Glitching
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Glitching is the controversial practice of finding and exploiting flaws in modern video games to achieve something that was not intended by the game designers. Gamers who engage in this practice are known as glitchers (or cheaters, depending on whether or not you agree with glitching.) While the term is mainly a neologism it derives from the German glitschig, meaning 'slippery.' Glitchers can be found on console video games as well as computer games. With the advent of high speed multiplayer gaming in the form of services such as Xbox Live and Playstation Online, glitching has grown in popularity. Despite this gain in popularity, glitching is still considered a subculture of gaming and has retained a negative image in the eyes of many gamers.
Why Do People Glitch?
Glitchers do not see themselves as cheaters and many times do not even use their glitches to gain an advantage in games. Glitchers see their exploits as fair and believe that "if it is in the game, and anybody can do it, it is legal." While the "fairness of glitches" is still debated, rarely do programmers make such a grievous mistake that it creates a glitch that is "undefeatable". Glitches often involve jumping to places that are above the normal plane of vision of other players. Many glitches are areas obscured from sight by walls that have no "barrier physics" to them, that is, they appear to be solid but aren't and thus allow players to walk into them and remain hidden. Glitches vary in their usefulness in multiplayer games, from areas a glitcher can get trapped in to places where snipers can shoot from but cannot be shot themselves. Often, entering a glitch requires the performance of actions that leave a player exposed for a period of time that makes it hard to enter without being seen or killed. Glitchers might also glitch just for plain fun, glitching allows you to explore new areas that might give you a huge advantage or none at all such as being on a huge building, or out of the map where you can't do anything to other players. There are even websites where people share glitches such as www.mapmonkeys.com. As a side note, there are a growing number of glitchers who hypothesize that glitches are indeed intentionally put into video games by the designers, possibly to give bored gamers a new challenge.
Examples of Glitching
Glitching has been a part of gaming for as long as gaming has existed. Many hit titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System contained examples of glitches. One of the earliest and most popular examples was the repeated turtle shell jump at the end of level 3-1 in Super Mario Bros. Some glitches, such as the grenade glitch in Blaster Master, were somewhat encouraged by game companies. In this case, Nintendo Power would actually print how to accomplish the glitch on subscription cards to the magazine.
In Halo 2, players could use the energy sword to lunge at a distant opponent, pressing the X button during this lunge would cancel the damaging effects of the sword upon impact. If two gamers agreed to glitch, one could stand on the other's head and jump while the bottom gamer used the "sword lunge" (pressing X after each lunge so as not to kill the other gamer) to "push" both gamers up a wall to reach heights not accessible through normal methods. This practice was also known as "butterflying" or "hyperjumping".
In several Call of Duty games (especially Call of Duty 2: Big Red One) a player could use a tank to jump onto roofs and other inaccessible areas. In Call of Duty 3 there are also tank glitches like this. Also in Call of Duty 3 there is a glitch called an elevator glitch. This glitch makes you fly in to the air and get into places that you normally can't get into (example, Eder Dam towers behind 2-story house). There are also motorcycle glitches where you park a bike and you go in a wall. Now there are even more hi-tech glitches like the teleport glitch, duplicate the flag, invincible, invisible, rapid fire tank, rapid fire any gun, turn completely white, invisible flag/gun, shoot while you have the flag, shoot while driving a motorcycle, unlimited airstrikes, invisible while driving a motorcycle, tank football, UFO glitch, rocket jumps, and many more. Call of Duty 4's new engine makes glitching in normal online matches very difficult, however the game does feature a setting called "Old School Mode" which enables higher jumping and makes glitching easier; this setting can only be used in private matches. Some major glitches found in Call of Duty 4 so far inlcude the freeze or clan tag glitch, trampoline jumps, rocket jumps, out an under most multiplayer maps and getting into multiple balconies.
In Battlefield 2 wall glitching is very common. By using a vehicle drop or helicopter one can enter a building. Once they are in they can shoot and see out but other players cannot see or shoot them.
In Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins wall glitching is also seen. By turning by a wall at a certain angle, the player will be able to see and determine the position of the character(s) on the other side. Also, if the enemy is close to the wall, the player can do a forward thrust slash and injure the enemy through the wall.
In Counter-Strike glitches are frequently exploited. Most glitches involve either "Skywalking" or "Roof-boosting". Skywalking is when a group of people push another player through the sky on the map, thus allowing them to walk on the sky. Roof-boosting is achieved using the same method as Skywalking, but instead the group pushes the user through a roof much more quickly than you could get there by normal means (most commonly cs_assault).
In Gears of War, several glitches can be used. One of them, called the "Roadie Run Glitch" or "Crabwalk", involves a player continually existing in a "roadie run stance", letting them run full speed and fire their weapons. Another glitch allows a player using a Shotgun to activate a chainsaw, which is not supposed be a feature of the shotgun. Other glitches include rapid-fire on weapons, sliding while picking up a weapon, and jumping so high a player leaves the map.