Every professional gamer knows that in order to get ahead in a game you have to know some things about that game that will give you that edge. That little trick that can mean the difference between scoring that point or getting that frag. Tricks can range from giving you a half-second advantage to get to “the spot”, or a certain button combination can give you the kill just a little quicker. Almost every game out there seems to have glitches; however, not all glitches are seen as cheating. Current popular games that include these helpful tricks are Halo 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Gears of War.

Halo 2 has been out for such a long time that most of these known glitches are much more well known. The difference with Halo is that they almost all have to do with a certain button combination. Halo 2 has famous button combos such as the BxR, BxB, RxR, etc. BxR is when you melee someone in the face and then you hit x to cancel the animation and right away push R to shoot (you need full magazine in your battle rifle to do this one, otherwise it won’t work). If done correctly, it should melee the opponent so he/she has no shield and then the shot in the face should kill off the enemy. The rest of these go off the same idea of canceling the animation so you can move to the next animation that much quicker. The other two I listed are the BxB, which can be done multiple times and makes it so you can melee very quickly without having to wait (your magazine cannot be full when doing this one), and the RxR, which is the double shot (shoot 6 battle rifle bullets in one animation). The RxR is definitely the hardest because it is all about timing, but the other two are fairly easy to learn.

Rainbow Six Vegas is another example of a game with such advantages. To gain the upper hand in multiplayer, a gamer must know about the “left shoulder glitch.” What this does is angle your character so that they are against a wall with their gun pointed toward the left. This helps you eliminate the enemy and makes it harder for them to shoot you, since they can only see your left shoulder. Another advantage in Rainbow Six Vegas is the “can and satellite slide.” By pressing the A button and the analog stick (in whichever direction you please), your character will slide. This is a BIG advantage because it gets you out of the way of enemies and grenades. Knowing these glitches will give a player the upper hand in winning the game.

Gears of War is a great example of glitches. Before the update, it was very easy to “weapon slide” - sliding while picking up is very important because it prevents snipers from killing you while your stuck retrieving the weapon. Also, players were able to slide while picking up their teammates while downed. This made it easy for players to rescue their teammate, and have a higher chance of surviving and safely moving away to revive the person they rescue. After the first update, players quickly found another way to do the slide pickup/revive, so once again, Epic patched the game. This last update finally removed the slide...for the most part. The only slide you can now do is the “wall slide.” The best example of this is the sniper pickup on canals; all you have to do is take cover on the wall and pick up the weapon while moving on the wall. Even though you can’t slide in any direction you want, you can still slide either to the left or right to hopefully move yourself out of harm’s way.

In order to get ahead of the game you have to go beyond what the instructions tell you. That is what sets apart a regular gamer from a hardcore/competitive gamer.