Speedrunner misses out on world record by accidentally activating GTA helicopter cheat code

One of the things I love most about old school games are their cheat codes. I have fond memories of spamming "motherlode" into the Sims to make it rain simoleons - while codes in other games gave you invincibility, new characters and even (somewhat infamously) unlockable blood and gore.

GTA San Andreas was no exception to the rule, and the game is stuffed full of classic cheat codes allowing players to mess around. When you wouldn't want to activate these, however, is right in the middle of a world-record pace speedrun, which is exactly what happened to LelReset.

During an attempt to break his own world record for GTA San Andreas any% (finishing the game with any level of completion), LelReset accidentally triggered a cheat code which brought a helicopter crashing down on his run. The code, called OHDUDE, spawns a hunter helicopter when used. Although the code is typically activated by typing the name, codes in GTA San Andreas can be triggered through pressing certain other WASD combinations, which is likely what happened to LelReset.

The helicopter crash itself was an annoyance, and slowed down the run by several seconds. But the real problem is the speedrunning community (generally) believes that the use of cheat codes - even if accidental and non-beneficial - renders a run invalid for leaderboard submission. If LelReset had continued the run, it could still have been a world record, but may not have been accepted on sites such as speedrun.com.

As it turns out, the rest of the run unravelled from this point onwards - somewhat unsurprising given Twitch chat was buzzing about the cheat code incident. The run was later utterly derailed when LelReset glitched into a boat: the hazards of old games, I suppose.

This isn't the first time a GTA San Andreas run has been derailed by an accidental cheat code. Back in 2015, for instance, a run by Joshimuz was rendered invalid when he accidentally activated a code to change the weather. Joshimuz believes the combination required to do this was DDDDDDDADWD. What are the odds?

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