Examples of cheating AI you've seen in video games?

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Sonygamer455

Sonygamer455

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As gamers, I am sure we've encountered some instances where the AI was capable of doing something you could not normally do. Such as always being faster than you in a car that is supposed to be slower, spamming weapons at a rate you could never achieve without cheats, cars showing up in races that aren't supposed to be there or really just any instance of the AI having an unfair advantage against you. That said, if you know any examples, feel free to share! :)
 
-EVERY GAME THAT HAS EVER HAD RUBBERBANDING!
I'm only quarter joking.

There is an argument for what people consider "cheating" and what they just put down to bad design/programming. For blatant cheating though I have to nominate the original Super Mario Kart. Intentionally programmed rivals can spam weapons and will perform noticably different than usual with others. Yoshi comes to mind as the worst for spam...and I want to say Toad was one of the worst for suddenly being a bastard on speed.

That said... aside from rubberbanding itself, I don't have enough examples that aren't emotionally charged in the moment, at which point everything cheats like life depends on making my blood boil.
 
You can tell how much the AI in GT1/GT2/GT3 cheats because if you go to the endurance races they don't do it and get destroyed.


Mario Kart 64 famously doesn't even need to have AI hit the item blocks to get items, ignoring entirely when they're not just catching up with you immediately even when you do some of the massive level skips in the game (like the one in Rainbow Road that shortcuts a third of the course).
 
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Twisted Metal 2 has one of the worst cases of cheating AI I have ever seen because they spam their special weapons and freeze missiles at a rate you could never achieve without cheats. The game doesn't even try to hide it either; they do it quite blatantly anytime you do a match, and the game itself is considered to be pretty hard because of this.
 
Stunt Race FX from 1994 on Super Nintendo was a cheating AI nightmare. As soon as you gain an advantage ahead of the AI they'll immediately catch up by warping ahead. Not only that, they're immune to damage including Splash Hazards and ramming them only damages and knocks the player. When you let the AI take over in 2-player mode the damage immunities partly activates too. Never been able to kick them off a ramp to see if Splashing would wreck them or not though.

Li'l quick edit: Good luck completing the Master Cup as a F-Type car vs. 4WD cars, The Monster Trucks are gonna bully you and ram you mercilessly despite normally having far less acceleration and max speed. If they ram you while you're playing as the F-Type car (Since they're living character cars) they can cause a disintegration status where the car rebuilds itself in 3 seconds and it happens pretty much every time due to them having Strong Carbody status and F-Type being flimsy and Weak Carbodied, unable to even jump mandatory jump without taking big damage. You can select your Opponents in the car selection screen by pressing Select and let's just say, instead of AI or Opponent select, they wrote "Enemy" select.

Well with the behavior the AI has in this game, you'll quickly find out why they named this screen like that. :lol:
 
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Racing games can some times be hard to tell. I see a lot of folks complaining about being beaten by AI in slower cars than theirs, and/or rubber banding, while in fact the AI is simply taking better lines/exiting corners faster. So I usually take it with a grain of salt, unless the complaint comes from drivers across the entire skill range, especially players you know are really good.

There are of course some titles that have obvious rubber-banding/cheating. That said: implementing good/great AI can be very hard, and devs also look for ways to keep a game entertaining/competitive, or need a quick 'fix' (e.g. bullet sponges or excessive NPC damage in shooters, or rolling starts in racers).
 
It's been a long time since I played, but I recall Forza Horizon 3/4/5 having some "issues" with its AI if you manipulated it just right so you might be passed by an X999 Ford Focus doing mach 1, barely in control, pitching way back because its suspension can't handle the acceleration, usually followed by a spectacular crash as it hits a very minor undulation and gets airborne.

Burnout Paradise doesn't really have rubber banding, it does the opposite and lets you catch up but won't break the laws of physics to catch up to you if you get way out in front, but it does feel like its cheating in how it spawns cars in a few modes. The formula car's burning route requires you to drive the wrong way around the freeway and cars spawn in waves so you HAVE to weave around them, in road rage events you can drive for a while and only see opponents at junctions, off in the distance or driving towards you at speeds you can't react to, and the crash mode (I forget what it's called) will have cars swerving to avoid you instead of toward you after you pass a certain score threshold and they'll usually stop spawning unless you change direction, which obviously they've done to make it a challenge but it's inconsistent and annoying when you're on a quiet road trying to get somewhere busier.
 

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