an enemy has yellow arms. Perhaps you can jump/hit ONLY the arms, and gain points. That's because the game counts hitting that shade of yellow as you hitting the bell. It doesn't know you hit the enemy, it only sees the color. Pretty nifty, eh?
Ever swore you collided with an enemy, but you didn't die so you figured you must not have? Well, you DID collide, but as explained above, its all in the coordinates. See, your character might be a little guy, but his "collision box" is about maybe 3/4 of his size, and if the enemy misses you by even 1 pixel, then you didn't get hit, even though you technically DID get hit.
How about the games where you did something unusual, maybe you have done it 10 times before, but this time you gained an additional life, more points, or what have you. Because the game has this built in. You had PERFECT timing when you did something, and you got the bonus. A LOT of video games have this type of deal.
Remember in Super Mario Bros when you jumped on a turtle on a step and if you had GOOD timing, you could jump up and down, over and over and over, and get DOZENS of lives? It's just a built in cheat that takes skill to use.
So next time you swore you hit that enemy but it didn't explode, or you didn't die, or perhaps you did something you have done before in the game, but got a bonus, now you know why.
Yes, a lot of thought goes into video games!
Oh yes, one final thought I wanted to add. The old computers they used in the late 70's/early 80's to make video games on were leading edge at the time. Today we have computers over 1 ghz that play hardware 3D games. Well, the old Motorola processors ran a 1 mhz (for you non-technies, just know that is DEATH slow... I mean SUPER, SUPER slow), so you can imagine why things had to be cut out, or missiles had to jump around, because the computer only has so much power.
But hey... we had fun, didn't we?
Even the old 80's arcade games. I don't know any right off the top of my head, but I do know they are there.
Here are some not so well known facts about them:
Ever played any shoot-em-up (Galaxian, Space Invaders, etc) and you shoot at the enemy ship, and you SWORE you hit it, but the game registered it as a miss? That's because when the programmers were writing it, moving the missile one pixel at a time is VERY slow, so what they do instead is move it in increments of 5-10 pixels at a time, on average. What does this mean? Well, since the numbers jump so much, by all means your missile did hit the enemy, except that it jumped so many pixels that the game said "ok, you x,y and enemy x,y don't match up", therefore, you didn't hit the ship. Yes, you DID hit it, but the missile is sped up so the game plays fast and it looks like you missed. Nope, they just want the game to move along.
In several games (Donkey Kong being one of them), MOST of the collision detection (eg. you hitting enemy) this is done by color, not by coordinates. One way you can cheat is if you know how the game works (old video game mastery books tell you this), or if you know that a certain item gives you points and an enemy has the same colors. You can hit the enemy in certain ways so you will actually GAIN points. For example, maybe the game has a yellow bell in it, and an enemy has yellow arms. Perhaps you can jump/hit ONLY the arms, and gain points. That's because the game counts hitting that shade of yellow as you hitting the bell. It doesn't know you hit the enemy, it only sees the color. Pretty nifty, eh?
Ever swore you collided with an enemy, but you didn't die so you figured you must not have? Well, you DID collide, but as explained above, its all in the coordinates. See, your character might be a little guy, but his "collision box" is about maybe 3/4 of his size, and if the enemy misses you by even 1 pixel, then you didn't get hit, even though you technically DID get hit.
How about the games where you did something unusual, maybe you have done it 10 times before, but this time you gained an additional life, more points, or what have you. Because the game has this built in. You had PERFECT timing when you did something, and you got the bonus. A LOT of video games have this type of deal.
Remember in Super Mario Bros when you jumped on a turtle on a step and if you had GOOD timing, you could jump up and down, over and over and over, and get DOZENS of lives? It's just a built in cheat that takes skill to use.
So next time you swore you hit that enemy but it didn't explode, or you didn't die, or perhaps you did something you have done before in the game, but got a bonus, now you know why.
Yes, a lot of thought goes into video games!
Oh yes, one final thought I wanted to add. The old computers they used in the late 70's/early 80's to make video games on were leading edge at the time. Today we have computers over 1 ghz that play hardware 3D games. Well, the old Motorola processors ran a 1 mhz (for you non-technies, just know that is DEATH slow... I mean SUPER, SUPER slow), so you can imagine why things had to be cut out, or missiles had to jump around, because the computer only has so much power.
But hey... we had fun, didn't we?