Monday, November 11All That Matters

If you gamed in the 90’s you probably learned a valuable lesson about cheating, one way or another, from this technological marvel:


If you gamed in the 90’s you probably learned a valuable lesson about cheating, one way or another, from this technological marvel:

If you gamed in the 90’s you probably learned a valuable lesson about cheating, one way or another, from this technological marvel:



View Reddit by KatiariView Source

25 Comments

  • PrizeTemperature2875

    I had the game genie. It came with the code book with different games in it. Wow. Just told some friends about this. 👍🏽✌🏽

  • Kiokure_Kitsune

    I had one too I was given from a friend. It was fun when you were a kid way back then. It didn’t always work right if I recall though?

  • defaultdotxbe

    I had them for all my systems (still do actually) The one for Game Boy had a little compartment to hold the codebook.

  • omnimeatball

    For those in the comments who don’t know:
    The Game Genie came with a book of codes for (it seemed) all the games that existed. You used to insert a NES cartridge onto that black harmonica-looking part, then insert the whole thing into the (Classic) NES, which coincidentally also did not allow the cartridge to be ‘pushed down’ as it was normally done with normal operation.

    So then you fired it up and you had space for (I think) about 4 codes, so you used to find your game, then find what code you wanted to use, enter it, and voila. Most games were 8 letters as a random code, but I recall that Super Mario Brothers used to only use 6.

    I used mine all the time and at some point, my NES wouldn’t work unless it was attached to the game genie, so even if I didn’t want to cheat, I still had to plug that bad boy in.

    Another random-ass memory: In SMB3, there were codes for using all the suits and not losing them when you get hit, with the exception of the Tanooki suit. So you could be Frog Mario for the whole game (sucked) or Hammer Bro Mario (ruled) but to be Tanooki, you had to put in 2-3 total codes like “Start with Tanooki” and “Don’t lose item when hit” kind of stuff.

    Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

  • Xeno_man

    Game Genie was awesome. Especially since there were so many bad broken NES games. Also great when you had to play with your younger siblings. Infinite lives and let your little brother have the second controller. Now he can die 100 times and not ruin your game.

  • Taikunman

    I had one of these as a kid and it was voodoo magic… I couldn’t comprehend how it worked or how it was possible to create codes for it. Now I get that it’s memory address manipulation but it was mind blowing as a kid.

  • ShaShaShaaa

    Let me tell yall kiddies a tale…

    Back in the day, when consoles were out and no internet, you couldn’t just *get* cheat codes.

    If you actually had a game genie, you were the bomb. Like, going out and buying this obscure stuff in the 90’s was just difficult in Australia. And everyone wanted to have a go with it. If you had one you were popular.

    There was no internet at one point, but then no ready access to internet later on. Which means if I wanted cheat codes, I would walk into the local shopping center that had a coin operated PC terminal by Telstra to browse the internet with. So I would go there on my route after school find codes and write them down. OR I would go into the school library and write codes down there, but they banned us from looking up that kind of thing online – pricks.

    Moral of the story; appreciate the world of instant gratification! While it was fun back then to be the one with the book of cheat codes or the new piece of tech, I much prefer just going online at home now 😀

  • lysian09

    Used a code in Solomon’s Key to turn all the enemies into friendly fairies. Unfortunately, one of the levels requires an enemy to break a block so you can escape.

  • houdin654jeff

    GXXZZLVI

    Infinite lives in Battletoads. Seared into my memory, one of the few two player games where both players could play at once, so I played it far too much.

  • geomancer_

    Dude I remember picking one of these up at the little mom & pop video rental store I used to go to as a kid. The owner explained to me how the parts of a game like your number of lives etc were at memory addresses with a specific value.. well fast forward a bunch of years and I’m a software engineer, and I completely credit that experience with pushing me in this direction. Even have talked about it in job interviews haha.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.