Welcome to the 32 Dangerous Cheat Codes, a brand new series that will run daily between November 24 and December 25. Join us as we discuss the hazardous ramifications of some of your favorite cheat codes. Today we're taking a look at how Capcom made U.N. Squadron even tougher. Are hidden difficulty settings a good thing? Find out now when you check out the newest episode of the 32 Dangerous Cheat Codes.


Life is hard, but not for A.C Slater. He's the guy you hated because everything came naturally to him. He had the dance moves, picked up the drums without practice, knew how to street fight and was always surrounded by the hottest girls. It's hard not to be jealous of A.C.'s life. What this guy needed was a harder difficulty setting; something that would make him struggle like the rest of us.

Life may not come with a hidden difficulty setting, but classic video games sure do. When the hardest difficulty wasn't enough, developers would often sneak an even tougher challenge in there for the most dedicated players.

This is something Capcom liked to do, especially when it came to their classic shoot-em-ups. U.N. Squadron, for example, has a dedicated "GAMER" difficulty for those who want to jump through a bunch of hoops. All you need to do is plug in a second controller, go to the options screen with the first controller and highlight the difficulty. If you hold down the A and X buttons on the second controller while cycling through the difficulties with the first controller, you'll unlock the hardest mode possible.

Like a lot of the codes we'll talk about in this series, this probably should have been included from the get-go. If you're that big of a U.N. Squadron fan, then chances are you're going to want to opt for that GAMER difficulty a lot of the time. So why tie us up in knots trying to hold down buttons on one controller while cycling through with the other. Have you ever tried to use two controllers at once? It's not easy, and there's no good reason to make people fumble around with multiple game pads.

This is the kind of thing that may work in a video game, but would be disastrous in real life. Between keeping up with an ever-changing job market, paying rent, keeping food on the plate, putting up with unruly children and trying to become YouTube famous, life is already tough. Why would anybody purposely make it harder for themselves? And let's be honest, if you actually want to make life harder, you're better off getting a face tattoo or doing a lot of drugs. No cheat code needed.