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[IbizaPocholo]

Everyone who has played Street Fighter 2 will have experienced at least one of the things featured in this video.

Some of the stuff, like the CPU becoming invincible might not be so obvious. Maybe it happens and you just think the CPU attack 'beat' yours. However, going through these events frame by frame, it becomes clear the extent to which the CPU will cheat.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I really hate it when the CPU cheats.

But Heroes of Might & Magic 6 took it to another level.

 

[Helios]

For those that can't watch the video.

1. Invincible normals.
2. Recovering from dizzy in a very short amount of time
3. Charging moves instantly
4. Mashing beyond what's humanly possible
5. 1 frame unblockables moves

 

[Husky]

 

[nush]

For those that can't watch the video.

1. Invincible normals.
2. Recovering from dizzy in a very short amount of time
3. Charging moves instantly
4. Mashing beyond what's humanly possible
5. 1 frame unblockables moves

If you played a lot of SFII back in the day you'd have already noticed these for yourself. It is an arcade game designed to suck up quarters after all.

 

[Helios]

If you played a lot of SFII back in the day you'd have already noticed these for yourself. It is an arcade game designed to suck up quarters after all.

Yup, some of them were a bit hard to see like invincible normals but for some of them they weren't even hiding the bullshit. Like guile walking up to you and doing a flash kick.
There was also the infamous ramp up in difficulty in round 2.

 

[Starbuck2907]

This was/is all obvious to anyone who has spent any decent amount of time playing it.

 

[EightBit Man]

Even though I like the game (and the subsequent iterations), this always annoyed the hell out of me. It's not really a game innit, when one party has the advantage over the other.

 

[Bootyful]

It's like that fucking asshole Luigi in the original Mario Kart. Piece of shit can use a Star anytime he wants. FUCKING CHEAP ASS BULLSHIT BLOCKS MY FUCKING RED SHELLS EVERY TIME. FUCK

 

[pramod]

I think my favorite SF2 CPU cheese was Balrog's instant-death uppercut-uppercut combo (which is impossible to humanly do)...stun...another combo..dead.
Or Zangief's SPD that takes 70% of your life.

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

Mortal Kombat 1,2 & 3s CPU was much more unfair imo. You could literally do nothing against it

 

[Geki-D]

DSP was right all along.

I thought it was well known that the CPU cheats in loads of fighting games. Especially the "single button specials" where the CPU clearly doesn't have to input the commands to do the move. If you've played for more than 10 minutes in a fighting game, it becomes really obvious when this is the case.

 

[mcz117chief]

DSP was right all along.

 

[Orenji Neko]

Yeah, I still play these regularly even after all these years and I just figured this was all common knowledge since it's so obvious. The better you get though, the less of an advantage it is for the CPU and it's more of a "I got robbed of a perfect" scenario. Speaking strictly of Street Fighter 2 and on of course (with the exception being SSF2T). I think the "no charge for charge moves" is the one most people, even somewhat casual players, probably pick up on first.

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I actually think I recall the Genesis and SNES Street Fighter 2, Guile in particular, abusing the no-charge-needed advantage more than even the arcade; you leave the ground for any reason within his vicinity and 99.9% of the time he has an instant flash kick for you. All adaptable nonsense for sure, but weird that the home version would be more cheap in that regard than the pay to play arcade. Again, it's been a while since I played those versions, so I don't know if they were all like that, but I do recall that at least one of them was hilariously overboard with that kind of thing. I will say though, that in it's defense it taught the teenage me to develop a stronger ground game which I took back to the arcade so it's not all bad.

The CPU for the USA release of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo though.....I really have to be in the mood to go through a run of that; it's more work than fun and even when you finish it, the victory is kind of hollow because you know you just spent however long it takes just simply putting up with nonstop bullshit rather than outplaying the CPU. I just find it exhausting and prefer playing that one specifically with other players. I also think it's shit that it's the SSF2T rom that they chose for the SF 30th collection.

Mortal Kombat 1,2 & 3s CPU was much more unfair imo. You could literally do nothing against it

100% agree. I mean, I like them (though not as much as SF) but the CPU in the first three MK games is just a straight bullshit artist. It has noticeable peaks and valleys too: do really good and it gets more and more cheap to where it's obvious you can't do anything. Lose enough and it's like it "calms down" but for how long depends on how high on the ladder you are, it can be just for one round, to one entire fight, but once you win that fight, it comes raging back with a fury.

 

[FranXico]

Mortal Kombat 1,2 & 3s CPU was much more unfair imo. You could literally do nothing against it

Was going to post this. If you think SF2 AI cheats, wait until you play UMK3. Many controllers have been destroyed due to that.

 

[GenericUser]

I knew it!

 

[FrankJovine]

I don’t have a problem with any of this. If the CPU didn’t have those tricks the game would have been too easy.

My problem was when you’d try again and again to beat an opponent and fail over and over, but quit and restart and you’d defeat them (same opponent, same round) first try with no issues using exactly the same techniques. I felt the game occasionally just decided that you weren’t going to get past a particular round, and beat you no matter what.

 

[nkarafo]

I thought in all fighting games, the CPU just read your inputs and reacts accordingly depending on whether it wants to win or lose.

 

[TacosNSalsa]

I dont even need to watch it to know , especially with Guile as the thumbnail. Freaking walk forward flash kick / sonic boom . It's a desk video so I'll watch it anyway.

 

[FranXico]

Go play UMK3.
Try to throw an AI opponent after Round 3.
Let us know how that worked out.

 

[stranno]

I already noticed the AI split-second stunt recovery back in the day.

 

[Fuz]

I KNEW IT!

 

[DarkestHour]

It's like that fucking asshole Luigi in the original Mario Kart. Piece of shit can use a Star anytime he wants. FUCKING CHEAP ASS BULLSHIT BLOCKS MY FUCKING RED SHELLS EVERY TIME. FUCK

Yep, same reason I don't play any iterations of Mario Kart. Can't stand games that instantly give CPU characters an instant advantage.

Regarding SF2, yeah the game is cheap as shit!

 

[mcz117chief]

I recently got myself SF2 on Switch and was wondering how the F can the CPU do charged attacks so incredibly quickly without any kind of visible charging...now I know.

 

[Saber]

Mortal Kombat 1,2 & 3s CPU was much more unfair imo. You could literally do nothing against it

UMK3 is a hell.

And one of their best minions is Jade.

 

[Nymphae]

I don’t have a problem with any of this. If the CPU didn’t have those tricks the game would have been too easy.

They did not need to break the rules of the game to make it difficult, that's BS.

 

[Saber]

They did not need to break the rules of the game to make it difficult, that's BS.

I agree.

No offense, but telling that the cpu need to cheat just because it can't beat a player is lazy(because you couldn't properly make the cpu play better) and stupid at the same time. It's only fine if people like to be made fool of themselves, theres no learning process.

 

[lame gag1990]

It's shit like this why I stopped playing fighting games a long time ago. Unfair challenge isn't fun.

 

[PhoenixTank]

It's like that fucking asshole Luigi in the original Mario Kart. Piece of shit can use a Star anytime he wants. FUCKING CHEAP ASS BULLSHIT BLOCKS MY FUCKING RED SHELLS EVERY TIME. FUCK

Oh god I think I've been repressing this memory for years.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

It's shit like this why I stopped playing fighting games a long time ago. Unfair challenge isn't fun.

Aren't most (and by 'most' I mean all) sports games like this? It's why I quit playing soccer games. The CPU can score at will.

 

[lame gag1990]

Aren't most (and by 'most' I mean all) sports games like this? It's why I quit playing soccer games. The CPU can score at will.

Well I don't really play them anymore either

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Well I don't really play them anymore either

Wise decision.

 

[Romulus]

On top of all that was the extra damage. Ryu's specials would randomly take off massive chunks of life, especially if he was near KO.

 

[Gormless Noodle]

Don't forget the input reaction tricks of the AI. That was more of an SNK favourite but SF used it too.

 

[Birdo]

The Arcade version of Mortal Kombat II doesn't even try to hide it. It's straight up cheating.

 

[Nymphae]

The 95% damage mash grabs are the most egregious example of CPU cheating, that shit is infuriating.

 

[lock2k]

I feel like Alpha AI got way more human and tolerable as well. I could always beat these games way easier than SF2.

 

[Fake]

Great video. I remember TAS video talking about 'fake difficult' and other games curiosities.

 

[theHFIC]

Can we set up a class action lawsuit about this with the big 90's fighting game makers?

If enough people can pretend to be outraged about not being able to install Linux on their PS3 to the tune of three dollars and two cents, i should be getting a nice payday for what I put into arcade fighters in the 90's.

 

[DansDans]

The Arcade version of Mortal Kombat II doesn't even try to hide it. It's straight up cheating.

Yeah but once you got past the 2nd fight, the old jump back and wait to attack trick takes you all the way to Kintaro... as long as the machine is set to medium or above and you’re using 1 of 7 characters that the trick works for

Also...making it past Fight 2...lol

 

[Spukc]

The 95% damage mash grabs are the most egregious example of CPU cheating, that shit is infuriating.

Pisses me off i bet sf4 was just as shit pre patch

 

[FrankJovine]

They did not need to break the rules of the game to make it difficult, that's BS.

Agreed. It is annoying.

 

[Katsura]

There are few things i hate more in games than a cheating AI. Sadly, it seems a lot of developers are too lazy/incompetent/pressed for time that it's very common in games and has been since very early on. Another example of blatant cheating would be F-Zero. Fuck, that is aggravating

 

[nush]

Can we set up a class action lawsuit about this with the big 90's fighting game makers?

If enough people can pretend to be outraged about not being able to install Linux on their PS3 to the tune of three dollars and two cents, i should be getting a nice payday for what I put into arcade fighters in the 90's.

You could, if you had receipts for all those quarters you put into the machine.

 

[oSoLucky]

Pisses me off i bet sf4 was just as shit pre patch

Seth was complete bullshit in SF4 for sure(at least up to AE2012, I stopped doing arcade after the first few versions) on Hard or above. Iirc he had moves/links that a player couldn't perform on top of the reading inputs and godlike reactions.

 

[petran79]

If I use invincibility cheat on mame, cpu collapses playing like a toddler

 

[lock2k]

If I use invincibility cheat on mame, cpu collapses playing like a toddler

Really? That's interesting, never tried it.

 

[Wonko_C]

I got so good at learning how the CPU plays/cheats that I consistently beat SFII on the highest difficulty without losing a single round back in the 90's.

 

[Soleil rouge]

Aren't most (and by 'most' I mean all) sports games like this? It's why I quit playing soccer games. The CPU can score at will.

The NBA Jam games had the infamous "rubber band AI" which is designed to make you lose your shit. If you played well enough, the AI became faster, wouldn't miss shots and play relentless, inescapable defense. They could even score from full court if they needed to. COMPLETE BULLSHIT.

Also, since one of the scumbag designers was a salty Detroit Pistons fan, he programmed Scottie Pippen to be unclutch as fuck when it mattered most, so you'd have to sub him out during halftime to even have a chance to win.

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

Cheating like the insta-Flash Kick, insta-Sonic Booms and BS counters (by reading player inputs), were always obvious to me.
The invincibility frames and lightning quick normals werent something I was aware of. I always thought the cpu just had perfect timing or something, with the later.