How Mortal Kombat 2 cheats against you | MVG

Mortal Kombat 2 released in the arcades in 1993. It was a smash hit generating over $600 million in sales and threw down a challenge to Capcom and Street Fighter 2 to be the most influential fighting game in history. There was one problem though, the CPU AI downright cheats its way to winning. In this episode we take a closer look at how the CPU AI worked.
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#MK2 #InputReading #Cheating

[@TwinSnake777]

Me: I swear the CPU is reading my inputs. Others : No you’re just bad at the game. Me now: Vindicated at last.

[@CaptainCook83]

20+ years later and no-one cares

[@adnanasif9538]

@@CaptainCook83 Oof

[@shahshakuras700]

Read this: *Kicks the computer in real life*

[@kingjoe3rd]

@@CaptainCook83 no one cares just as no one cares about that dead persons grave on your "channel"

[@TwinSnake777]

@@CaptainCook83 because they aren’t gamers.

[@DH-tn5xl]

This is the calmest, most scientific post rage-quit rant I've ever witnessed.

[@LeRoyBoxley434]

LMAO

[@jasonturek6671]

I made this 69 likes

[@DH.95]

🤣🤣Everytime he says the game cheats I cry laughing

[@RobinHood__]

lmfao take notes lowtiergod

[@ShotokunWulf]

Yo I was thinking the same thing when he was like “you might think you’re just a bad player, but the game is actually cheating.” In such a calm voice

[@amaruqlonewolf3350]

Street Fighter II did something rather similar. Attacks that required complex button pressing on the player's part, AI would do that instantaneously. Heck, attacks that required holding an attack key or a direction to charge it, AI would perform it within mere nanoseconds.

[@melo-7904]

true i am 99.6% sure that the 4 boss characters (balrog, vega, sagat and m.bison) are different between when you play them or the ai does hell in SF2 world warrior they have different move sets if you force the game to make you play them (eg. vega cant block but will backflip meaning special moves wont do pinch damage, m. bison's scissor kicks were a basic move meaning you would have been able to use them on the fly)

[@legbert123]

SF2 Comp would also get Invincible frames on normal attacks

[@GamingManual]

The AI would be walking forward while hitting moves that involve holding back, lmao.

[@DSMTheEditor]

AI Guile was a beast, insta-command Flash Kicks

[@bigbusiness87business2]

right like A.I. m bison😂 that muther fucker could bicycle kick 10 times in a row 😂 where as we had to holdback for 2 seconds then forward to kick . i always thought that was cheap as hell .

[@JannPoo]

9:12 "In general if you spam jump back the cpu will jump towards you" This is something that I learned very well back at the time where I was playing this game in the arcade. My favorite character was Baraka and I used this to basically trick the AI to jump towards me. Turns out that you can start inputting the commands for the "Chop Chop Blades" move while you are jumping backward in a way that the move immediately starts as soon as you land. So basically I simply repeated this technique over and over again where the AI just jumped toward me only to get sliced again and again and again. So the game is cheating, by instantly reading your inputs, but you can turn it around and just exploit it to essentially make it do what you want and then punish it. I would always win without much trouble... until Kintaro where that trick doesn't work. Shao Khan totally falls for that, however, he just jumps/rushes into Baraka's Chop Chop Blades like an idiot. Never had a problem with him.

[@VivoZzz]

Kinataro and Sho Khan are easy but Kung Loi is a headache

[@BrianHalePhoto]

I can still beat this in the arcade with one Kredit doing this with Subzero (ice on floor) or Kitana (fan blade lift thing). The game cheats so take advantage and make it do what you want to do!

[@mrosskne]

what does kintaro do?

[@JannPoo]

@@mrosskne It's more what he doesn't do. He doesn't jump toward you if you jump backward (unlike every other regular character controlled by the AI).

[@domls1317]

Shao Kahn is the easiest to beat if you can just execute front kicks when he walks towards you. I use Sub-Zero

[@TheCarPassionChannel]

I always liked this game on Genesis but was so terrible at it. Finally some closure after 20+ years 🤣

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

Re play it on an emulator !

[@ruggie.74]

I don't think the CPU difficulty is that bad on consoles. I think he's talking about how the arcade version is way overtuned, and only the arcade version. XD

[@ihavetubes]

I win, muhahahahaha

[@louisax4058]

@@ruggie.74 it is on the Genesis, auto-throws, blooks unblockable attacks, etc

[@優さん-n7m]

same here

[@lendial]

as both a programmer and a gamer this was immensely interesting and infuriating

[@vibemasterkorosu2469]

@@juser-abuser 💀Really?

[@carldouglasmiles5594]

@@juser-abuserI feel your pain.

[@edwardnieto5234]

​@@juser-abuserwhat does that have to do with MK II?

[@NickArcade]

​@@juser-abuserlmao

[@nick9115]

​@@vibemasterkorosu2469you.

[@JamieVegas]

I've reverse engineered some of the MK2 AI. I can tell you some of the details. It has difficulty based limits, per move, that can be executed successfully against the done before it will start doing "perfect counters" to those same moves. This prevents spamming a glitch.

[@Vulto166]

Would you consider make a pc port at this point a massive work ? It will be a dream.

[@Erikcleric]

@@Vulto166 There is a MS-dos port of MK 1-3 sold on Gog. Besides i doubt he can " just release " a port out of nowhere, there are rights involved. Running it on a Snes emulator works just fine and is how ive always played it. Try that.

[@Vulto166]

@@Erikcleric Thanks for the info. I'll try the gog version. Well the pc port is not impossible. Look at sm64 and zelda oot.

[@cybersilver5816]

@@Vulto166 He wasn't saying it's impossible, just that OP can't just drop a port on a whim. That crap takes time

[@Vulto166]

@@cybersilver5816 And i wasn't saying that he said it. I know that it takes time, it can be more ease if made in group.

[@Gggmanlives]

I had this on megadrive and I could never beat Shang Tsung for this very reason. Even on “very easy” difficulty.

[@uncleurda8101]

gman u lookin cute here in the comments today

[@IzunaSlap]

Kintaro rocked me harder than I rocked your mom.

[@kaikwonfu2633]

Gman just git gud, it wasn’t that damn hard.

[@Gggmanlives]

@@kaikwonfu2633 This video literally shows that it was.

[@timpize8733]

Those damn triple projectiles that come out as soon as you launch one.

[@corydawson5980]

The speed run for this game is pure AI manipulation and is very impressive and satisfying to watch.

[@TheSnoopyclone]

Yeah checkout playthrough of umk3 with only 1 credit on very hard under master tier. It is all manipulation.

[@corydawson5980]

@@TheSnoopyclone Yeah love UMK3 runs especially people doings runs on the actual cabinet not on Maime.

[@notsyzagts7967]

What do you "the" speedrun? There's lots of them out there. You need to be more specific.

[@martymcfly88mph35]

@@notsyzagts7967 summoning salt just put out a video on it

[@MisterMelvinheimer]

@@notsyzagts7967 it's one run attempted by many players.

[@jackeagleeye3453]

There were ways to cheat the AI back, I remember for example with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the PS1, the AI would always step back if you moved forward, and if you stepped back yourself, it would move forward. So basically all you had to do was land one quick hit at the start of the match, and the move forward for one second, and then back for one second, and repeat that for the whole match and the AI would never actually attack you. Doing this I was able to beat the hardest difficulty and all of the challenges at the end.

[@karlostorres7745]

thats dirty dirty dirty. you need to take a shower. hehehe but yeah I can confim this. the same things the ai do to you you can do to her too. everytime she jumps to you can hit her with back kick. or i used to jump foward so she would cast something I would teleport and punch and cast the scorpion snake and combo. it works every time. ai doesnt cheat you can di same things to her too. thats how the game is.

[@jackeagleeye3453]

@@karlostorres7745 lol, call me dirty mcnasty

[@sayingnigromakesyoutubecry2647]

I didn't know umk3 was on playstation 1. I played it a lot on Sega genesis

[@blob5907]

its not cheating your just that good

[@Richterdgf]

​@@sayingnigromakesyoutubecry2647it wasn't. Vanilla MK3 and MK Trilogy were on the PS1.

[@dravenlee4473]

I had always wondered about that in the arcades back in the day. I had my own cheap AI hacks but the throws especially seemed extra cheap by the CPU and this explains it.

[@billyhatcher643]

this is why cheats have been made so we can kick their asses with unlimited health

[@YuyuHakurei]

It was obvious when you got to baraka or jade. xD

[@PaganUchiha]

Yeah and when you uppercut and it "misses" but then they uppercut you directly after

[@CthulhuTheory]

This whole difficulty adjustment is something I've recently noticed in some fighting games, notably the recent MK and Injustice games. It was weird to me that I'd go from the computer effectively being a punching bag to tossing me around like a pro-gamer with a 40 hit juggle combo, and then on retry it would be back to a punching bag.

[@budal15]

In the recent games AI doesn't work like that so you must have not been lucky on that 1 try

[@Houston_Native]

The AI in SF6 on diff 10 is insane

[@mothramaster1837]

What is so infuriating about this to me is that the AI's difficulty doesn't affect the speed of it's actions, but simply how likely the AI perfectly counters your move. The unfair nature of the AI ends up being Tenfold against the Secret Characters due to their extended grab Range, fast walk speed, and projectile immunity (although this immunity is a double edged sword since the AI still *reacts* to projectiles, even if they shouldn't)

[@theedgydoormat1283]

Add in the requirements for them to even show up and its a nightmarish scenario when the AI just decides you don't get to play ^^'

[@ArcadeStriker]

And then UMK3 gave Jade's AI the awareness to immediately just activate immunity then run up and cave your face in if you try projectiles

[@Nerevar5me]

Unintentionally hilarious

[@TheChrcol]

From the video and your post I think the better solution, would be to add a delay on reactions so it imitates humans, and also have an adjuster for that delay that changes based on the diff value. Of course it could never be zero delay as thats just broken. I would also cap the max diff based on the adjustable difficulty on the dip switches, so the highest 9 is only possible if its set to very hard on the dip switches. So perhaps cap it to +4 over the configured difficulty, assuming very hard is 5. They would also need to fix the move priority problem as well, as we can see in the video a delay on its own might not work as the code seems to allow the AI move to take priority even when its actioned after the player. Ultimately what stands out to me, is that if you need to cheese to beat a game, then the game is broken, the videos I seen this game being beaten, after first two rounds they cant play normally, instead they using repetitive cheese moves exploiting the AI.

[@randymagnum6680]

I remember putting about a dollar in quarters into this machine before giving up, knowing something was going on. Haven't played it since, you're welcome Midway.

[@voidremoved]

It was fun owning it on sega and play it all day, then go to the arcade and show off to all the other virgins

[@kamii_999]

@Milwaukee Mac Repair bruh I loved streets of rage 2, that shit was bomb

[@timfagan816]

Thanks randy, your comment was revolutionary, it cured all know and future cancers, added more ice to the ice caps. Fixed the ozone layer, got ride of world hunger, droughts and all criminal activity, made people's debts vanish, and tax is now no longer a thing! Well done rando! 🙃😘

[@differentman1878]

Same!

[@dallas-cole]

@Milwaukee Mac Repair Sounds like fun bro

[@datriaxsondor590]

Ya, I think everyone knew it was cheating all along. The frame cuts for some characters were so hilariously obvious, namely, Kitana's grab. You were 7/8 through your attack, and in the very next frame, you were 7/8 through her throw. 😆 Ya, this game was a pile of trash in single player mode. Head-to-head at arcades, was where it shone.

[@jaredfurr8794]

Not everyone knew, because the punk kids at the arcade NEVER BELIEVED ME! (scars) jk

[@annoyingcat5328]

Shined

[@DoubleBob]

The shadow shows that the "reaction" starts one or two frames earlier, for example at 3:04. So the cheating is even more extreme than thought.

[@89qwyg9yqa34t]

This is probably the reason why, growing up, I'd never trust the difficulty system. I knew that this was a thing even then, like it was executing a move that would have been impossible if it was a human player. So since then, I always just play on easy because difficulty was always artificially cheapened and I didn't want to invest years in defeating the game.

[@rebranded1248]

Hi MVG, I enjoyed your video. You made a lot of great points about the AI. However you did not mention that the exploit/strategy to beat the AI really depends on what side you are playing on. For example P1 side of the arcade control, the jump back..AI jump forward to follow you does work. Yet on P2 side of controls, that glitch/AI exploit does not work at all. The P2 side strategy is basically if you move forward and step back a little, the AI will pause and stand still for a brief moment. That is the cue that it is going to throw a projectile attack in around 2 1/2 seconds or so. If the AI pauses and stands completely still, then it is 100% guaranteed it will shoot a fireball, iceball, or whatever projectile that character has in their skillset. This happens only when human is controlling Player 2 side of controls vs AI. Also the jump backwards, AI CPU jumps forward to follow you on P1 side strategy, actually does not work with every character in the game either. I know that does NOT work with Liu Kang for example. On the other hand it works 100% of the time if human is using Shang Tsung. Thought I might throw that out there.

[@timekillr]

To add to this - the AI has a lot of weird glitches when playing as P2. For example, if you jump towards your opponent and they walk back (which they almost always do at a certain distance) they will keep walking back until they gain enough distance from you, then full stop. You can exploit this by just walking front towards the AI; they will always walk into the corner, and since they can't gain enough distance, will just keep backwalking from you until you back up enough. Back in the day, this helped us a ton (it's even easier to do when the AI is at its hardest) because it makes pretty much everyone that's not a boss into a training dummy to practice corner juggles (universal one was jump kick -> crouch LP -> crouch LP -> Uppercut). IIRC all revisions of MK1, 2, 3 and U3 have this type of weird glitch where the AI is super exploitable when playing as P2.

[@Pegfoxx]

@@timekillr Thank you for that. I wish I new that back in the day though 🤣

[@rebranded1248]

@@timekillr Yes your right as well. I practice all of my corner combos on the AI from Player2 side. Things like Kitana 100% combos and especially Johnny Cage triple flash kick juggles vs JAX and Raiden. Cheers

[@plaztik767]

I’m so happy that you mentioned this man. because we used to clear the game on one credit using this exact technique! I thought that it was just my little corner of the world, but you replying with everything the same really vindicates that people that put the time in back in the day and knew what’s up. really know how to cheat that arcade machine pretty goddamn well. 👍🏻

[@8-bitJoe]

Spot on from all you guys who mentioned it. I commented about this but didn't know more people knew about this too.

[@C2Talon]

Getting "Mortal Kombated" is a term in my friend group we use when we get destroyed handily in a game after handily destroying everyone else in the previous game. Those early Mortal Kombats were just so blatant with their difficulty slider that moves up on wins and downs on losses that it genuinely becomes unfun once one realizes what is happening. Which is unfortunate, because there exists a sweet spot of difficulty in there, but that requires trudging through the far too easy bits and then losing to the literally cheating bits to finally be able to get one fight that feels like a fair challenge before the next fight is either too easy or literal cheating again. Another thing, it is gross to be wrecked by cheating AI, then have the difficulty go down on the retry, so it is not even really the same fight. It just robs the player from being able to overcome a tough fight through perseverance. And with the difficulty bobbing up and down on wins and losses, it actively hinders people from getting good (against the AI).

[@GamingManual]

This is so well said and EXACTLY how I always feel when playing MKII. I've been playing this game for 30 years, and even with the best strategies there's no consistency anywhere. That bobbing difficulty is BS and you're absolutely right it kills any momentum you have.

[@joeboyko8013]

This is one of the reasons that I love arcade emulation. I can enable cheats in order to balance the game and get back at all of the quarters this game stole from me in the arcade when I was in high school.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Ahhh, the arcade machines...they "earned" your money by playing fair and square!

[@blacknapalm2131]

*In some versions of the game the AI is so laughably cheap that if you try and throw a defeated opponent during the 'Fatality' the AI will still auto counter throw you hahaha*

[@kultan2000]

😄😃😄😃

[@RarecuisineGaming]

i always thought you just couldnt throw to finish lol

[@luisbermudez4756]

I can vouch for this. It was the earlier version of MKII before any of the patches and you absolutely could not throw the computer opponent. We thought it was ridiculous at first when we absolutely could never land a throw, but then when we tried it after the opponent was defeated and sitting dizzy and even THEN when the moment we hit the throw button the defeated opponent threw US, we knew it was full-on programmed to cheat. This was changed in one of the update patches - not that you couldn't throw the opponent during a match, only that they wouldn't throw you when they were defeated and you tried to throw them. Ha.

[@blacknapalm2131]

@@luisbermudez4756 *Thanks Luis!* Only my little brother and myself remember this so it's nice to know we weren't going crazy haha. Also if you got an AI opponent in a corner when you went to 'throw finish' them you could get them to throw you 2 or 3 times in a row before the timer ran out and they fell over just to showcase how badly the cheat was on!

[@luisbermudez4756]

@@blacknapalm2131 That's right! I totally forgot about the multiple throws thing! I specifically remember Kitana was notorious for this as she would do that backbending slam and you would bounce past her legs and she'd just throw you again.

[@BrianJones-wk8cx]

To my eye, MIDWAY games are kind of infamous for cheating. For example, my favorite ever is NBA Hangtime. On my game rig via MAME, I have a fully souped up player after playing through some 70 or so games and gaining attribute points, and have refined my skills to a point where I’m essentially automatic early on in the game-guaranteed buckets every trip down the floor. It doesn’t take long, however, for the rubberbanding AI to kick in and ensure that the CPU always remains somewhat close, which I believe you’ve actually talked about before. As you said, though, still love MIDWAY’s games, and I still play Hangtime pretty regularly. It’s an even better experience with multiple players-the more the merrier!

[@LeoJay]

sport game in general are ruthless when it comes to rubberbanding, in PES they pretty much buff rival team to superstar levels even if you are playing against the lowest tier team in the game lol

[@jwill7998]

@@LeoJay Midway sports games are another level. I remember having a better chance of winning a game of Blitz heading into the 4th quarter down by 7 than up by 28.

[@radish6691]

I’m sorry you only have one eye, maybe that’s why the games are so hard?

[@hartonosutrisno5452]

Also, Hydro Thunder was another game they cheated too. I remember back when Hydro Thunder coming to my place, I honed my skills to extent where I can do throtlle and boost at perfect time to gain advantage. But, no matter how good I am, AI was being rubberband so badly that I had 2nd place in 8 of 10 races even with best rides. This get me pissed of on how they being scumbag with those cheap tactics they did for easy money and those karma was strike back to them with failed games and eventually shutdown for good in 2010. Remember, cheating for your own desire eventually caught you up and you will suffer from it, this is good lesson we learn till now.

[@vdfritzz]

nba hang time is so good, so much better than nba jam and so few people know about it i always try to keep double the score of the AI but after a few matches it becomes impossible but still a great game to play against all teams with a custom character, the game is perfectly beatable, it doesn't cheat like mortal kombat at all edit i mean, there is rubberbanding, but that never stopped me and a lot of people from stomping the AI in need for speed and mario kart games either, reacting to your inputs with the perfect move, even if it was supposed to be impossible to do, is way cheaper than rubberbanding

[@lionhartcaelum6833]

Every fighting game back in the 90s has the AI that cheated Even SFII does this

[@JackOfAllRAIDs]

But not nearly as badly and flagrantly as MK.

[@charlieharrington9555]

@@JackOfAllRAIDsidk man ST was on the same level as Mk2 and 3 imo in terms of bs

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@JackOfAllRAIDs It's just as bad, they can do absolutely anything that a human player cannot.

[@IB_E_Y_O_N_DI]

@@JackOfAllRAIDsplay sf2 super turbo, max difficulty on USA version, so how it is for you man

[@TehDrewsus]

Greetings! I'd like to talk about that UMK3 arcade difficulty if I may. I'm the co-creator of an arcade hack out there called UMK3 Plus, and I've spent about 5 years analyzing and picking apart this game's code. The arcade difficulty ramp is pretty interesting, and somewhat different than what was described in the video. In the case of MK3 and UMK3, the difficulty set in the operator's menu is nothing more than placebo. That setting is never looked at during the game. Instead, your difficulty is based solely on which tower you select at the Choose Your Destiny screen. This is one reason that the Novice tower can be SO ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING after a few fights - especially that Jade battle. The difficulty ramps are universal, but where you start is what's different. Novice tower difficulty per fight ladder position - 0,1,2,9,9,etc - Jade is usually that first 9 difficulty fight! Warrior: 1,3,5,9,9,9 etc Master - 2,4,6,9,9,9,9 etc Master II/Champion - 3,6,9,9,9 etc. In the arcade, if you lose, the difficulty ramp goes down by one each time you continue (not 3 as the console source suggests). So if you give the game enough quarters, you'll get opponents that are a little easier. Don't try this on the bosses though, they're a universal difficulty, it doesn't matter what the current difficulty ramp is, bosses are bosses. In MK2, as the difficulty gets higher, the distance from which the AI can throw you also increases. it's ludicrous! An interesting quirk in the MK2 AI is that they are always advancing on you. Except in certain situations like Sub Zero's ice puddle, they'll go idle until the puddle dries up. This is why you'll sometimes see Scorpion taking Sub Zero's stance, Mileena taking Kitana's stance, and interesting stuff like that. Their "idle" stance is shared among palette swaps - they're just almost never in them. Thankfully, for as cheap as the AI is in these games, it's also predictable and easy to capitalize on their built in routines. Also UMK3+ Beta 2 just released a few weeks ago. y'all should check it out, it's pretty cool.

[@nemesis_915x3]

That's deep drew 👏 very interesting though.

[@KhalilGhibran]

The 'always advancing' was the most intimidating part of the game to me haha. Was that to keep you from noticing the pallet swapping?

[@creeping1]

Great analysis man.

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

I do find it hilarious that in MK2, the game blatantly just wants to throw you off the machine as early as the third match. After all the complains, Midway made MK3 and were like "what? we listened to you. now we want you to get off the cab on the FOURTH match. be happy."

[@STBill]

The way to beat this AI is to let it attack you first and then you counter it. This is how I beat Capcom's arcade games.

[@SayAhh]

How do you counter Zangief's screwdriver grab?

[@STBill]

@@SayAhh Jump straight up and do a kick, sweep combo at the right time. It is annoying because the AI can grab you from a distance that looks like you got teleported to Zangief's loving arms.

[@mikewhite8848]

Exactly, or also bait the AI in attacking you. In MK2 I noticed that the AI is programmed to react to any button input, you could just jump up in the air and hit punch and your opponent reacts trying to counter a move that it shouldn't.

[@daoyang223]

Doing grab moves helps. I spammed that a bunch until they started grabbing me. Then I lost.

[@Sekir80]

Just like a true martial artist do! Never attack, respond! :D

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

Fascinating stuff. I think most of us always suspected it but it's cool to see it all but confirmed. That being said, MK2 was so much fun that I don't even care. 12 year old me, however, is enraged. Great video, MVG! PS Rise of The Robots on the CD-i didn't do this 😑

[@CanadaBud23]

I found it incredibly difficult. I was never really a MK player, I was more of a KI player. But I did play it with an emulator and just cranked my cheats up and it was just crazy how the AI would ramp up its 'difficulty' and cheapness. It was actually kind of funny and yes satisfying at the same time when the game had no chance whatsoever lol. I've seen this in other games and playing racing games I've noticed this a lot. Happy to say racing games I have no problem destroying since its my forte but yeah, getting back at those childhood fighters and platformers it somewhat bittersweet.

[@rainnaxil]

ccccooombooooo breeeakeeerrrr

[@SuperHns]

@@CanadaBud23 you realize that KI was a clone baby of MK and SF combined. right

[@CanadaBud23]

@@SuperHns I don't know about that. KI was a much faster more fluid game than MK was for quite a while. Even SF felt better than MK. I just didn't like it I'm also better at SF than MK too. I haven't played later versions of MK but I imagine they don't play like a stick in the mud anymore.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

@@CanadaBud23 Inspiration-wise, not feel-wise. Punch and kick buttons of three strengths and special move motions=SF, blood and finishers=MK. But KI still has its own stuff like the CGI sprite animation, combo system and wonderfully over-the-top announcer.

[@multicoloredwiz]

Any time MVG does some code investigation it's a great video, assured. I'm curious how this compares to the infamous SNK cheating bosses..?

[@javierortiz82]

The snk bosses didn't cheat from what I remember (well, maybe in Art Of Fighting 2, that game was insanely difficult), but they have very broken priorities, hit boxes, reaction times, attack and defense values, but they're far from input reading. If, say, Amakusa, Mizuki or Zankuro played reading your inputs they'd just flip your weapon every time.

[@starlitalpha7]

@@javierortiz82 many snk bosses definitely did cheat. Rugal in kof 94 being the most infamous example since he reads inputs and his genocide cutter has higher priority than literally any other move in the game. Snk is the originator of the "snk boss syndrome " meme.

[@mattb9664]

SNK's games would simply throw everything it had at you. Even on their Level 1 difficulty, you'd have to be some sort of gaming savant to get anywhere close to a 1 CC achievement!

[@davidabreum.rangel7017]

rugal kof02

[@sladejosephwilson2300]

@@starlitalpha7 You are wrong about KOF bosses. They have cheap AI but, can be exploited. Rugal from KOF94 is a damn cheater. He does the most damage out of anyone. AOF2 cheats

[@MetallicMadness85]

The key is playing defensive and backing up and letting the enemy come to you, it confuses the AI and opens them up for attacks...same goes for MK3 and its updates.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Makes sense. Give a counter-happy AI nothing to counter and it'll have to come after you to win.

[@bigjake360t]

You know the same works in some Zelda games. The old bait and switch tactic.

[@rkevic]

if u played arcade, you always knew this. The machine will never let you win. so you stop....

[@otaking3582]

Or turn on an Infinite HP (P1) code. If the AI isn't gonna play fair, neither should you.

[@qbranch88]

MK3’s AI was near impossible. I consider myself an average player and I don’t think I ever got near Shao Kahn

[@Derceto00]

This was one of those games where the CPU cheating was so egregious, that I didn't need any factual proof to know it was cheating. In any case, awesome video all the same, as always, MVG.

[@Striker2097]

Yeah when you get grabbed by jade for thousandth time in a row you start to wonder...

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

@@Striker2097 ye

[@edriespinoza6361]

At some point I figured the AI in the game was reading the player's movements, so maybe I could use that as an advantage. I've always liked MK Trilogy out of all 2D MK games. So I'd pick up Smoke (robot) and kick jump backwards until the AI started reading that movement, then while in air, performing a teleport punch. The AI's counter move would leave them vulnerable, then I'd proceed to chain a full combo using the Scorpion-like spear and a full combo, so that was an easy way to win all of the fights except for Motaro. It even worked with difficult AI levels. Now, the thing is... I can see why the programmers would put such dirty code in the AI since it was a Arcade game, but was that really necessary on the home console releases?

[@SpearM3064]

If they didn't put the code in the home console releases, would it be an "accurate" translation? 😉 It would also have confirmed what players already suspected: the AI in the arcade version MUST cheat, because the home console versions don't. (Either that, or it'd start a new rumor that they had "dumbed down" the AI for the home release.)

[@pubjoe]

@Edri Espinoza Great example. Playing the CPU in fighting games is all about AI manipulation. It's more of a puzzle game. In a way using an exploit gets easier as the difficulty goes up, as greater AI consistency also means greater predictability - like controlling the barrels in Donkey Kong. You can't do it reliably until the difficulty has risen enough. Arcade mode is a totally different game than versus mode. It's annoying but I guess it was impossible to simulate a high-skilled human.

[@edriespinoza6361]

@@SpearM3064 Yup. You're right. It's just... I consider the AI kinda broken. If you're playing the console versions, then you can play whatever you want. And finding out that the AI it's so mechanical makes the game un-enjoyable. I'm talking about the single player game mode here. The multiplayer on the other hand, it's really a blast.

[@edriespinoza6361]

@@pubjoe Yup. Those were the technology limitations at the time. The only positive thing about that kind of AI it's that it makes it absolutely terrifying. Kind of a Terminator. LOL I really love the AI in Resident Evil 4. You'll never notice yourself playing exactly the same on repeated playtroughs. However, the AI it's also plagued with "weaknesses", like the predictability thing. If you run towards an enemy, they'll obviously try to attack you. However you can spam their attacks by running and "touching" their "hitbox" then stop running. I guess the AI it's nothing like this nowadays, since fighting games are still being released.

[@gizaha]

Who said that they could write non-dirty AI code?

[@RyansFine]

I've been marathoning the old MKS and I found MK1 to be easier than I expected (Even Goro's not too bad once you know the tricks to it), but I've been having trouble with MKII. I honestly thought I sucked, and well I probably do, but good to know the game is cheating too💀💀 Thanks for making this👋

[@marsmartian]

As a kid I knew the MK ai was key logging you, but never correlated how nefarious that is when it's taking Quarters in the Arcade.

[@RandomGuyCDN]

Hindsight is 20/20 but looking back now paying to play an arcade game vs the AI was basically gambling except you could cheese to win. Toss in your quarters after a while and get stone walled until your soul is sucked from you and your out of money.

[@Robert-nl3fd]

Bro...it was infuriating the more you liked the game😭

[@davkdavk]

I remeber feeling how suspect MK2 was back in the day, so this explains it

[@dorenjackson1166]

“Input reading”. I’ve had that theory since I was a kid. Even playing sports games I noticed how it seemed like the AI knew exactly what play I was calling. It made the game & the losses feel cheap, I love a challenge so I always play on the most difficult setting in video games & I don’t mind losing. But when you’re only losing over a cheat then it gets annoying lol

[@ericmann1781]

Exactly, I first discovered this when I put serious time and effort into Tekken 4. The timing on blocking so many moves, from any height were so instantaneous, the only logical conclusion was input reading. It wasn't as egregious as mortal kombat, or Mario Kart 64 where you keep your star from last to 1st place to use it and cut through a lot of dirt and 2nd and 3rd place and still glued to your behind somehow, or Forza Horizon 4 where a stock 1972 Charger kills your 2017 Focus RS in every turn, gains a 1 minute lead on your perfect lap then on the final lap's stretch the "drone" is capped at 50mph as if it realized it cheated far too much and you blast past it at like 150 and end up winning with a twitching eyebrow. I never end up enjoying these games because it's not even really a challenge anymore, when no matter your skill level you can be immediately cheesed by the AI, I literally sold Horizon 4 the next day on fb marketplace. Playing an rpg, action adventure or fps on the hardest difficulty is a much more satisfying experience because skill, making a mistake and strategy are what really matters, instead of hoping to God you can out cheese a cheating AI.

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

@@ericmann1781 true

[@ev6558]

>Playing on the hardest difficulty. >Unhappy because the AI cheats. Lol.

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

@@ev6558 it doesn't matter what difficulty are they playing on. They may want a challenge, but they also still want a fair fight, and an actual chance at winning (not saying that you can't win against them). It just feels cheap when you jump and they automatically anti-air you.

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

@@ev6558 it doesn't matter what difficulty are they playing on. They may want a challenge, but they also still want a fair fight, and an actual chance at winning (not saying that you can't win against them). It just feels cheap when you jump and they automatically anti-air you.

[@greenmanjph]

I KNEW IT! When my friends and I would be playing MK2 in the arcade, I kept saying the computer knew I was pushing up for a forward kick before my character moved. I even tested it a few times by watching carefully and as soon as I moved the joystick up, Baraka would start the cuisinart slashing and my character wasn't even in the air yet. Thanks for confirming!

[@JoseMolina-ij3xx]

When I discovered glitches on the Computer AI that a novice player would never fall for. I knew the AI was flawed and cheated at times. It's the just that the programmers never got around the loopholes and weaknesses of the AI and how players adapt to the flawed AI. Great game, but awful AI. It was more fun in PvP than actually beating the game.

[@PandemonicHypercube]

Hah I knew it! I always felt like this game was cheating me back in the day. As an only child, the constant frustration of playing this game against the AI was singularly responsible for turning me away from the genre. I don't play fighting games at all now, because they're just so associated in my mind with frustration and generally having a bad time, that it just doesn't interest me.

[@NotoriousRawDogger]

I feel your pain. I can't stand fighting games

[@Rodemu]

Fighting games against friends are fun but they get old fast and when u even get half decent you tend to rage and get salty i don't have that issue much with other PvP games so yeah fighting games i don't like em anymore either

[@DualPerformance]

This is how I feel in Sifu, never played that game again

[@seragx99]

Same here, this is the same reason why I haven't played Mario or any platforming games ever again, the frustration and pain hinder any feeling of joy that I associate with those memories.

[@r033cx]

Reminds me of a feature in racing games (notably old NFS titles) called internally "catch up", also known as rubberbanding among players. Basically AI racers, no matter their car performance, will always drive faster or slower based on player car performance and where they are in relation to player. If they are behind they will gain speed until they will be right behind you, and if they are in front they will get slightly slower so you can reach them again. For this reason you can go through entire game without upgrading your car at all

[@danmiy12]

Its why in many games, the best stat is acceleration because the ai will catch up no matter how fast you are and high speed chars take longer to recover from being hit esp in mario kart.

[@kellystigger9318]

If you can remember NBA Jam, the CPU assistance was the same thing. All games have it. Even the newer, more recent games. You can easily tell it, too.

[@rocosuavez]

the drag races in NFS were frustrating if you had a good start it would synch the traffic to hit you forcing you to brake ... i hated the drag races ...

[@liquiditystee2126]

One of my fav arcade games of all time. Promised myself one day I would own a MK2 cabinet.... I spent hours as a teen at the local arcade mastering it and worked out that if you let the ai follow , you could counter attack with devastating effect. Certainly was a big part of my youth lol

[@TheArtofGuitar]

Got a bunch of money after I graduated. Instead of putting it toward college I spent it all at the arcade on MKII. :/ Was worth it! haha

[@Buttington_Headerson]

I spent mine on drugs

[@MattKittredge2112]

But at least you ended up a badass guitar player with a fairly popular KZbin channel! 👍🏻 But yeah…I can’t tell you how much allowance money I blew on all the MK games back in the mid 90s lol. I did myself a favor when I finally bought the console ports, for like $50 each, but could play them anytime I wanted lol

[@liamjordan3068]

Street fighter 2 had this I’m sure. I watched a guy in Spain when I was 10 or 11 playing it. He was seriously so good. He could beat every character first time. He could never beat Guile in latter stages tho. So I played him as guile as a cheap tactic knowing I had no chance to beat him. He beat me but it allowed him to go on and complete the Arcade easily everytime. Last day of my holiday in Spain he started putting in coins for player 2 so he could beat guile like a punching bag and then carry on solo, never facing his nemesis again.

[@Rhino-n-Chips]

Can confirm, the ai cheats in SF2 as well. Instant charge inputs, invincible moves and sometimes unlockable ones, which is criminal.

[@jasonpawloski]

Yeah Guile can flash kick and sonic boom without charging, I always thought that was BS.

[@ArpeggioPegasusMusic]

Desk made a video specifically about how the CPU in SFII cheats. kzbin.info/www/bejne/opK4cpp7itqhqas

[@adrenalinex4]

All u gotta do is trick guile by using lp uppercut. He will flashkick and miss and be open for attacks.

[@theweddingsinger1970]

Zangief can grab you from half way across the screen to do his spinning pile driver lol

[@feathero3]

When I was 8 years old, my mom would ask why I was upset while playing a video game, and I would say that, "It's cheating!" She never believed me, and just said I was a sore loser... Thanks for giving me some validation!

[@ChineduOpara]

Where's your mom now? If she's still alive, send her this video 😂

[@AchtungBaby77]

Great video! The input reading also applies to Sub-Zero's freeze and Scorpion's spear - they are ALWAYS blocked by the CPU in MK2 the instant you do them. The way the CPU would throw you effortlessly, even mid legsweep, was notoriously cheap. Still a fun game, but the cheap AI always tarnished it for me.

[@TheBlueArcher]

games that input read always felt "wrong" to me. the instant timing, you knew it was cheating. i never thought it was fair. I didn't think some people did think it was. And now that i'm deep into fighting games, I can absolutely tell when playing against human players if they are guessing / using an "option select" or reacting based on how their response "feels" in terms of timing.

[@36Jon36]

Yeah, it's something you can even "feel."

[@brenancastle7539]

Madden

[@lincolnpascual]

I haven't gotten as deep into fighting games as I did when I was a teenager, but I understand what you mean. For me, the experience comes from a different source. I've spent my entire adult life in various forms of combat, through the military and martial arts like muay thai. But even then, that experience translates into other areas, like when playing Tekken I don't read the character so much as read the player. You start to recognize some folks by their name and playstyle, and you can start manipulating their reactions and preferences against them... input reading on the fly, if you will. Even in other genres, like FPS, if you know what the opponent is capable of, you can still set them up so they react in a way you want them to, although in FPS it's a lot more dynamic since it's not 1v1... teamwork makes the dream work. All this makes me WANT to delve deeper into video games today, but meh. Today's games don't really keep my attention for very long. They just don't engage me the way older games do. 🤷‍♂️

[@andeed4200]

This is exactly one of the reasons why I could never get on with the MK series. After the first couple of rounds it was obvious that the game balancing was completely broken. Sure you could cheese your way through the game with the walk back / jump kick trick, but that just sucked all the fun out of it.

[@skycloud4802]

I think the reason most of us has so much fun with MK was because we primarily used it in multiplayer. I can't think of many people that actually wanted to pick up a fighting game for the single player story campaign.

[@andeed4200]

@@skycloud4802 yeah that's a fair point -- I was always very much a lone wolf when it comes to gaming, even with tournament fighters!

[@no.402]

That's what makes me dislike the series, along with scummy DLC practises and the SJW designs in MK11

[@k.morris231]

@@no.402 lol what sjw designs

[@YuyuHakurei]

It balances out because Freddy Kreuger, Spawn, and Rambo are probably incels.

[@mickjaegar2379]

"How arcade games gaslight you into thinking you're bad at games"

[@strippinheat]

I remember playing MK1 on the Genesis. I froze Scorpion with Subzero, walked up to throw him, only to be thrown by Scorpion instead, who then remained frozen in his throw animation after I was tossed away. Or the time I tried to uppercut a jumping Johnny Cage who was at the top of his jump arc, only for Cage to appear on the ground in front of Me to uppercut Me instead. That's beyond just input reading and just straight up breaking the rules thanks to awful coding. And let's not forget Street Fighter 2 and Blanka doing charge back specials while walking forward.

[@tokidensetsu]

Remember when you used cheats to play as Motaro, but had a "4-second cooldown" on fireballs? And the CPU just spammed them like if they were throwing Light Punches XDDD Once, on PS1 Trilogy, I used a gameshark for Inf. Health just to see how much the CPU would break the rules.... I got hit with 13 fireballs from Motaro one after the other, "juggling" my character on the corner.

[@SuperHns]

na, MK1 Genesis is easy bra, compared to the arcade, I can even manage to beat Mk1 and UMK3 arcade, but MK2 is a straight up CHEATER

[@kenrickeason]

Or Guile flash kicks that he walks doing.. Guile can literally just stand completely there and do a flash kick.. Sh_t ridiculous..

[@libertyprime9307]

I didn't really know the concepts as a little kid to articulate this back in the 90s, but going back to play MK2 a few years back, this was extremely obvious. The AI just has perfect reaction time to interrupt you if you try playing aggressive, like you would versus a human.

[@greenkoopa]

My most nostalgic arcade game was a cabinet of Golden Axe that was at the laundromat I always went to with my mom as a kid. In 95 the cabinet was basically ancient but it was (and still is) an awesome game

[@AchtungBaby77]

Yeah Golden Axe is brilliant, loved riding the dragons and blasting my opponents with fire!😀

[@GamingManual]

SUPERB (lol) video and analysis! As someone that's been playing in the arcades since MKII, this was spot on. Josh from our channel is a programmer, and talks constantly about how the MKII AI works. Just like you, we still love the game! I will say UMK3 is still my personal favorite entry. I love playing competitively with friends and strangers to this day.

[@KLGChaos]

I remember you literally had to cheese Shao Khan with certain characters utilizing the corner when he shoulder charged and then followed up with heavy attacks like Baraka's Blade Frenzy or Kitana's fan lift combo. Otherwise there was no way to really neat him. Same thing in MK3. Best way to win against the cheating computer was to exploit the back jump/teleports of certain characters because they would fall for it every time.

[@ksam3427]

Or a better one, when he charges up, uppercut him, the. Continue doing that

[@mtgpackrat7945]

The jump in graphics from MK 1 was one of the most stunning things I had ever seen in an arcade. So much so the impression sticks with me to this day.

[@keironhiggspoet]

Mileena took me to the game over screen, every damn time. absolutely brutal on any setting. MK 2's input reading is absolutely insane.

[@Listenthenspk]

How, she's literally the easiest character to beat in the game... now Kitana was a force to be reckoned with it was impossible to jump on her

[@undyingsoul3949]

My brother always asked me how I could lose so badly against the CPU when I always completely destroyed him and his friends in every fight. I explained it to him, but I don't think he really believed or understood it. I could easily tell what the CPU was doing. It would always stand still and do nothing as long as I did nothing. It just reacted "perfectly" to every move I made. And the most blatant proof it was cheating: Liu Kang performing multiple bicycle kicks in a row (MK Trilogy) when I knew for a fact one had to hold the high-kick button for at least 3 seconds before Liu performed another bicycle kick. That was funny. 😂

[@trueakuma777]

Well, well, well, vindication at last! I always felt like the difficulty ramped up impossibly high after a certain point in the game, but no one ever believed me. Until I played them one-on-one that is, and completely annihilated them! Then they accused ME of cheating somehow.... :( This was extremely appreciated to hear and I would love to see more videos on the inner workings of classic arcade games! Keep up the great work and stay safe out there!

[@snoringlemur2084]

As someone who is learning coding, this is absolutely fascinating! 🤔 I've always wondered how the game sets the difficulty.

[@rahmspinat]

Look at the source of DOOM and despair.

[@jonathan_hernandez_1987]

The AI was always overkill in the early MK games. Great job breaking down the C source code!

[@POPPASHANGO]

So many tears. So many yells at the screen that the game is cheating. So many times a controller was thrown. So many moms yelling "then don't play the game"...It was all true. This video brings closure.

[@megabolt5898]

That moment you realize arcade games fit well with carnival carnies for a reason...

[@grimesolver3149]

Wow! Another wonderful, nostalgic deep-dive! Growing, we always knew the CPU was cheating and could read your inputs. Once again, MVG proved us right.

[@EDUB9X3]

Hats off to the old school heads, working out how to beat it with less money back in the day.

[@FinalManaTrigger]

Street Fighter II is guilty of this as well, and even goes a step further. In addition to reading inputs and giving the CPU priority on certain moves as displayed on MKII here, SFII features shortened animations for some moves the CPU does as well, meaning they will always be faster than the player in performing said moves, no matter what. No wonder I was so bad at arcade games...

[@Robert-nl3fd]

Oh yeah...but NBA JAM was NOTORIOUS in the arcades for the VERY same thing. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. They slipped in a few extra lines of code to stack the deck against the human player in certain team matchups with the AI😆😆.

[@shotscarecrow]

Also: one thing that was very apparent if SF2 was that the CPU could instantly perform (and therefore spam) special moves that normally required you to hold a direction for a couple of seconds (eg. Guile's sonic boom and flash kick, E Honda's headbutt).

[@JoseMolina-ij3xx]

I was always trying to figure out how Ryu does that crazy ducking short kick that seems to combo like crazy and cause dizziness. Even when I tried to it myself, the speedy tapping of the button could never come close to that short kick fury that makes Raging Demon look like child's play.

[@kirkcavenaugh758]

I fucking knew it. This pisses me off so much.

[@Lastjustice]

Certain moves in SF 2 the AI could perform faster than a player. M Bison can deliver to back to back roundhouse kicks in a combo.

[@DreamerFromTheDepths]

The rule of thumb to arcade games is "if it's a fighting game the game is going to cheat".

[@mbh9566]

I actually remember thinking that it was reading my inputs back in the day. I even remember going as far as trying to test if it really was or if I was just imagining it. And although I wasn’t positive one way or the other, I still was leaning towards a cheating AI. Good to find out for sure after all these years. Great video!

[@AltPlus30]

The CPU also can throw you when throwing is basically impossible Sometimes you can be thrown while lying on the ground

[@ikannunaplays]

Or mid kick jump

[@JunkBondTrader]

Haven't played since 1995, and I still wake up in cold sweats nightly as Rayden comes to me in my nightmares and throws me.

[@Podbod]

did you ever play the earlier revisions? In the uk they rolled them out early and they had half the finishers missing and the AI was even more bonkers than the final revision. Some of the cast would throw loop you with no way to escape. So once you got thrown once you were dead. A real shitty move by Midway

[@ikannunaplays]

@@Podbod Try playing the PC CDROM version of MK3, it is insane how bad it cheats because its basically exactly like the Arcade and near impossible to win

[@OS10100]

People who failed to let the AI attack first and use the block and then counter the AI always were at a disadvantage. If you attacked first, the AI already knew your move. If you blocked their attack, they had no idea what you were going to do after. Uppercut, leg sweep, special moves etc. I would use Subzero and after a block immediately freeze the AI and have my way with it. LOL

[@Drgluee]

I've gotten thrown while performing a fatality. It will always revert to the cheap throw.

[@Po5itivemind5et]

@@Drgluee lol no way

[@Drgluee]

@@Po5itivemind5et It happened, I was surprised, I messed up the fatality (too close) and threw a high punch, it was against Jax, I was Scorpion, and my character got thrown, but it did only happen once.

[@desktorp]

@@Drgluee Yes, I experienced this multiple times.

[@DisplayThisOkay]

@@Drgluee In earlier releases of MK 2 the AI would always throw you if you inputted a throw after you reached a certain difficulty level. Even during Finish Him/Her or when frozen by Sub Zero they could still throw you. They patched that out of later releases.

[@LordSesshomaru86]

2 was always my fav, too. Raiden was my fav character. He seemed so mysterious and even charismatic in his winning poses like he enjoyed fighting. The music for the game was awesome, too

[@hedigordo8497]

The only video game I could'nt finish as a kid! It was really frustrating, thank you for the peace of mind you provided 🙏😁

[@blob5907]

you couldnt finish it because you didnt practice enough.

[@TheTrenternet]

MK2's source code just leaked. Spoiler it was cheating.

[@bigbossentertainment]

I knew it! Dude I remember as a kid getting pissed off all the time at this game. Yelling “the game is cheating!” Adults just laughing saying “OK sure the game is cheating”. Still is my favorite game series to this day. But damn that’s good to know the facts. Thank you

[@ultra8067]

🔥🔥🔥

[@janX9]

yup, I told my friends that game was cheating and they said I just sucked. so I gave all my quarters to Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Street Fighter. I let them they're their money away on a cheating game.

[@danmccarthy4700]

This game becomes really easy once you figure out how the AI actually works. And once you do, it becomes extremely cathartic to wreck that AI over and over.

[@JerryBaezAlchemus]

I always heard about input reading on fighting game's CPU logic, but to actually dive in and look at the code to not only confirm that it is a real thing but to also understand how it works is super cool! I wonder if in addition to input reading, if the CPU code also has algorithms to alter hit and hurt boxes depending on the difficulty. Because in some cases, even if the CPU is reading the player's inputs, it seems that the player's hit boxes are not colliding with the CPU's hurt boxes like they're supposed to. If there is, then this would make the CPU even more cheap! Anyways, love this type of more code-in-depth videos! Keep up the great work, MVG!

[@QuasarEE]

It seems to make the decision, at least in the throw case he showed, to have the AI initiate the move before any kind of collision checks could even be done, in the very same routine where the player initiates their own attack. So in effect, the hit box/hurt box mechanics are overridden entirely and never come into effect at all - it's not obeying its own "rules" at all.

[@outsideredge]

I remember the PS3 arcade port of MKII by Sony Interactive. It was a high res port of the arcade original complete with its AI. Even on the easiest setting, the AI will become very difficult to beat after the first couple of fights. You basically have to cheese your ranged attacks and hope for the best.

[@zachstarr]

I'm sure there's a whole community of people that would love to see the AI reprogrammed. If it would just take replacing a couple of ROMs that would be awesome! Thanks for the great video!

[@trueLuminus]

Street Fighter did and still does do this. The CPU also gets "mad" if you do too much damage too quickly and spectacularly. You know it's "mad," because suddenly the CPU player will start moving faster and countering like crazy. They will basically become almost unstoppable. Chun Li, in particular, would even taunt you right before she delivered the killing blow. She knows you can't stop it. It's the only time I've ever seen the CPU use the taunt.

[@MegaManNeo]

I never got into Mortal Kombat but this seems like something I can see many arcade games like to do for obvious reasons. Would love to hear you analyzing Super Mario Kart's AI, this one is just as bad with cheating especially on 150cc.

[@voteDC]

I think a lot of the issues with Mario Kart could be solved with a moment of invincibility while you are recovering from being hit with a powerup. It's incredibly frustrating to effectively be stun locked into last place.

[@TLuigi003]

@@voteDC Mario Kart 8 actually increased a fair amount the invincibility-frames so it's more bearable

[@FreeAimDog]

oh you think super mario kart AI cheats? man in tour i cant go 1 track without getting lightning bolted then somehow blue shelled 2 times in a single race then sometimes the ai get this unnatural artificial speed like they have a star but they actually dont but that one is rare. every time i get hit by lightning alls i can think is lightning should not exist in the game.

[@TLuigi003]

@@FreeAimDog in MK Tour, item boxes give up to 3 items so it's normal that it's more chaotic xD

[@pubjoe]

@FreeAim Dog The unnatural speed in Mario Kart and other racers is part of a system known as rubber banding. It's most exaggerated in MK due to so many crashes. You can often see the CPU rival icon flying back through the map at a laughable pace after a fall.

[@Man_0f_Culture]

I remember being a kid there was a small arcade down the road from my house. This game got all of my attention lol. I ender up getting into a lot of trouble for raiding my parents change jar just to be able to go play this game. Turns out my mom and stepdad had an addiction problem and well they took that way too seriously. Ahh the good old days of my terrible childhood when the arcade was my way of escaping my families issues lol.

[@dragons_red]

It appears you had a videogame addiction as well

[@Man_0f_Culture]

@@dragons_red well I didn't have anything else to do and I figured taking 5 bucks in change a day wouldn't have hurt anyone. In most families I really believe it wouldn't have been a big deal but when having addicts for parents I guess it was a bigger deal than I thought.

[@Jaiden_Anime_Shuns]

Thats brutal dude. Addicted caretakers and pillaging silver. You are a true MK player I hope you get a cameo.

[@Man_0f_Culture]

@@Jaiden_Anime_Shuns hey man when you're parent's are addict and there's an arcade down the road what are you supposed to do? I just knew I was happiest when I got to go to my real dads for the weekend and he would take me to the an actual big arcade and give play games with me. When he eventually got custody of me he bought me Sega Genesis and the MK games were the first ones he bought for me.

[@mandc20022]

@@Man_0f_Culture I can relate 100% sounds alot like my childhood , atleast we made it out

[@jaredchampagne2752]

I always wondered how the AI always had the perfect counter to my move at literally any given time, I knew it wasn’t possible for another humans to do it.

[@ramonestefano]

As I noticed this way back when, I started cheesing the AI. My favourite is the teleport punch in MK3 (sektor/smoke), which you can use to cancel a jump kick and start a combo.

[@josephkane2312]

Another thing to note is that the recovery time of the CPU is sped up too in mk2/umk3. For example if you do manage to connect an uppercut and then jump towards the cpu the cpu should still be lying on the ground yet the frame rate of the recovery time is quickly sped up and the cpu is already back up and countering your jump. Faster recovery time = almost no chance of winning.

[@michaelthebarbarian3380]

This was always pretty clear to me back in the day. You could tell the game would suddenly hit a mode and was reacting to the inputs. To the point where the AI was at "danger" and required only a tap to kill and suddenly *snap* ESP MODE ACTIVATED and would tear you a new ass... Even if you were at full health. This happens in quite a bit of the old arcade cabinets.

[@dgilroy26]

This and your NBA Jam video are very eye opening. I spent many hours being frustrated thinking it was my fault when the computer was tough. Thanks for the great video.

[@HellTantrumbull]

It's been clear to me for a long time now that just like with all versions of Street Fighter 2, the ai in MK2 is also I-framing it's way through things you do to counter you along with random frame skipping of some attacks to quickly counter you. if it were just input reading to beat you that would make it easier to deal with but with the I-framing, frame skipping, advanced throw countering and random faster walking speed this is a nightmare you really have to study and memorize in order to beat the game.

[@FinalManaTrigger]

The frame skipping is the most maddening part. No matter what you do, you will never be faster than the CPU because it's animations are shorter. Pretty nefarious to not put at least a few frame delay in reaction time either. Arcade machines stole so many quarters back in the day.

[@MattKittredge2112]

EXACTLY! I remember getting into a debate with somebody in the comment section of another MK2 related video, where I was trying to explain frame skipping, input reading, etc., and some yahoo on there just kept saying “You just suck at the game! Admit it! Git gud! Lawlz!!!” - while someone ELSE on there was trying to say that the AI behaved that way because it emulates what a “real fight” would be like, LOL. It’s crazy how many people try and justify the cheap AI of those older arcade games

[@AntonioBarba_TheKaneB]

a cheating AI is quite easy to code, while a fair AI that looks realistic is much harder to make. This is why most old games were so difficult to beat, not because they were better games, but because sometimes they were just poorly coded!

[@oz_jones]

Or coded this way because they're arcade games. :)

[@flagshipbowtie]

Completely nonsense. The good IA is laready coded it's just made to react to your moves in an instant

[@deus_ex_machina_]

@@flagshipbowtie But removing the input reading and/or the instant counters would still leave it vulnerable to the cheese strats mentioned by others. The 'AI' is 'A' alright, it just isn't very 'I'.

[@flagshipbowtie]

@@deus_ex_machina_ dumazz input reading is how the AI determines where you are on the screen and what you do. It doesn't see you. Modern gamer! To me like you're like a girl playing candy crash and talking about the mechanics of it. Fighting AI is the easiest thing to code. Any offensive is a random move from a list of moves or combination of those. Any defense is a selected number of moves such as blocking, jumping back and those moves that can serve as counters or a combination of them. Random binary choice whatever or not to continue with an offence. You can easily copy those behaviour to other fighters. Plus a very simple pattern recognition of spam attacks to pull a selected combination for countering.

[@kaiserrino8774]

MVG: How Mortal Kombat 2 cheats against you SNK: Hold my beer

[@dano8902]

Haha yeah, Rugal is meanwhile standing in the background sneering. "Amateurs!"

[@UnknowableThen]

When I was a kid I liked to think that the reason it was so hard is that I was playing against the character himself and that I was just some kid with no experience against an experienced warrior.

[@Death-999]

As a kid I worked out the difficulty got harder the more rounds I'd win, if I lost one it got easier again. At least memory serves that it was one round I had to lose, you mentioned 3 in this video, but I played on the SNES not in the arcade.

[@Daniel__Nobre]

Would be awesome to have the original devs talking about this. And maybe having them trying to beat the AI :D

[@gdjohny]

that explains all the weeks I have spent frustrated that I suck at this game .....

[@odinsplaygrounds]

This is the one thing I hate about Arcade games. Love them in general... but can't stand how they are not only designed to steal as many quarters from you as possible, they actually even CHEAT to do so. Well, some at least. The most ridiculous here is how you show a kick or punch connecting, literally inside the other character, yet then proceed to just grab you out of thin air.

[@mattb9664]

That was their business model. Watch Insert-Coin. The dev team (at least at Midway in the 90s) actually had some real incentive and skin in the game to drive sales. They reveled in arcade game profits.

[@brandoninsley7887]

The AI was easy to cheese, even on very difficult (especially on very difficult, in fact, as the cheese strats were more consistent at the highest difficulty settings). It's interesting to note that the AI reacts differently whether you're using player 1 or player 2 controls, giving the impression that they had different algorithms they were toying with. In any case, here's the secret to reverse-cheesing the AI in MK2 (this works on home console releases, too): Player 1: You've got probably a 50/50 chance that the AI will start the round throwing a projectile, so jump in with an attack as soon as the round starts and do your knock-back combo of choice. After that, the AI will consistently walk towards you, so jump back to put some distance between the two of you and wait until the drone walks just within sweeping distance, and then jump backwards without hitting any attack buttons. If timed correctly, the drone will stop moving for a second, and then jump towards you without attacking, leaving it open for your attack or juggle combo. This is usually more consistent when jumping back from a crouch position. Repeat as necessary. Player 2: Nearly identical to the above, however when the drone reaches just outside sweep distance from you, jump TOWARDS it rather than away and it will immediately start backing away. You can keep walking towards it until your sprites are literally overlapping and it wont do anything different until you back away. This is handy for setting up corner combos. When you've got the drone positioned where you want it, immediately start walking backwards until you're about a jump distance away. After about a second pause the drone will always launch a projectile attack, leaving them open for you to jump in with an attack and/or combo of your choice. This works in a corner or in the open area. One thing to note is that the player 1 cheese strat only seems with certain characters (all 3 ninjas, Johnny Cage, Jax, Shang Tsung, Raiden), whereas the player 2 strat works with all characters. Bosses: Kintaro requires some quick reflexes, but can be easily beaten. Duck all his projectiles, as they do considerable damage when blocked an cause a knockback animation that leaves you open for another attack. He has a couple jumping animations, both of which can be countered. For the ground stomp he will quickly jump off-screen and if you're quick enough to react you simply jump backwards with a kick as soon as he starts the animation. That will result in the stomp missing and you and you landing a jump kick. In the other jump animation he will jump straight up and down once, and then jump towards you slowly, leaving him open for any number of attacks/combos. If he walks towards you, simply attempt to time a sweep just as he walks within range and it will do a small amount of damage while knocking him back a bit. Shao Kahn is brutally simple: Keep jumping towards him so that you land immediately in front of him. As soon as you land, duck and he will more than likely either execute a punch or kick, which will miss, and then you can quickly counter with an uppercut. Sometimes he will do his shadow charge attack, in which case you will take damage (and even lose the round in some cases), but more often than not you will be able to counter him with the above method enough times to finish him off.

[@Kryptic1046]

This is why I enjoy TAS runs so much. It's basically a more advanced program beating the sh*t out of a cheap but less-advanced one. It's so gratifying to watch TAS go to town on the cheesy MK AI.

[@corngames8982]

I remember when I was a kid at Aladdins Castle. I was watching some dude playing MKII from begining to end no continues, and did fatalities every round.. now this video explaines how he won this cheating game... he was simply a terminator sent back through time! because in Terminator 2 you can clearly see a T-1000 go into an arcade. This must of been a Terminator looking for John Connor as well, it just didnt have as much luck finding him so It just stuck around some arcades. And beat our pathetic video game AI with ease...

[@fakeshemp9599]

Oh man I forgot about Aladdin Castle!... but I never forgot Terminator! I can confirm, he is good at mk2

[@casualgamers6020]

STOP RIGHT THERE MISTER! I was so dissapointed on hearing this last night... This morning it suddenly dawned on me, 2 player mode is where it's at. Great video btw!

[@jdurg]

It's great to have proof that yes, MK arcade games cheated like crazy. I don't feel so awful that I can't beat the game and I have the arcade cab!

[@VideoGameXDomain]

I knew that game was BS even back then. MK 1 I never had these issues. MK2 was too hard.

[@ikenosis8160]

I owned a smaller cabinet MK2 arcade with a friend of mine many years ago. It was always wildly amusing watching the Computer player perform astonishing impossible moves and strategies against you usually while you were laughing too hard or too infuriated to make any sense of it. Uppercuts with a range several times that of a mere mortal, throws right through melee attacks, immunity to projectiles. Fantastic! Hahaha! Loved every minute of it.

[@Arman-ol3iy]

I remember a guy who almost beat the game with 1 quarter, back in the 90s. Now I admire him more.

[@LordProteus]

I sure hope doing this kind of thing in arcade games is illegal these days... that'd be like tricking someone into playing what you were told by the vendor is a game of chance with a 50/50 chance of winning, but in actuality there is 0 percent chance of winning when you start playing, with the chance of winning going up by 10 percent for each consecutive game you play.

[@NotAdachiPeople]

You aren’t being told what chance you have to win, hell, no claim has been made that the game is winnable. You’re playing this without knowing whether it’s winnable.

[@RetroJackal]

Love MK2, not a fan of the cheating AI. Even on the Mega Drive version it does it - even putting the game on the easiest difficulty setting results in the same thing as the arcade version. Would love to see the game reverse engineered and a fan patch come out that address the AI, but oh one can hope.

[@SuperHns]

meh but MK2 on Sega MD is beatable, the arcade, if you get Mileena or Kitana in the ladder upside, you are fucked.