Execute win.exe

Don't you hate it when you're kicking ass at a game, only to have the computer execute some cheap catch-up tactic or bust out a killer combo? I'm not talking about artificial intelligence growing smarter and more difficult to defeat, just tactics and maneuvers a computer can use that human players can't. Although new games have some win.exe instances, I find that older games need to use these tactics to make up for an otherwise poor AI. I seem to trigger this secret executable a lot in old fighting games, especially Mortal Kombat II. I'm sure many will remember being thrown by a computer while your uppercut seems to go right through them.

Anyway, the point of this thread was to discuss with you guys the most annoying instances a computer ended up defeating you when it was on the ropes, whether this be "catch-up AI" in racing games, impossible combos in fighting games, or anything else you can think of. I think the most impossibly ridiculous situation was when I was little, playing the aforementioned Mortal Kombat II for the SNES. I wasn't very good at the game at a young age, so I spammed Scorpion's harpoon move on Very Easy. It seemed to work most of the time, but when I was fighting Jax, he kept ducking the harpoon for the whole match. After a while, the executable was triggered, and Jax CRAWLED (and by that, I mean magically came over while in his ducking stance) from the other side of the stage, all the while I was still harpooning, and uppercutted me. To this day, that still tops anything a game has ever thrown at me.

Discuss! =o

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by dagget

Mortal Kombat II and III arcade versions. I'd always get about 2-3 wins in a row then it's like the computer says "LOL U WIN ENOUGH! " Then I find myself being tossed and beaten and just sitting there like "WTF?" Even happened on the console version of MK 2 as well.

Fighting games seem to have this mostly, I don't know what it is, but it's almost like the developers don't want you to beat the game on one credit (in arcades).

Yeah, exactly. -_- Especially Mortal Kombat II, I agree with you. That game didn't really have an AI. It was more like a reactionary command, because every action from the computer was completely based off of yours, and it always reacted perfectly. Not only that, it did things you couldn't. Sometimes moves would go through the computer when it threw you. O_o You had to basically "trick" the computers in those old games to win.

How ya doing, buddy?

Heh. I see a lot of people complaining about Super Mario Kart, and for good reason. ^_^ Honestly, I love the N64 version and every incarnation afterwards, but the SNES game was really difficult. Not because of smart AI mind you. Infernal isn't exaggerating so much when he says the CPU icons would just kinda skip across the map if you were too far ahead. I guess the programmers programmed win.exe in that game to only execute when you're about to win, you know, just to piss you off. Guess what Nintendo? It worked. -_-

I don't play the FPS genre so much, so I wouldn't know about this whole "same AI intelligence with different damage" deal. Sounds pretty half-assed, although I'm sure it's very hard to program enemies to interact with their environment in an FPS.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.