The game's code isn't broken, it's your moral code that's broken, bro.
"Only problem is, I'm playing with some money I'm meant to give to these Albanian scumbags."
Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we'll be counting down our picks
for the Top 10 Ways Games Have Punished You For Cheating & Piracy.
For this list, we're recognizing some of the most unique, and sometimes hilarious methods of countering pirates and cheaters.
In many games, there are always those enemies that are irritating with how hard they are to kill.
You've got the Iron Knuckle from Legend of Zelda,
Regeneradors in Resident Evil, and the Xenomorphs from Alien vs. Predator.
But developer Croteam took this piece of game design
and cranked the difficulty up to, 'Holy crap, this is impossible.' Literally.
you will be hunted down by an unkillable arachnoid.
While it's kinda frightening at first, it will quickly get on your nerves,
only provoking you to waste more time and ammunition.
And we thought those beheaded kamikaze guys were a pain in the butt.
[screaming, gunfire]
This game is all about speed and precision.
Owning a pirated copy encourages some honesty, too.
Illegal copies of Mirror's Edge contain an intentional bug in the game,
where our protagonist, Faith, will slow down before making big leaps across buildings.
It's almost as if she's having second thoughts on her career path as a courier.
Think you can just chance your jumps or find another way around? Fat chance.
Maximum speed is crucial for quite a number of jumps if you want to progress,
making this game basically unbeatable if you pirated it.
[thump]
If Doom has a 'Ultra Nightmare' difficulty, we cannot describe what EarthBound has in store for pirates.
Cracked copies are bugged with a near-impossible difficulty curve,
where it doesn't matter how good you are at the game because it will make sure you never finish.
The moment you start playing, the number of enemies you'll encounter increases to absurd levels,
even in the areas that shouldn't have them.
If you somehow manage to make it to the end,
and who knows how you found the time to trudge through all those battles,
right at the climax of the story, the game will freeze and force you to reset.
What you'll come back to will be all your save files deleted.
That is brutal.
One franchise that's fallen victim to frequent cheaters is FromSoftware's Soul series.
As if the game wasn't brutal enough, cheaters have been known to invade other players' games,
and kill off their characters with status-inflicting weapons.
Now, cheating isn't technically a crime - just yet,
but that doesn't mean we can't treat it as such within the context of the game.
Many games have what they call 'prison servers', and Dark Souls 2 follows suit of that.
However there is a twist: Bandai Namco will let you keep your crummy game-breaking weapons,
but the only people you can encounter in invasions are other cheaters.
This is either a prison, or your own private hell, but whatever, you deserved it.
"All across this land, I have created trials for you to overcome,
"and within each, I have hidden a sigil."
Croteam strikes again in this puzzle game about an android on a quest to enlightenment.
Between maze-running and locating sigil pieces,
you'll enjoy the phenomenal high-speed thrill of... elevator rides,
which serve as points of relief and loading screens between stages.
"You have proven yourself worthy, child,
"and this gate shall be forever open to you."
Pirates beware, because Croteam is just as cruel as our irritating arachnoid friend.
Cracked copies are equipped with a trap: At some point during one of the elevator rides,
the elevator will stop, with no chance of escape.
As usual, pirates took to the forums and tried to make it sound like legit copies were getting the bug.
Nice try guys, but you basically just admitted it.
(Reporter) "It's a feature, and it's aimed squarely at pirates."
"Really? I don't mind walking."
[grunts]
Before we found the assortment of bugs in Batman: Arkham Knight,
we got to experience an anti-piracy bug in the first game of the Arkham series back in 2009.
"What? Don't you trust me?"
Early on in the game, you take out a room of enemies,
and then you must perform a glide in order to avoid some poison gas.
For pirates, this challenge is too damn hard, since the ability to glide is non-existent.
Upon discovering this, one pirate made the idiotic mistake of revealing himself
by going onto the message boards and asking about what he thought was a bug.
The answer he got was a simple phrase that fits with the entire list:
'It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code.'
"We heard a little girl got seriously burned!
(Both) "OOOOOHHH!"
"What about you, cousin?
- "What? What about me? - "Well..."
We've seen some pretty good ideas so far,
but you can always count on the classic glitch of wonky controls,
and most notably an incredibly drunken cameraman.
What you get here is camera work worse than that of a typical action movie.
Just watching this footage alone, it's easy for you to get nauseated and disoriented.
To make matters worse, vehicles will start smoking as soon as you hop in,
and will only be able to be driven in one direction.
Just like our friends at Batman: Arkham Asylum,
pirates went online to ask the developers about the bug.
When will they learn?
"So...
"So?
"So, you full of crap, or what?
"What?"
As a badass soldier, all you want to do is unload bullets into your soon-to-be Swiss-cheese enemies.
But you know what's even better? Shooting chickens that do absolutely no damage, that's what.
Not to worry pirates, Crysis Warhead is still technically beatable in this condition,
but, like EarthBound, you're going to end up pulling your hair out in the time it takes to beat it,
and how many times you will most likely die.
Progress will only be achieved here if you put up your dukes and punch your way out.
That sounds fun.
[grunting]
One of the most hilarious parts of The Sims is through its self-censorship.
If a Sim chooses to use the toilet or the shower, their body will be heavily pixelated.
But, have you ever found a glitch where the pixelation never goes away?
Well, congratulations, you scummy pirate. You have illegally downloaded The Sims 4.
Now, witness as your game gradually transforms into a large masterpiece of abstract pixel art.
The only way to fix it? Well, there isn't, dummy, so it makes it very hard to play,
and figure out what the hell your Sims are doing.
What makes this worse is that players tried reporting this as a bug in legitimate copies before it was proven otherwise.
Hey, this has happened a lot by this point. Have they not learned?
[Sim-speak]
Before we cheat our way to our top pick, here are a few Honorable Mentions.
(Game) "First, select all of the men by left-clicking and holding down the mouse button.
"In this mode, you can drag a selection box around all of your men..."
You ever wondered what the definition of irony was?
Well, look no further than Game Dev Tycoon,
a business simulator that lets you run your very own game studio.
You'll learn how to deal with fan feedback, critic reviews, and managing the costs on projects and contracts.
Should you not want to chip in the insanely cheap $10 for a real copy of Game Dev Tycoon,
in-game, your studio's game gets pirated, and if that happens, your studio goes bankrupt and shut down.
The real kicker? Some pirates dared to ask if it was possible to include copy protection on their in-game product.
And to them, we say...
"♪ Yar, har, fiddle dee dee, being a pirate is alright to be
"♪ Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free
"♪ You are a pirate! ♪"
Do you agree with our list? Which games do you think had the best anti-piracy or cheating methods?
"No.
"What do you mean, no?
"No, I never tell you anything."
For more not-so-illegally downloaded Top 10s every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
"In case you ain't figured it out, today's the Joker's big homecoming, and you're the guest of honor!"