Long ago, when Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' was new and we had made our pilgrimage to the cinema again and again to revel in the marvelous facsimile of Middle Earth he had brought to life, EA Games released both 'Two Towers' and 'Return of the King' to the Playstation 2 and other console systems.
With some games, cheat codes work from the start. With 'Return of the King', the cheat codes only were set to operate IF and ONLY IF one first beat the game. We did so together and saved the results to a Memory Card.
Years later, with the release of 'The Hobbit', one yearned to return to the world of LoTR via the old PS2 games. Much knowledge had been lost... or as Galadriel beautifully declared: 'Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.' My combat skills were rusty and I certainly did not recall any of the codes for the game...
I therefore went to the internet sources, to IGN, Gamespot and even Wikipedia. They ALL gave cheat codes for 'Return of the King', including the code for Invulnerability, aka 'God Mode'.
In every Walkthrough or Cheat site, the code is given as: Square, Circle, Square, Down. One is told to pause the game after loading any level via the Start button and then, after holding down L1, L2, R1 and R2 simultaneously, to press the four buttons in the order given.
In those days, I had yet to publish any game guides. I had sent a number of hints, corrections and tips for the GBA LoTR games to Gamespot when I discovered that no one had published them, but that was the extent of my strategy input to the internet pool of knowledge.
I therefore did not have my own game guide at hand. I thought that, as all sites gave the same directions, they would be accurate. Well, the code for Invulnerability DOES NOT WORK!!! How on earth could people submit guides or information to Wikipedia without testing the codes first??? It is this sort of outrageous lack of responsibility that inspired me originally to begin to write my own strategy guides.
Never mind that 'Return of the King' now is an old game made for a system that has been superceded by a newer one. It remains a wonderful game and certainly one of the few that actually makes the player feel he/she has stepped into the world of Middle Earth as made manifest by Peter Jackson. It was for that reason that I wished to play the game again but I did not wish to be burdened with the stress of risking death constantly. I wished to walk through the levels with my health intact in order simply to experience them. I had thought that existing internet guides would allow this, especially as we had beat the game years ago and saved the result.
At first I thought it might be a problem with the controller... I then thought it might be a problem with the manner in which I had input the code. An hour later, I began to try different variations on the given code and finally discovered that it had been copied again and again with one inaccurate direction.
The real code for God Mode or Invulnerability is:
Square, Circle, Square, UP.
Press the Start Button to pause the game after loading any level, then press down L1, L2, R1 and R2 simultaneously. While those buttons remain depressed, enter: Square, Circle, Square, UP.
Your character will be invulnerable.
I always realised that 'facts' given solely on the internet were only as good as the person who submitted them. It disturbs me when students, whether at school or university, use internet sources as their sole sources for research. Too much is inaccurate, whether due to negligence or outright duplicity.
When I was a child, i wrote essays at school frequently that cited 'original sources' that I had invented. I used Old English, Middle English, Old Norse and Medieval French as well as the spelling popular in every bigone era in the English language to create these so-called original sources. They ranged from inscriptions carved on stones by Vikings to a private journal kept by Jean Lafitte. I was astounded by the fact that not one teacher ever asked for any evidence whatsoever as to the actual existence of any of these 'sources'. I certainly would have done so had I been in charge...
Well, the world is lazy or gullible. How many people believed in George Bush's spurious claim of 'weapons of mass destruction' in the hands of Iraq prior to his invasion despite the fact that no such weapons existed? How many people still swallow the 'official' version of the events that occurred on 11 September and that were the ostensible reason for the creation of the vague 'war on terror'?
Those lies and half-lies have been responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions. The inaccurate code given for the PS2 'Return of the King' game may be responsible only for the frustration of an unspecified number of players who wished to achieve Invulnerability and were unable to do so. Nevertheless, I cry 'Shame' upon all the sites that are willing to publish guides that are inaccurate as well as the writers of said guides who obviously take information from other sources and copy and paste it into their own work without ever troubling to discover if it is correct or not.
