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{{trope}}
[[File:Cheating_Computer_9567Cheating Computer 9567.png|link=Hearts of Iron|frame|Most games aren't [[Difficulty Levels|this honest]].]]
 
 
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Some games have even used the fact that their AI is ''not'' a cheating bastard as a ''selling point''. Conversely, arcade versions of games ("quarter munchers") often cheat ''more'' than home console versions.
 
Sometimes, the computer only cheats at higher difficulty levels -- particularlylevels—particularly conscientious games may even tell you how. These are often considered [[Justified Trope|exceptions to the trope]]: The computer is still cheating, but it's not being a bastard about it -- theit—the equivalent of differing handicap weights in thoroughbred horse racing.
 
[['''The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]''' does ''not'' include "fair challenges" of the game (wide pits, [[Demonic Spiders|powerful]]/numerous enemies, etc.); those are Real Difficulty. Likewise, one should not accuse the computer of cheating simply because it plays to a computer's natural strengths ([[Computers Are Fast|lightning reflexes]], [[The All-Seeing AI|omniscient knowledge]] [[Rules Lawyer|of the game rules]], and so forth), or because you have a single streak of bad luck. Consistent bad luck, however, may be a sign that the computer is using the [[Random Number God|RNG]] to cheat. On the other hand, some cheats can actually work to the player's advantage, such as with the [[Rubber Band AI]] or [[Classic Cheat Code|plain old Cheat Codes]].
 
Note that this is not a place to complain about enemies that have skills you don't have, or bosses who have stronger skills than you, or about how unlucky you are and how many times you missed (unless the computer has a different chance of missing with the same skill), or about how hard [[That One Boss]] is, or how the computer is actually half decent at some of the game's more advanced maneuvers that you happen to suck at. This is only for scenarios where it would be expected for the player and the AI to be on even footing. For example, in the campaign of a strategy game, it would be natural for the computer to outnumber you and/or have more resources than you -- thatyou—that's part of the challenge of a campaign. However, in free battle or skirmish mode, a computer starting with more resources than you is usually cheating, since you would expect to be on even footing with the computer (unless you can set what everyone starts with).
 
Sometimes this is justified due to the [[Rule of Fun]]. Computers are often prevented from using certain tactics that are open to the player, either [[Scrub|because it's "cheap" when your enemies do it]] or [[Artificial Stupidity|there's no freaking way that a computer could manage to pull it off at a crucial moment]]. In order to make up the gap and still present a challenge, cheating is required. Ironically, players often think the AI is cheating when it isn't, such as strings of [[You Fail Statistics Forever|good luck from a RNG that is actually perfectly fair]], while not noticing at all the subtle and behind-the-scenes ways that the computer is ''actually'' cheating. In fact, some games deliberately manipulate the RNG in the player's favour just to avoid the appearance of cheating.
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See also: [[Fake Difficulty]], [[Rubber Band AI]], [[Nintendo Hard]], [[Random Number God]], [[Computers Are Fast]], [[Gang Up on the Human]], [[The GM Is a Cheating Bastard]].
 
''Note: Since [['''The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]''' is so ''incredibly'' common, only [[Egregious]] examples should be listed below, otherwise this entry would take over the entire wiki. Aversions or subversions should probably be left out as well, since that's (hopefully) the default.''
 
''Note: when adding examples here, please make sure whatever you're planning to claim is ''actually true'', meaning you have hard data saying there is cheating going on, not just some vague feeling that you ''always'' hurt yourself in confusion and the AI ''never'' does. The phenomenon making you feel that way is almost definitely confirmation bias, as any of the various people who have done actual testing with hundreds of data points can tell you.''
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Almost every game that can have this trope does, so please post infamous examples only.
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=== [[Sub-Trope|Subtropes]]: ===
 
* [[The All-Seeing AI]] <br />Where the computer's AI has information that the player is denied.
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=== Generic Examples: ===
 
{{quote|Note: These are ''generic'' examples. They give ways the [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] trope manifests, not specific instances in specific games. See the "Specific Examples" section further down for case studies.}}
 
* In [[Real Time Strategy]] and [[Turn-Based Strategy]] games, the computer ...
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** ... May even be able to move its units over/through obstacles which the player cannot, such as infantry units walking across oceans or phasing through walls and mountains.
 
* In [[RPG|RPGs]]s, the computer ...
** ... is always immune to the [[Useless Useful Spell]], but when it uses one against ''you'', it works every time.
** ... will, when fighting as character who is also a playable party member, [[Redemption Demotion|have stats far greater than the character has while on your side]].
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** ... always knows you are coming, despite no warning or reasonable reason to expect you.
** ... troops who practice shooting less than you do, never miss.
* In [[Fighting Game|Fighting Games]]s, the computer ...
** ... has unavoidable/unblockable attacks.
** ... can use moves from impossible positions.
** ... can move/attack faster than you.
** ... can instantly use moves that require human players to execute a complex command. (Theoretically, it could have begun the command string in advance, but that excuse goes right out the window if it executes the move mere milliseconds after doing something that would disrupt said command string.)
** ... will always know exactly where all invisible characters are -- bothare—both its and yours.
** ... can use its special attacks more frequently than you, and its [[Desperation Attack]] with more health than you.
** ... can deal more damage when using the same character and the same attacks you use under the same circumstances.
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** ... may be favored by the [[Random Number God|Random Number Generators]].
** ... [[Spiteful AI|will team up against you, but never against other AIs/NPCs.]] The computer's interest is you. Losing.
** ... is immune to [[Interface Screw|Interface Screws]]s.
 
=== Notable Offenders: ===
''Note: Since [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] is so ''incredibly'' common, only [[Egregious]] examples should be listed here, otherwise this entry would take over the entire wiki. Aversions or subversions should probably be left out as well, since that's (hopefully) the default.''
 
== Civilization ==
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7) The computer can build spaceships without the required technology
Et cetera. }}
** It also seems that the game tries to force averages to occur. Try using saves to make sure you always win. If your win chance is 50%, your chance of winning the first fight is 50%, right? Right. Second fight (after your unit is healed), displayed chance to win is still 50%--but try saving before it and loading. Your chances are closer to 25%. Winning a third fight in a row is likely to have even worse odds--butodds—but the displayed chance to win is still 50%. The question exists, does it work in reverse also? Sacrifice a dozen or so units for a run of good luck?
*** What you're seeing here is a bug in the game due to a programmer who doesn't understand probability theory. The displayed battle odds are calculated by the naive method of multiplying each unit's hitpoints by the odds of winning a single round of combat, and using that ratio as the odds of winning the battle. The actual odds of winning, based on the battle mechanics, are much harder to calculate, and can deviate significantly from the displayed odds: your "95% victory" fight might actually be a "0.1% victory". Once you do them right, though, it becomes clear that the computer isn't cheating in battle, just lying through statistics.
*** For context, units fight multiple rounds within a single combat until one dies. Thus winning one round in actuality only reduces the opponent by a certain amount of HP. So while a unit with low life may have a 50% chance of winning a round, if they can be killed with one hit, the first hit they take in combat (pretty likely at 50%) will kill them.
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** Also in Civ 3, the AI have their production phase after their turn instead of at the start of the next turn. This means that they can hurry units and have them produced before your next move, while you have to until next turn like a chump. You can tell when they did this because they haven't had the chance to fortify the unit yet.
** If you cheat so that you can control the enemies cities, you will see that despite having far inferior cities, they have ''huge'' commerce and production bonuses, making them far better than yours.
** However, in the interest of fairness, the ''player'' can cheat mechanically too -- onetoo—one of the ways lower difficulty levels are made easier is by giving the player free Happiness and Health.
* Computers in Civ4 will always know what you have access to, what you have explored, etc, and use this to become massive cheapskates in trade. If you have no access to horses and thus decided not to research Horseback Riding for awhile, the computer will do everything in their power to push the technology down your throat while making off with as much of your gold and technology as they can. And you can be sure that the computer will ''never'' offer their world map at a halfway decent price unless you've already explored everything they have.
** For example, the AI will pop up with a ton of trade requests for your world map if you find a second continent. While a smart human would know you would find it some dozen turns after you sent that galley off to the side of the map, they wouldn't know ''when'' you found and mapped a good portion of the new world with the crazy precision the AI does.
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== Mario Kart ==
* [[Mario Kart]] 7 is the biggest offender yet (Which is saying a lot honestly). There was an exploit that has been discovered in the Maka Wuhu track that allows you to skip one section of the track. Pull it off, and the CPU pack is no less than 5 seconds behind you when you are ferried onto the upper section of the course, rendering the entire exploit moot in 1-player mode.
* In ''[[Super Mario Kart]]'', the AI opponents didn't just have [[Rubber Band AI]], but had infinite stores of super-special weapons and items that in several cases the player was never able to use -- namelyuse—namely, the poisoned mushrooms, dinosaur eggs, and meandering fireballs. Then there's the Mario brothers, who could activate Stars at will, making them nigh-impossible to beat if they were in the lead. For the items the player ''could'' launch, the AI opponent also had the ability to dodge by ''jumping'' the kart its own height above the track. <br />They also out right clip through course obstacles like Thwomps and pipes while you need a Star to smash through the same things yourself. The only thing they they ''can'' bump into that slows them down are the walls, and that's if you push them hard enough into a wall. <br />Furthermore, the Grand Prix mode would select an order of skill for each of the computer-controlled players, based on your own character selection. If one of the Mario Bros. were picked as the "champion" racer (which happened if you chose Bowser or Koopa Troopa), you could expect perfect racing lines and cornering coupled with infinite and arbitrary use of the Super Star, allowing them to go at increased speed with no slowing down, plus invincibility. Having one of the plumbers trigger this on the final stretch, powering either past or ''through'' the player and being unable to stop regardless of what's fired at them (or even more annoyingly, just as that red shell was about to knock them out of first place) meant that it was often easier just to start a new game and hope you didn't get one of them as the top racer again.
* In Mario Kart: Super Circuit, whichever AI racer has the most cup points at the time will get their special powerups more often. Luigi and Bowser will always start with "champion" level skills, but if you attack them and cause them to lose to other AI racers, the new points leader among AI will take up the "champion" mantle instead. If Yoshi or Mario get this points lead, they'll start to spam consecutive Super Stars from nowhere and finish races 5 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack. Conversely, since poor AI Wario always starts in the back of the pack, he's rarely seen using items at all and is doomed to finish last every race.
* Another ability the computers have in ''[[Super Mario Kart]]'' and ''[[Mario Kart 64]]'' is the ability to instantly recover from items as long as they weren't on screen when the item hit. The best items would simply stop computers for a moment if you couldn't see them, while the same items used on you would make you fly through the air.
* Choco Mountain. The final part of the track involves a few item crates, a 90 degree turn, and then three "hills". You better be lucky and get a mushroom from those crates, else once you jump from the first hill, you'll collide with the second and third ones, while the CPUs that are right behind you (thank you rubber-band AI) magically have enough speed to jump both. Not getting a mushroom in those crates indeed makes the difference between being first or fifth in this race.
* Apparently, the computer player chosen to be the first-placer in Mario Kart DS always has a maxed-out speed stat, regardless of what the kart they're driving should have. This makes characters that drive karts with already high acceleration {{spoiler|(Dry Bones)}} nearly impossible to beat. This may be because the designated top 3 are given boosts in top speed with the first placer given the biggest boost. If it happens to be a kart with high acceleration, your only chance of winning is to snake, simply put. <br />CPUs in Mario Kart DS will also move back into place if another kart knocks them away in midair.
* ''Double Dash!!'s'' AI seems to entirely ignore the weight system and kart stats -- heavystats—heavy karts (the only ones available to large characters such as Bowser) all have crappy acceleration but high top speeds. Go ahead, knock Bowser off the track. Invariably, he'll be right on your ass in no time flat -- despiteflat—despite the nice long stall that getting put back on the track gives you, and the fact that his crappy acceleration should leave him far behind a cart that's already running at top speed with no slowdowns. In fact, most of the karts in ''Double Dash!!'' can reach ridiculous speeds trying to keep up with a human player in first, which can give a second human player further down the pack an extremely hard time when it comes to clawing their way back to the front.
* Ditto Petey Piranha, often a thorn in the side in two-player GP races at 150cc due to his ''ludicrous'' bursts of speed and acceleration.
* In Mario Kart 64, computer players just used items at random rather than actually using the item boxes. This actually worked out well for the player (despite lack of realism, since they would never use certain items), since the distribution was fair. In DS and Wii, they actually use the item boxes, which means the last-place players are constantly getting the good stuff. So this is actually an instance where having the AI follow the rules actually made the game seem less fair (though technically it's ''more'' fair).
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== Pokémon ==
* NPCs, even ones with no plot significance, often have [[Pokémon]] that learned powerful moves about five levels early. In later games, Pokémon learning moves early is actually [[Justified Trope|justified]] -- a—a skilled breeder can get level-up moves and moves the Pokémon otherwise couldn't know (Egg moves) bred onto Level 5 (and, from Generation IV onward, Level 1) Pokémon if the father knows it, so presumably the computer-controlled trainers bred their own. While the player can't do this at first, many [[Tournament Play]] fans use this in the [[Metagame]].
* On the other hand, Lance's Dragonite in Generation I has Barrier. Go on. Check. Done? Yep. Dragonite's line has forever been incapable of learning Barrier, no matter how much breeding you do. What's more, in ''Gold, Silver and Crystal'', his Aerodactyl knows Rock Slide, which it couldn't learn until ''FireRed/LeafGreen''.
* In a similar vein, various characters have Pokémon that have evolved at levels lower than their designated evolution level, if you were to train up its pre-evolution. Also [[Justified]] in that various areas contain wild evolved Pokémon at lower levels than ought to be possible, allowing the player to catch them -- thethem—the NPCs may have caught their Pokémon in places the player simply hasn't been to.
* The [[Bonus Dungeon|Battle Tower]] in ''HeartGold'' and ''SoulSilver'' screws with odds to the point where your low odds of success never work and the AI's always do. This is most notable with any instant-KO effect, which theoretically all have 30% success rates. Experienced Battle Tower players key in on anything that could conceivably learn and use Sheer Cold, Guillotine, Fissure, or Horn Drill first, or lose their entire team in as many rounds as they have Pokémon.
** This extends to critical hits, added effects, debuffs, and accuracy -- ifaccuracy—if the computer will win if it randomly gets to move before you, get a critical hit (twice in a row) on a move with 50% accuracy, and have you not counterattacked yet due to confusion / flinching / etc... that's ''exactly'' what will happen. This cheating effect only gets worse as your win streak increases.
** Also in each Battle Frontier, if the match would be a draw (for example, both sides are down to the last Pokémon, one uses Destiny Bond, and the other KOs it), you lose. The opponent states their winning message, and your win streak is snapped and you have to stop playing. In tournaments, a draw due to Destiny Bond, Explosion, etc. means the Pokémon that launched the damage to set up the draw wins or the Exploding/Selfdestructing one loses. Or, it's just a draw.
*** Thankfully, this has finally been fixed in Generation V. In the Battle Subway in ''Pokémon Black/White'', if you get a simultaneous knock-out, you can keep going.
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* Last Resort, introduced in Generation IV, is a powerful move usable after every other move has been used by the Pokémon at least once. NPCs can use it early, though.
* NPCs in Generation I had infinite PP, allowing them to use powerful moves they should only have been able to use five or at most eight times as often as they liked.
* Try using the Mean Look/Perish Song combo on a Trainer with multiple Pokémon. When you switch your Pokémon out to avoid getting KOed by Perish Song, your opponent does the ''exact same thing'', despite the trapping effect not allowing switching. <ref>To elaborate: Perish Song is a technique that makes both Pokémon faint after three turns. Mean Look is a technique that prevents switching. By using Mean Look, then using Perish Song, the opponent's Pokémon will faint on the third turn, while you can switch out just before the final turn to avoid fainting. For human players, the player who is trapped has their switching function disabled. For the computer, however, as long as you switch out, they can switch as well.</ref> <ref>The only possible explanation is that when you make your move, if you chose to switch Pokémon, the trapping effect from Mean Look is disabled, '''then''' the computer is allowed to choose its moves. This means that the computer's switching function is no longer disabled, and they can escape Perish Song. This '''never works for human players, meaning the computer literally does cheat the system.'''</ref>
** This is because switching out the Pokémon that uses mean look takes away the effect of the move. The real cheat here is that they predict you withdrawing simultaneously. Instead, try switching in a Pokémon that has Shadow Tag as an ability. <ref>Shadow Tag is an ability that certain Pokémon have that prevents the opponent from being able to escape, much like Mean Look, but it is applied the second the Pokémon enters play.</ref>
* Particularly in the Masters Battle part of ''Pokémon Battle Revolution''; the computer players have an uncanny ability to know precisely what Pokémon the player is going to switch to or use at any given moment.
* ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' has some bosses (mainly legendaries) whose HP is somewhere into the thousands, [[Redemption Demotion|but when you get them to join your team, they'll have a normal amount of HP.]].
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=== Specific Examples: ===
 
''Note: Since [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] is so ''incredibly'' common, only [[Egregious]] examples should be listed here, otherwise this entry would take over the entire wiki. Aversions or subversions should probably be left out as well, since that's (hopefully) the default.''
 
== Fighting Games ==
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** ''[[Soul Calibur]] 4'' fixed most of the AI issues with 3, but also introduced a new element of it's own: Skills. Depending on the gear your character has equipped, your character will gain points that can be used to equip skills like Shave Damage or Drain Health. However, your character also gets stat bonuses from their armor, and generally pieces that give high skill points give low stats (and vice versa), so you'll usually end up making either strong characters with weak or no skills, or weak characters with good skills. Many of the computer opponents blatantly ignore this and come with custom programmed stats and skills, giving them overpowered combinations the player couldn't possibly get themselves. There are also a few skills that aren't even available to the player (usually improved versions of existing skills, Like Auto Nullify Ringout S -The best the player can get is Auto Nullify Ringout A).
** In Soul Calibur V, the cheating AI gets an entire mode dedicated to it: Legendary Souls, in which you have to battle against several input-reading AI characters in a row, each one requiring 3 KOs to be defeated. Expect to take about half an hour on each fighter. Beating parts of this mode is required if you want to unlock some characters.
* ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' is very... well... [[Just for Pun|guilty]] of this. On top of the usual array of unfair [[SNK Boss]] attributes for the "boss" versions of otherwise regular characters--dealingcharacters—dealing dramatically more and taking dramatically less damage compared to their playable counterparts, doing even the most absurdly impossible-to-input moves ''in the middle of combos'' completely at will, gaining a full bar of tension with a thought, etc.--''all'' AI characters on high enough difficulty settings or close enough to the final match of Arcade mode gain the ability to psychically read controller input. Many characters rely on having a good mix-up game, placing continuous pressure on an opponent until they finally make a mistake in their blocking, and going from there. It works pretty well against humans so long as the attacker doesn't get too predictable. Against the CPU, though, mix-up characters are almost completely useless, as every attack is more or less a polite request for the computer to please consider allowing this next one to actually connect for once. Which is usually denied.
** There is also, notably, Boss I-No from Guilty Gear XX -- sheXX—she happens to have a boss-only move (which has recently been added to the player moveset, but not in the game she's a boss in) called 'Megalomania' which spams heart-shaped projectiles, and [[Oh Crap|if you so much as graze one the entire swarm will mug you.]] It has three ranges -- oneranges—one that's fairly easy to dodge, one that's kind of like a wave and needs to be walked through, and one that fills the entire screen in front of her. The obvious solution to that last one might be to block or to leap over and behind her before she lets it go . . . but tell that to the guy who's freaking out at the sight of innumerable 'warning' signs covering 90% of the screen (the attack, it should be noted, is kind enough to tell you where it's going to hit).
*** The attacks can be fairly easy to memorize, the problem comes when she'll sometimes switch which pattern she's using at the last second, or if the player thinks they're smart enough to simply jump over her, where the patterns never go. Too bad, if you do this, the AI reacts as if you've been hit and they all swarm you.
* Those who played ''[[Capcom vs. Whatever|SNK vs. Capcom]]'' (also known as "SvC Chaos") learned to dislike Goenitz, an [[SNK Boss|SNK sub-boss]] with an attack targeting one of four areas on the screen (close, close-mid, mid, far) that always knew exactly where you would be, canceled projectiles, and was ''spammed constantly'', making getting close enough to hit an exercise in frustrating patience.
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* If your attack is blocked by the computer in ''[[Fatal Fury]] 2'', the computer ''will'' throw you. Doesn't matter what difficulty level, or how strong the attack and the subsequent blockstun is - the computer will throw you.
* The nigh-forgotten ''[[Eternal Champions]]'' games on the [[Sega Genesis]] and [[Sega CD]] were 2D fighters that took the unusual approach of requiring "inner energy" for all special moves. Theoretically, this forced the player to learn the characters and apply specific strategies in every possible matchup... Except against the AI, which could always execute specials with sheer and utter disregard of its own energy levels.
** Even more, well, insulting, characters have an ability called Insult which allows them to sacrifice one piece of their special gauge to destroy a little more of their opponents. The computer, especially the final boss (''bosses'' in the Sega CD version), is quite fond of repeatedly Insulting you from a distance to render you impotent -- usuallyimpotent—usually shortly before, with a blatantly flashing EMPTY gauge, they execute their ultimate full-gauge-requiring attacks, some of which doing things like rendering the character completely invincible (the final boss(es) have these, naturally). Did we mention if you lose in the final battle, you can't continue?
* The SNES game ''Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story'' probably deserves a mention. Whether or not the Demon with the halberd represents Bruce Lee's historically unalterable death, it is basically invincible, there is no way to avoid it, and it will end up killing you no matter what you do.
** Not true. There are two ways to encounter the demon: losing your three mirrors (read: lives), in which you'll be pit against the Demon for a certain amount of time wherein you will need immense skill and luck to make it through until it leaves, regaining your mirrors... and the other way is {{spoiler|facing it as the last boss, wherein you're supposed to take all of its life gauge down then strangle it with the nunchucks, which if you don't have access to by that point, GOOD LUCK}}. It's perfectly possible, just ridiculously hard.
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* In ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', the AI also ignores equipment and accessory rules. Every piece of regular equipment (swords, shields, etc) has a level requirement that your character must meet in order to equip it, but almost every AI opponent will be wearing at least one item above their level. Accessories work somewhat differently. They are ranked from D to Star. The higher the rank, the fewer of that accessory you can use at the same time. Many AI will have three or four of the same Star-ranked accessory.
** And we won't even mention {{spoiler|Chaos}}, who cheats like a cheating cheaty-thing, especially with his Summon. (Every single other Summon in the game can only be used once per fight, except in one specific, rule-based case. He however can use his purely at will, as often as he wants.
** The [[Expansion Pack]] adds to the cheating -- ifcheating—if the game wants to play a character like an [[SNK Boss]], it will -- dodgingwill—dodging will be instant, attacks will be instant (even if you're playing the same character), their priority will be scores higher than yours, etc.
* In ''[[Bleach]]: Blade Of Fate'', the human character can only [[Flash Step]] or use RF Special Attacks when they have enough Spiritual Power to do so. The AI opponents have infinite Spiritual Power.
* [[Blaz Blue]] is guilty of this. Particularly Unlimited Nu and Ragna in Score Attack Mode.
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* [[Smackdown vs. Raw]], particularly when the [[Rubber Band AI]] breaks. The CPU will become a [[Perfect Play AI]] who [[My Rules Are Not Your Rules|ignores the rules]].
** In WWE 12 at least, and probably earlier games as well, it seems like matches are predetermined. If the player is meant to lose then counters are ignored to the point that blatant cheating will occur. If the CPU is slated to lose on the other hand then the game is a cheating bastard for the human character, with the computer all but lying down for the pin, and you really have to work to even drag a match out of them.
* In ''[[Dragonball Z]] Supersonic Warriors 2'', at the end of Mania mode, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]. Throughout the 20 match mode, the player will automatically lose any special attack [[Beam-O-War]] animation. But for the last 10 machtes, the computer adds two or three of the below tricks. For three of the last six matches, it then pits the player's team against one opponent (Cell, then Broly, and in the final match SS Goku), who has access to about a half-dozen AI exclusive skills, including:
** A shield to block ''everything'' that can last as long as the AI wants. They can't do anything while its active, but since they don't need to guard or gather energy, and they have other attack buffs (see below) this just means that the player is lulled into gathering energy so the computer can attack at a moment's notice.
** Special moves can be spammed at no energy cost, meaning gathered Ki is only used for their ultimate attacks. They can also be done repeatedly, interrrupting each other, and with no lag. For example, Broly's giant ball projectile, the strongest projectile in the game, that when spammed can Wombo Combo even another Broly.
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* ''Most Wanted'' even goes so far as to actively ''lie'' to the player. One of loading screen tips tells you that with a well-executed pursuit breaker it's possible to take out all your pursuers at once and get away easily. But doing that just causes a new police car to instantly spawn nearby. Following the advice and slowing down to allow cops to catch up and get them all can then easily have the opposite result than the tip claims, since even though the car is invulnerable, it can still get caught in the pursuit breaker and immobilized just long enough for that new cop car to bust you.
** ''Need for Speed Most Wanted'' actually cheats in ''multiplayer mode''. You can upgrade every car in the game to 100% on all three stats (acceleration, speed and handling), except for the game's signature car, the BMW M3 GTR which cannot be upgraded at all and is therefore pretty bad in single player. However, as bad as its ingame performance is, its listed stats are worse. And in multiplayer mode, the game attempts to ensure a fair race by equalising the stats of all cars in the race. The result is that your shiny Porsche Carrera GT that ordinarily blows the doors off the M3 GTR is detuned to a limping piece of junk with the same stats as the M3 GTR... at which point the M3 GTR is the better car and will proceed to beat you. This is probably a design flaw, but ironically the M3 GTR is driven in career mode by a cheating bastard who took it from you after rigging a race through sabotage.
*** Also, because of the craptastic way the game measures handling, the M3 GTR is probably one of the best vehicles you get in the late game for turning. The game's handling stat doesn't measure how well it turns, but rather how well your car stays gripped to the road, which can be really bad if your trying to make a tight turn at 140 MPH(~225km225&nbsp;km/h, for you metric users)
** Every PSP version of Need for Speed seems to put a lot of effort in ensuring that its AI has a new annoying trick at its disposal. By the time of NFS Undercover, the cpu cars could drive faster than you, no matter what was your car and how well it was upgraded, were not affected by crashes (they were back on your tail in just few seconds), could TELEPORT if you somehow managed to make them stay really behind, or TURN MID-AIR! In one of the urban stages, there is a 90 degrees turn just after a really long straight that ends with a significant bump. To drive past it you simply have to slow down, but the cpu cars can drive into it at full speed, jump and turn in the air. Funny sight when you are looking behind at that time.
* Your opponents in [[Need for Speed]] Shift 2: Unleashed are rather fond of the Reverse PIT manoeuvre. It's performed in exactly the same way but it's the guy pushing that spins out. It's incredibly annoying when you've got a fast car and it gets congested. Generally, your opponent's cars weigh twice as much as yours according to the physics engine.
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* ''Cel Damage'''s AI players can make sharper turns than the human player. This can be seen when the player is killed, and for the brief seconds until the respawn, the computer player (most likely the assassin) can make some incredible curves, even while standing on the same place.
* ''[[Test Drive]]'' for [[PlayStation 2]], Xbox and GC. This game exhibits extreme [[Rubber Band AI]]. No matter how skilled you are or how powerful your car is, the AI will always gain a ridiculous speed boost and catch up, sometimes "teleporting", making races a [[Luck-Based Mission]]. And they almost never crash or make other mistakes.
** Try this (At least on the PC version): Play Test Drive 5 and use the "nitro boost" cheat, race on a track with a lot of straight roads so you can boost your top speed way past logical top speed like on the Sydney track, and take a look at the racer stats at the end of the race. If you've logged a top speed of around 400mph400&nbsp;mph, then the AI will log a top speed of around 800mph800&nbsp;mph just to keep up with you. Granted you would be cheating yourself in the first place, this is still an amusing way to prove the audacity of the rubber band AI under magnified proportions. And also shows you can't cheat a cheating opponent since it will just cheat more anyway.
* [[Midnight Club]] 3 seems to be malevolent and benevolent at the exact same time. In races, your opponents are always in better cars unless you have an A tier car(to the point that races can play out with you in a D tier and your opponent in a B tier BEFORE you've completely upgraded it.), you're opponents always have more nitrous shots than you (or in the case of bikes, HAVE nitrous shots.), and, somehow, obey the copenhagen interpretation, because even if you overlapped a car, if you are not watching him on the minimap, he will warp right behind you and be able to put you back into second place. However, you can outrun them on straight-aways, they cannot use slipstream turbo, and cannot use any special abilities.
** Midnight Club 2 actually has a ''literal'' example: in one of the Career races, Angel gives himself a head start. It doesn't help, though, as he's almost deliberately one of the worst AI opponents you'll ever face.
* On that note, Midnight Club: Los Angeles was criticized in an IGN review because of its rubberband techniques making the game often harder than it needed to be. Not only can they rocket off the line faster, but they have NOS by the bucketload, often blowing right past you. Another gripe by that same review was for markers being in places that are hard to spot, such as on corners you will often blow past.
** A patch eased some of the Rubberband problem for the first third of the game.
* [[Wii Sports]] Resort is a partial subversion. The [[Boss Battle|Champions]] have ''flaws'' in their techniques, making them realistically beatable, but are still blessed with ridiculous reflexes and reaction times--theytimes—they're ''Champions'', after all.
** Bizarrely, after you've beaten the Champions, those following immediately after are generally ''easier''.
* ''[[Forza Motorsport]] 2'' exibits several of the stated examples (not to extreme levels, but they appear). But the worse offense is when you end up with the car in 2nd place pulling a PIT Maneuver on you, giving them and their 6 other AI buddies a chance to speed off as you are forced to get back to the track WHILE THE PENALTY METER IS GROWING. The worst part is that you can have this happen with the AI set on Easy.
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** Back in [[GT 2]] and possibly in 4, the AI would also sometimes use cars that exceeded the HP regulations for the races, eg the Vector M12 LM on the Trial Mountain Endurance Race, [[Unwinnable|making it impossible for you to win.]]
** Not to mention that on most track and road races, you can drive perfectly, get several seconds ahead of your opponents in the turns, only for them to [[Rubber Band AI|mysteriously gain 300 horsepower]] and catch, pass, and gain several seconds on you in the straights.
*** Or it will pick a car that is within the regulations, but has some [[Game Breaker|asshole trait]] making it nearly unbeatable, such as the vacuum-downforced Chapparal 2J. <ref>In that case, however, this is an aversion. You can avoid having to face the cheating AI by literally playing as it. Why? [[Fridge Brilliance|Because it is stupidly easy to make money in this game to the point that you can afford some of the most broken cars in the game with only grinding.]]</ref>
* ''Full Auto'' for the Xbox 360 suffers from this a bit. [[Rubber Band AI]], while prevalent, is not the biggest problem - enemy cars in Career mode are also equipped with what appears to be much, '''MUCH''' stronger armor than the player's vehicle, making blowing them out of the way a time-consuming task. For example, it takes an enemy vehicle approximately 3 rough hits with the hood-mounted shotgun to completely annihilate the player (the same number it takes a player to destroy another player in Multiplayer mode), but it takes the player 5 precise hits to a single side of an AI car ''at minimum'' to take them down. Also, the player's car can completely lose its front armor after hitting only 2 mines dropped by an enemy and explode when hitting the third, but enemy cars can run over multiple mines and suffer no visible damage. They also may or may not be subject to the "Weapon Overheat" period resulting from firing a weapon too rapidly without a break. Factor in the AI cars' exclusive ability to destroy the player simply by ramming them and their unannounced ability to change their driving pattern while the Unwreck function is used (designed for the player to undo mistakes by rewinding time), and it's quite a bit to handle. Fortunately, the AI cars are also busy blasting away at each other, often leaving them damaged enough for the player to swoop in and finish them off.
** The cheating AI seems to be exclusive to Career mode. Multiplayer and Arcade modes appear to give the AI cars the same speed, abilities, and armor as the player (only 3 shots from the shotgun before exploding, 3 mines = death, etc.), but Career mode steps it up with the cheating elements. Very odd...
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*** There is a way to limit the ruleset, involving initiating and then canceling card games until your opponent offers to play by a different set of rules. Do it enough, and you'll spread favorable rules from earlier in the game to a new area. However, it took a disassembler to find the mechanics of this, making it something of a [[Guide Dang It]].
** The ever-hated Random rule. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], it picks out completely random cards from your collection for the current match. Whereas most players are trying to complete the collection and therefore have a LOT of weak cards and a few strong ones, it's to be expected that you'll end up with 2 or 3 (or more, if you're really unlucky) low-level cards, but you'll almost never see the computer with the same weaklings you just drew. There's a reason everyone loathes this rule, and god help you if you let it spread...
* The big battle at the end of ''Tales of the Sword Coast'' (the expansion for the first ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'') had an ability that allowed a save--butsave—but blatantly overrode the results of the save to affect the target anyway, ''every single time'' to ''every single party member'' in over a dozen tries. Even when not a ''single'' one of the main character's saves was greater than 1 (and some were ''less'' than one). Without a save penalty on that ability of at least -10, it is...highly improbable at best to miss all the saves.
** Various NPCs have stats that should not be physically possible within their class. For example, Minsc's wisdom is too low. His case is justified in-story, however; Minsc is described as having gone insane following a head wound. Several characters suggest to him he get restorative magics for it. [[Story and Gameplay Segregation|Don't ask us why the head injury never goes away despite how many Heal spells you throw at him]].
** From ''Baldur's Gate II'' and onwards, all high-level mages (and there are a lot of these) get something called a 'tattoo of power', which is a spell trigger that can activate any number of defensive spells instantly and without any action from the user and stacks on top of existing spell triggers and contingencies. Oh, wait, did I say 'all mages'? Silly me, I meant 'every mage except you and the ones you can have in your party'.
** Speaking of teleportation, nearly every mage in ''Baldur's Gate II'' can teleport -- exceptteleport—except for you. No one in the universe has a ''dimension door'' scroll for you to buy, with no explanation given ''at all.'' (This is a result of the developers removing the spell and citing 'potential abuse' as the reason. Jerks. Fortunately, there is a downloadable mod, the D0Tweaks mod, that'll restore dimension door to the game for player use. Nonetheless, ''dimension door'' only allows you to teleport within a certain short range; how mage after mage uses the spell to teleport seemingly all over the world goes unexplained in-universe. (The game actually has them teleport into nearby shadows using the spell; they then dissapear.)
** Teleportation Shmeleportation. Jon Irenicus at the end of ''Baldurs Gate 2'' has '''infinite''' ''magic missile'' spells memorized. Not even the best [[Min-Maxing|MinMaxed builds]] in the ''tabletop game'' can pull that off.
*** On the other hand, if you've got the one magic item in the game which reflects spells back at their caster, it can make for a hilarious final battle.
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* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', at the Argent Tournament, the jousting opponents will run in random directions to set up a charge or a ranged attack, which is fine, except that sometimes they will choose to run right off the tournament grounds. Guess what happens. Hint: it doesn't end in a tie.
** At the same Tournament, the mechanics mean that the player must maintain a small range to use power attacks, wait several seconds between using them, and execute slow, ponderous turn after one of said attacks. The AI can execute pinpoint turns (on HORSES), to execute both attacks at the same time while outside of attack range and immediately stop to attack you again.
** The Faction Champions encounter of the actual Argent Tournament raid pits you against 6-10 randomly-assigned race/spec combo NPCs that typically adhere to a set of [[PvP]]-ish aggro rules (ignoring threat to focus-fire people with lower health/armor, etc.) While this would be fine on its own, to drive the point home, you are subject to the rapid diminishing returns on crowd-control spells typically employed in player encounters... and they are not. It's not uncommon to have such a spell last 2-32–3 seconds if its target hasn't already been rendered outright immune, while people on your side can be locked down for 30 seconds or more at a time by the enemy's spammage of the same skill.
** One boss in the Karazhan raid is essentially an NPC Mage. When his mana is low, he will cast a mass Polymorph spell, drink some water to refill his mana, and hit the entire raid with Pyroblast just as the Polymorph ends. How is this cheating? First, a Polymorph spell cast by a player will rapidly restore health and can't affect Druids that are currently shapeshifted; his does NOT restore health (a change that was made sometime after the raid was introduced) and will break through the Druid's immunity to Polymorph effects. Second, players can only use food and water to recover outside of battle; he does so ''as you're wandering around as a sheep, with everyone still counting as being "in combat"''.
** Mobs have a tendency to use moves that a player of their equivalent class can't use at that level. For instance, the naga mages in Blackfathom Deeps can use the spell Blizzard at around level 23 or 24. Player mages don't learn Blizzard until ''level 52''.
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** Sniper Rifles in UFO: Aftershock are strangely inaccurate unless the user is a level 3 sniper, then combat becomes a joke, however hostiles are all able to fire them like normal weapons without any penalties for stance or injuries. On the plus side they don't get any bonuses for these either and Cultist psychics almost never wear Trueshot aura Bracers.
* The old Microprose game ''[[Master of Magic]]'' initially had a shapeshift spell that would disguise one unit as another. The manual noted that this illusion would not affect the computer players. Too bad ''Master Of Magic'' was a one-player game with no network, internet, or even hotseat play capabilities.
** Though, that spell is only mentioned in the manual -- itmanual—it was removed before the game's release for just this reason. A more obvious example is the fact that at higher difficulty levels, NPC wizards start with far, far more books and advantages than you can have yourself, plus more established cities... they cheat on resources and build times too, of course.
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Outcast]]'' and ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Academy]]'' games, all Force-using characters (enemies and friends) but you possess immense (though not bottomless) Force batteries, have bullshitime perfect reflexes and cannot be surprised. Furthermore, their Force powers don't cool down and can be reused instantly. All this is designed to make them impossible to kill without a lightsaber, since they will deflect blaster bolts and telekinetically redirect missiles and explosives straight back at you. (Theoretically, one could lure them into a heavily-mined area, but that's more trouble than it's worth.) When you have a Jedi NPC, a Dark Jedi NPC and a missile launcher (or better still the concussion rifle) in the same room, it is actually possible to get the two to play an infinite game of Force Push tennis.
** Also, similarly to enforce lightsaber combat, if you do attack them with normal weaponry, their powers and sword strikes are suddenly mega-effective and you will die in five seconds.
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** A common flaw in the ''Phantasmagoria'' installments is that the AI can literally dodge like the machine it is, meaning that barring the use of an [[AI Breaker]], a computer opponent can ''choose when to eat a bullet''.
* In ''[[Spyro Year of the Dragon|Spyro 3]]'', you have to race a gang of rhynocs to get a dragon egg. The good news is that you get a special skateboard that can do turbo boosts. The bad news is that they have this too. It's even more frusterating when you find out at the start of the race that they can ''automatically'' use the boosts whenever they want while ''you'' need to use tricks in order to fill up the turbo meter at the start and whenever it gets empty.
** Can be inverted by the player, by refusing to start the race, walking onto the track and standing under one of the auto-boost star sitting above the track for 5 minutes, the auto boost effect stacks, and you can beat the race whiout ever doing a single trick. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|The]] ''[[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|Player]]'' [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|Is A Cheating Bastard]], indeed.
* In every [[Splinter Cell]] game, enemies alerted to your presence will ''never'' miss when firing at you with a pistol, even if the enemy in question is outside the range of the player's scoped rifle... Even if the enemy is far outside the range of the game's ''draw distance''. Oddly, they will occasionally miss if shooting with a rifle. Also, once enemies spot you they will never lose sight of you, even if you're in perfect blackness.
* The flight sim IL-2 Sturmovik cheats a lot (even discounting nasty surprises from the random mission generator, like being strafed on the airfield, before you can even get off the ground). CPU planes ignore much of the hardcore similationist aspects of flight, no matter what settings you use: they never fall into spin (which allows CPU to pull fairly ridiculous aerobatics even on planes unsuited for that); their pilots do not suffer from blackout/redout and have 360-degree field of vision, allowing them to unerringly foil surprise attacks and notice you even in heavy clouds; they pretty much ignore the severe winds and other adverse effects of the weather; they also can fly at maximum engine power as much as they want, while human-controlled planes, on the other hand, risk overheating and damaging your engine on realistic settings.
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* In Anti-Idle: The Game, the Stadium part of the game, the AI opponents will not only accelerate in growth much faster than you can but can also go over the cap allowed for stats. Trying to beat an opponent with a top speed you can't even approach is frustrating.
* So you are playing the poker mini-game in ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'', and you are having an incredible doubling streak: You have doubled 6 times already, and have 640 coins, and the current card is a King. You simply can't resist the temptation of doubling once again as the odds are just incredible. You naturally bet for low. The next card is an Ace. You lose. You scream in frustration and resist your urge to throw the controller at the screen. Well, more the reason for that because you most probably got cheated. You see, when you start doubling the game decides in advance how many times you are allowed to double, and if you get that far you will lose no matter what you choose (if you choose low, it will deliberately give a higher card, and vice-versa). This can be corroborated with an emulator.
* Infamously, [[Metal Gear]]:Solid had Psycho Mantis, an in-game example of [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] who not only reads your button input to perfectly dodge attacks, but also reads ''your memory card'' in order to mock you. To defeat him you have to move your controller to the second port, which bypasses his "psychic" powers. Being a [[No Fourth Wall]] series, if you attempt this same trick the second time you meet him he mocks you for trying the same old trick.
* [[Call of Duty: Black Ops]]' combat training bots. They can SNIPE you with a smg before you can even pull up your scope, and If you watch the killcam, they ADS and aim in for you. When you're behind a solid concrete wall. And the INSTANT you walk around they mercilessly gun you down.
* FIFA 07: If you're needing a goal in the last twenty minutes or so of play on a decent difficulty, it is virtually impossible to tackle the opponent, or to string together two half-decent passes. You're also much more susceptible to concede goals from nowhere, from players who usually wouldn't dare shoot in normal play.
* The classic Commodore 64 baseball game Hardball was virtually impossible to strike out in later innings as the AI would never swing at anything outside of the strike zone and would hit practically anything inside, racking up singles and doubles with ease.
* An enemy Navi in ''[[Mega Man Battle Network|Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge]]'' will always have more Program Deck space than you do -- evendo—even when you're using that same Navi. WoodMan, for instance, only has room for a couple of the best Wood-type chips when you control him. When Sal is controlling him, expect to be hit with those chips ''every round.''
* Played straight and lampshaded in ''[[Tron: Legacy]]'':
{{quote|''Sam Flynn'' (failing to duplicate his disk just like the AI): Aw come on, is that even legal?}}
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** The British National Lottery online games do exactly the same thing. For instance, there is a game where you can guess whether the next ball from the machine will be higher or lower, giving the illusion that skill is required to win. However, whether you will win or lose the game is decided beforehand. Sometimes it's funny to deliberately choose the least likely answer and then watch as a highly improbable sequence of balls emerge - again and again.
* Coin-operated pub quiz machines were fair for a few years after they first came out, until the makers realised that some [[Renaissance Man]] types were making serious money off them. The response was to introduce gambling elements to the games that reduced them to [[Luck-Based Mission]] even for people who knew all the answers to the questions. Some games even introduce elements ostensibly requiring manual dexterity - for example, on ''Bullseye'' a player must hit a prize segment with a dart, and ''Battleships'' involves hitting it with a revolving turret. However, even when aimed perfectly, the game decides whether or not the shot will hit.
* [[wikipedia:Stacker (game)|Stacker]] machines actually decide--beforedecide—before the game has even been played--whetherplayed—whether the player is allowed to win a major prize or not; this means it's possible to "waste" winning games, as well as make your way to the end but never have a chance of winning. If the last square stacks up, it simply moves another step before stopping after you press the button, oops, you missed. Though this is understandable, as the major prizes tend to be expensive things like game consoles or [[MP 3]] players, it is cheating nonetheless. The machine doesn't cheat for the minor prizes, but that's because nobody cares about winning hair scrunchies.
** In case you had any doubt, there's no warning of this (at least in Canada).
* Claw Machines. Good lord. It's amazing how many people don't know this, but almost all claw machines are rigged in various ways. For instance, many machines lower the claw slowly and then pull it up quickly, tending to drop the prize with this sudden motion. The most common method of rigging a machine is to rig the claw so that it only actually closes tight enough to grip a prize every so often. If the machine is set to grip a prize, an experienced player will almost always win...but these instances are rare. On some machines, you get a chance to win every X amount of plays. Someone in-the-know could let other people play until the machine is ready to spit out a prize, then swoop in and take it. However, most modern machines use a Random Number Generator.
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[[Category:Robot Roll Call]]
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[[Category:indexIndex]]
[[Category:The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]
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