For me a big part of games being boring is the lack of cheats and codes that come with the game. Developers/Game companies have decided HOW they want me to play the game and that irks the crap out of me. Take for example GTA5, I can only turn on invincibility for 5 minutes without having to reapply the code. What is the point of the limit? Can't I define the way I'd like to play the game? Sometimes cheating is fun and can be creative. Cheat codes could make a game like Assassin's Creed playable to those that just don't like the repetitiveness.
The sense of achievement just fades off with age. For a lot of games equal time sunk with progress(, without going all in on the fun of grinding, thats something different for me), most games mechanics just start to feel like the artificial speed bumps they are, only meant to stretch or distract from a hopefully existing story and setting.
Game progress of story-heavy offline games should be unlockable at will without importing save games. Or there should be some kind of an AI play mode, where you only take over that autopilot if you seem interested or just like to watch.
For most linear games with an actual story a youtube replay, including fast forwards, will be as good as the thing itself. This might as well explain a part of the let's play success.
It doesn't even have to be considered "cheat codes" if adequately factored into the difficulty level. I feel like some of the backlash against old school cheat codes (all the games we used to play in "god mode" or with things like the Game Genie) is as much the terminology "cheat code" and the idea that it is "hacking" or "breaking" the game.
Most games seem to stick to some simple linear variation of a difficulty model: Easy, Medium, Hard, ... Why aren't there more options? Why aren't there more custom options? For many games, why is "easy" have to be so "hard" as a baseline. If I want to play a game as a 100% power trip, why not let me?
I recently started playing Saints Row 4. In the casual mode, its an easy game with an overpowered protagonist. It's really relaxing when a game gives every weapon in the beginning and let us choose the way to use them.
I agree, I think Saints Row has been a particularly good franchise at realizing that it can be a ridiculous power fantasy and lean into that and have fun with it. It even includes things other games would consider "cheat codes" as eventual unlocks, and that also adds to the fun and the mayhem. SR4 even does the best job of directly integrating that into the explicit appeal and story line in its "superhero powers" progression work.
