Pikmin

Cheat

29 June 2004

What's left to do when you've done all you can do? Do even more! I'd like to announce my new high score on Distant Spring: 713. I beat my old score of 514 by almost 200!

Check the love, baby:

How'd I do it? Of course, I cheated.

Yesterday I finally picked up an Action Replay for GameCube at Best Buy. They're down to US$30. I had heard that there was a cheat code discovered for Pikmin that addressed the game's one flaw, from my perspective: the goddamned clock. Yes, I know challenge mode is all about being efficient with time and so forth, but it's a drag to be so hurried all the time, isn't it? Ever since the beginning, I've wished for a way to turn off the clock.

I'm pleased to report that the code works, and with it enabled, you can reset the clock at any time by pressing left on the D-pad. So no more hurrying. Take your time. Do things carefully. Explore.

Check out this sweet pile of red and yellow pellets my blues amassed during the long frog-hunting sweep (there's a couple of pearls and frogs in there too):

(Notice also that the clock is farther along here than it is in the final score shot above. I reset it right after taking this picture. The funny thing was that it gave me the "hurry up" sunset warning right before I reset it, so the music changed to the countdown music, but of course the countdown never appeared, as we went back to morning. So it played the countdown music the rest of the way, for another 15 minutes or so. Eerie.)

I did lose about 10 blues fighting frogs, and probably another 10 or 15 to "mysterious deaths," and I think I might have missed a flint beetle, but it was a lot of fun just wandering around in a leisurely fashion collecting things. Is it a "challenge"? Not in the classical sense, no - although doing a perfect, max-score, no-deaths run would still be extremely difficult.

I didn't actually save this score, of course, because I'd like my high score table to have my real scores and not get corrupted by these ones. Maybe I'll make another save block for cheating. In theory, I suppose you could finish the regular game in six days, right? One day each, plus one return to the Impact Site? Maybe I'll do that next.

30 June 2004

Couldn't resist, I'm having too much fun with this. I did a 720 on this run (we don't really need pictures since we're cheating, right?), but wanted to pile as much booty on the screen at one time as possible. I put in enough pellets and carcasses to get 100 blues I could go fight frogs with, and then stored everything else.

Putting all this away took quite a while, and I accidentally misfiled a 5, so I should have had a 722. I WAS ROBBED!