You Cheating Bastard

Scott Hardie | April 17, 2002
Matt's cousin Scott is a mass consumer of video games. As it's told, he's beaten Final Fantasy games in mere days. He can conquer any game you give him. To date, the only game for which he's ever had to cheat is Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. That's the game I'm playing now.

I see the problem: It's fucking hard! I restarted from the beginning once already, but I still don't think I can make it. You just get such little ammunition and so few health items that, to win, you apparently must kill almost everything with the combat knife and never get hit more than twice. I'm halfway through the game now, with no health items and almost no ammo, and I'm about to face the second major boss of the game.

I'm conflicted about Gamesharks. (There are other cheating devices, but if I'm gonna get any, I'm gonna get a Gameshark.) I used to love mine for the PS1 and couldn't do without it. I would very rarely play without it, only when I respected the game enough to do it without - Final Fantasy VII and VIII only. It was a lot of fun. But after a few years, I realized I'd stopped playing. I was going through the motions, entertained by the story but never the experience. So I made up my mind that I would do without them in the future when I bought a Gamecube and PS2.

Now I'm stuck with Code Veronica. I tolerated this game for several days now, and I don't think I can beat it. I don't want my investment to go to waste, though - I want to play through the entire game. So I finally caved in and decided to buy a Gameshark at Wal*Mart tonight. I talked myself into it just enough to actually want it.

You know what's worse than falling off the wagon and wanting something bad for you? Finding out that the only such store for sixty miles doesn't have any.