First videogame to be uncensored by a cheat code

The first videogame to be uncensored by a cheat code is Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis or Mega Drive, which was released on 13 September 1993.

Mortal Kombat has always been surrounded with controversy. The game's use of digitally captured actors and bloody, violent "fatality" moves caused a stir when it was released in arcades in 1992; Home console versions of the game later appeared on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, 16-bit game machines a year later. Nintendo changed the colour of the blood to a light blue so that it looked like sweat. However, the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game had absolutely no blood, unless you pressed A, B, A, C, A, B, B on the controller on the "Code of Honour" screen, which put all the blood and gory "fatalities" back into the game.

A, B, A, C, A, B, B, which has become known as the "Blood Code", is actually a reference to the 1981 album released by the band Genesis which shares the same arrangement of letters, minus the last "B".