Top 10 Hardest Games That Will Make You Rage Cheat

As basic as they might look at first glance, city management (and management games in general) are a lot harder than they seem — and this is especially true of “SimCity 2000”. Part of what makes this title tricky for players is how you need to get the tax rate high enough to fund your projects and low enough to get people to move into your city. Sure, you can spend your time trying to find that sweet spot, OR you can use a cheat code that gives you cash instantly! Better be careful if you go the latter route however, as your chances of facing a disaster will increase upon each use.

The NES “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” has its moments when it comes to difficult levels, but the most infuriating of all is that damned Dam level! Here, you’ll have to disarm bombs while navigating around electrified seaweed and currents. Surely there must be a way to bypass these aquatic threats or even skip the level, right? Well, kind of. It is possible to rig the game where the seaweed is totally harmless, but to do this, you would have needed a Game Genie or some other game-hacking device. Earliest example of pay-to-win? We’d like to think so.

As what could arguably be described as the hardest game in the franchise, “Twisted Metal: Black” kicked the asses of many players with its relentless AI and lethal weaponry. Do we dare mention the torment that was the Minion and Warhawk boss fights? If you really wanted to see every character’s ending, you either had to play until you were a freakin’ master...or just press a few buttons to activate God Mode. For the record, one of our staff is a massive “Twisted Metal” fan, and even he had to resort to this cheat just to save his sanity!

One of the annoying things about RPGs is the massive amounts of grinding and XP farming that some of them will force you to sit through. Can’t beat this one boss that’s blocking the progression of the story? Well, get comfy because you got at least a few hours of grinding to do! This issue was especially true of “Final Fantasy VIII”, to the point that Square Enix (thankfully) implemented a cheat menu in the remaster. If you aren’t interested in committing a few hours to doing effortless battles, you can use this cheat menu to save yourself some time by speeding up the game, maxing out your HP or getting full ATB and unlimited limit breaks. If only more RPGs did stuff like this…

“Earthworm Jim” is fondly remembered for its cartoon-y visuals and goofy-yet-groovy hero. Something that many seem to forget, however, is just how difficult this 2D platformer really was. Those who do remember probably recall extreme frustration and may have even resorted to a handful of cheat codes to make their time easier. There are cheats for giving yourself extra lives, extra continues, refills on energy and ammo, level skipping, level warping, and even a debug menu that grants access to more cheats. Hey, if the going gets tough ... take the easy route.

“Turok” was a tough game by design. But the level of difficulty went beyond the tough AI and unforgiving platforming. No, what made “Turok” complicated was the weird control scheme, for which the Nintendo 64’s awkward controller design was at least partially to blame. If you’re one of the folks who struggled to grasp the controls, you probably resorted to taking the free scripted will away from the AI, and by that we mean a cheat code. Typing in the code “SNFFRR” (read as letters) will activate the game’s “Disco Mode”, rendering enemies defenseless and forcing them to dance. Or if you really want a power fantasy, you’d trigger the Big Cheat, which enables invincibility, unlimited ammo, level warps...the whole enchilada!

Ah, yes, the old-school classic that has both amused and enraged players around the world. “Battletoads” has, admittedly, reached the top spot in a number of our Difficult Games lists, but thankfully, there is a way to make things easier. If you’ve died too many times on the speeder bike levels, or fallen at the hands of some basic grunt, you can use a cheat code that starts you off with a few extra lives. If you had a Game Shark or Game Genie, however, you could simply get infinite lives. No, it didn’t make the game a breeze, but at least the game overs were less frequent!

Given the mass appeal of Star Wars, you wouldn’t think that this video game would be so punishingly hard. But “Super Star Wars” is merciless. Because enemies spawn in at a continuous rate, you progress through levels at a snail’s pace. We may not have known these cheats back then, but there are ways to get past those asinine levels. You can give yourself some extra continues or make it so you start the level with your lightsaber. You can even access a nice debug menu which lets you tamper with stage selection, your health values, which weapon you start with, and how many lives you have.

We all know why this is on here. “Contra” is not only one of the hardest games ever made, but it’s also the one that popularized the famous Konami Code. The old “up up down down left right left right B A” has saved us a number of times, and in this case, it was by giving us thirty extra lives. Trust us, in a game as maddening as “Contra” with bullets flying all over the place, you need all the help you can get! Since this cheat helped us through an infamously tough game, it’s been referenced in a handful of other games as well as movies, music, and television.