8 Video Games That Mock You For Using Cheat Codes

The fabled Konami Code is almost as old as time itself, or so it feels like. Before achievements came along and ruined the mainstream idea of cheats, players basically expected most Konami games to feature the legendary cheat code in some capacity.

And that was certainly true of side-scrolling shooter franchise Gradius, given that the original Gradius was the very first game to feature the Konami Code at all.

The code was actually included in pre-release versions of Gradius to help the developers and testers alike make it to the end, given the game's intense difficulty.

The code granted players a full set of power-ups, but the team forgot to remove it before the game shipped, and so it went out into the world, where the masses were eventually informed about it.

But when it came to the third game in the series, Konami decided to have a little fun at the expense of players who had perhaps gotten a little too complacent about using the code to get them out of even the most vaguely tricky of binds.

Indeed, those who inputted the Konami Code on the SNES port of Gradius III would witness their ship instantaneously explode - basically the exact opposite of what they expected.

Yet Konami weren't total bastards about it - players could still access all power-ups by simply swapping the D-pad parts of the Konami Code for the triggers at the top of the SNES controller.

All the same, it's easy to picture Konami's honchos cackling hysterically at the thought of millions of players throwing their controllers out the window after the trusty Konami Code turned against them. Glorious.