Cheating is without a doubt one of the most maligned aspects of gaming. It makes us think of people who aren't willing to put in the effort necessary to beat a game fair and square. We'll leave online cheating out the context of this 'Weekend Open Forum' as that raises an entirely new set of ethical questions - and let me just go on record and say I'm completely against it. But I'd be lying to you if I said I've never used a code myself to get past a frustratingly difficult level or just for the heck of playing as an unstoppable killing machine.
The fact is developers have been building cheats directly into their games for almost as long as video games themselves have existed. They may do so for testing purposes or perhaps to increase the title's replay value. Some of them are not even designed to give the player an advantage in the game, but rather make it more challenging by making enemies tougher, and some can add a whole new element to gameplay by giving users unusual skills such as the ability to walk through walls or allowing them to modify their character in terms of appearance.
Nowadays it's easy to jump online and find a cheat within minutes, but there was a time when you'd had to wait months for your favorite games magazine to come out with it, and usually the codes involved entering a complicated sequence of buttons on a game controller. Today we want to hear about those codes that stuck to your memory over the years – or maybe some that were so ridiculous that you'll have to Google them. I'll just mention an obvious one and a more obscure one to get the conversation started: IDDQD for Godmode in Doom II (PC) and pressing B thirteen times while rotating the D-pad 360 degrees clockwise during the match-up screen to get power dunks in NBA Jam (SNES).