Awesome Mart of Wal worker saved my handheld games!

[cindybubbles]

So I went into my local Mart of Wal to get Game Genie. To those of you younger gamers, Game Genie was a piece of hardware that hacks into your game and lets you cheat to victory using cheat codes. The one I wanted was for my GameBoy games.

Thus, off I went to the Mart of Wal. I found an employee at the electronics department about whether or not they had Game Genie and how well it worked.

His answer literally SAVED MY GAMES!

He warned me not to buy it. He told me that he had a friend who used Game Genie and in doing so, corrupted his games! This was at a time when I never for once believed that third-party items like Game Genie could actually wreak damage.

Nevertheless, I heeded his warning and forgot about Game Genie. I'm so glad that I never bought the thing!

Thanks, awesome employee!

[Tiberious]

When the heck did this happen? I haven't seen the Game Genie being sold anywhere new for about 10 years.

Second, I'm going to have to call bull on Game Genie wrecking games, simply by nature of how the device works.

What the Game Genie (note that this is not the Game Shark or [Pro] Action Replay here) does is it essentially acts like a temporary ROM patch. It intercepts any request for the data at the address and substitutes the value specified in the code. Now, granted, some improperly-entered codes can do is send a pointer into the part of RAM that is backed up by battery-powered storage, but that is exceedingly unlikely, as part of the translation from address/value-to-code includes a simple error-checking mechanism. This means that in order to input a code that would cause saved game corruption, you would have to either A) enter a code that was maliciously-generated, or B) screw up a known 'good' code so bad it goes to something completely different, as well as passing the validity check.

Now, on the other side of the 'game enhancement spectrum', we have the Game Shark and Action Replay (sometimes called Pro Action Replay). These work by modifying the contents of the game's RAM, and they do have more ability to corrupt saved game data, as the Game Boy version does not do any kind of code encryption; codes are literally in the 01-VV-LL-HH format (as an example, one such code I committed to memory, 0115D8CF, being 'Opponent or Wild Pokémon is Always Mew' for Pokémon Red and Blue, keeps writing 15 to RAM address CFD8, which stores the species of the opponent's pokémon in battle).

[Ironclad Alibi]

Second, I'm going to have to call bull on Game Genie wrecking games, simply by nature of how the device works.

Such devices can go bad, as explained in The Acts of Gord: Wrath: Chapter 3.

[Tiberious]

That's hardware problems, though. What the OP was told, and bought as 'sound advice', was very similar to the console manufacturer's 'party line', claiming that these devices would cause issues with the game software. It's that part I was calling shenanigans on.

[Dreamstalker]

Nintendo's claimed that use of an Action Replay would brick a 3DS. I've used it successfully with some Pokemon codes (special Pokewalker courses) with no ill effect...although I've specifically stayed away from encounter and other 'real time' modifiers mainly because I'm not quite sure how to do it properly. Any item/Pokemon insertion is done through ripping the savefile to my computer.

[dragon_wings]

My ex used Action Replay on her GameCube to get unlimited ammo/god mode health on the Resident Evil games. The only issues she had were related to the relative age and condition of her Game Cube.

[Teskeria]

actually it can. Game Genie themselves noted that their system can corrupt games. It wasn't common but it did happen.

[cindybubbles]

This is why I only start to use third party mods if something is wrong with the game that the game-makers can't or won't fix.

[CarcinogenCrunchies]

This really makes me want to get out my NES and Game Genie. I never would have finished SMB2 without it!