Game Boy Cheats

The Nintendo Game Boy has the longest running success story of any gaming system today. The entire line of Game Boy systems began back in 1989 and continues through 2005 with the Game Boy Micro. Despite the advances in technology that allow for more powerful portable gaming machines, the original Game Boy (Game Boy "Fat") and its library of monochrome games is still sought after by gaming aficionados.

And what do those gamers do after they master their favorite games? They cheat.

How can you cheat at Game Boy games? There are a number of useful devices that attach to your portable system that allow you to, shall we say, enhance your games.

One of the more successful early-generation cheating devices, the Game Genie was designed by Codemasters and distributed by Galoob for a number of gaming systems. The Game Boy was one of the lucky ones. Games are placed in the top slot of the unit that slides into your Game Boy cartridge slot. Sure, it makes your Game Boy a little less portable, but sometimes it's worth it!

Before playing a game, the Game Genie gives you a screen where you can input various codes for your games. These codes can be found in the included code book, obtained from the internet or magazines, or just made up on the spot. Code effects range from infinite lives or health to drastically changing gameplay by inverting gravity or changing the physics of certain stages.

The Action Replay functions as most cheating devices and allows the user to input codes that alter the game's performance. Some special events, such as obtaining Mew in the original Pokémon game, were possible only with the Action Replay device.

The Game Shark, unlike earlier cheating devices, allowed users to create their own complex codes that were more than just guesswork. Some versions of this cheating device even allowed a PC connection to use other codes and cheating programs.

Cheating is a very loose term, isn't it? Using peripheral devices that alter the game's code is one extreme, but there's another form of cheating that many regard as simply "utilizing a game's programming".

No matter how tightly coded, tested and re-tested a game is, there's always room for finding glitches and secrets. Game Boy games, in their retro simplicity, are gold mines for these types of cheats.

A great example of this is in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Press Select to go to the map just as the screen begins to slide to the next area. If you time it right, you'll end up at the same place you were standing, one screen over. Use this to pop across the map, reach secrets earlier in the game, or completely mess up your adventure! (Note: This cheat only works in earlier versions of the game.)

Grab a few Game Boy games and try some unorthodox things. You never know what sort of cheat you'll come up with.

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