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WHERE ON THE WEB

Go ahead -- cheat

Need a little help getting to the next level on that video game? Here's where to find it.

For some gamers, facing down a three-headed fire-breathing dragon -- armed with nothing but a corkscrew -- is an exciting challenge. For others, it's a time to give up all hope of ever finishing the game. If you lack the steel-eyed determination, keen reflexes and endless time necessary to get past the most daunting video-game moments, you can always do like many others and just plain cheat.

While publishers Brady Games and Prima Games issue glossy, illustrated strategy guides, most of the same information can be found online.

When a video game asks for the impossible, the first stop should be the amazingly comprehensive Web site GameFAQs (gamesfaqs.com). You'll find "walkthroughs," detailed documents with step-by-step instructions on how to beat every monster and find every secret in a game. The cheat sheets are written by gamers eager to share (or show off) their knowledge. Search on your game name, then click on FAQs.

You can find additional walkthroughs using a search engine, such as Google. Type in the game title and the word "walkthrough," and you'll almost certainly find something, perhaps even a site (like planetdeusex.com) devoted to a single game series.

The risk with walkthroughs is finding solutions to problems you haven't encountered yet. This is especially unfortunate in puzzle-happy genres like adventure and role-playing games. For those, the best cheating option is the Universal Hint System (uhs-hints.com). Instead of a detailed explanation, you're given a series of increasingly blatant hints; just click on "Hints" and choose the first letter of your game to see whether there's a hint file available.

At times, one small hint will suffice; other times, you'll need to go to the final hint, which gives it all away. When available, Universal Hint files are the best way to cheat only as much as absolutely necessary.

Many gamers haunt discussion forums where they can post questions. GameFAQs has a forum for every game it lists; you also can post a question in one of the well-

populated gaming forums at groups.google.com. Search for your game to find the appropriate forum.

Even with detailed instructions for killing a dragon with a corkscrew, you might not have the eye-hand coordination necessary to pull it off. Fortunately, many games have internal cheats, put in place by programmers for testing purposes, that you can access for extra ammunition or health recovery. For example, the code word "God" will make you invincible in "Call of Duty."

The best collection of cheat codes is at gamewinners.com, which gives you code words for PC games and special key combinations for console games.

If your console game doesn't have those key combinations, you'll have to buy Game Shark software (gameshark.com). For a PC game without cheat codes, like "Omikron," you'll need to find a trainer, software that lets you write directly to memory locations in a running game to alter your health and ammunition numbers. Trainers can be tricky to use, but you can try your luck at megagames.com.

The greatest frustration is when you can't win even by cheating. In that case, you'll need to find the one thing that can effortlessly beat any game: a 14-year-old boy.

-- Charles Herold