Is turbo cheating?
After Andy and I got together last time he was in town, we decided to play a
round of Track & Field. We wanted to try and beat the High Jump world
record which of course takes 5 times going through the game. We made it
through 3 times and then failed on the High Jump itself. The whole time we
were playing, we were using a normal rectangular controller as is the norm
when we play NES. I had a NES Max and NES Advantage on tap but we decided
not to use them. The question arose, is it CHEATING to use these turbo
controllers? It's a tough question. Many will have different opinions
about this. Even purests can argue that the Max and Advantage were made by
Nintendo, thus they must be OK. I personally say 'YES', turbo is cheating
in a sense. I feel that high scores and such are hindered by the presence
of a turbo controller and is a lot like steroids in baseball. Yeah, you
threw the javelin 100+ yards, but the NES Advantage had your speed as high
as it could go with you doing little to no work to achieve it. Such games
as Contra and Commando are further hindered by turbo controllers as you can
just walk through levels with your gun spraying everywhere with, again,
little to no effort. Turbo should be looked at like a game genie and not
like a NES-given tool. That's just my opinion, though, what's yours?