Joined: 10/28/2013
Posts: 130
Location: United States
Just out of idle curiosity, in the process of TASing, have any games been caught in the act of cheating? That is, are there games that:
- deterministically force losing conditions in games of chance (e.g. if you choose rock, the CPU gets paper);
- when faced with branching paths, automatically make the player's first choice a dead end;
- weight RNGs against the player under certain conditions (as if Tetris were to intentionally withhold straight lines when a Tetris is possible);
- have a UI for games of chance that turns out to be completely unrelated to the outcome (e.g. a slot machine where the displayed reel images have nothing to do with the actual location of the elements);
And so on? I'm talking about things that go beyond simple unfairness, and cross into outright fabrication or "fixing" the outcome of a game event.
(Obviously invincible opponents in key story sequences in RPGs don't count -- though sometimes those can be broken too, of course.)
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There was an old arcade racing game called California Speed... if you sideswiped an AI car while you were ahead it would instantly lose most of its speed, so as long as you didn't crash it wasn't hard to get into first. I was leading a race once when I see something on the little radar screaming towards me, and an AI car blows past me going so fast the tires were smoking. This was a game with no powerups or bonuses, so the AI was cheating so badly the physics engine couldn't keep up.
Well, it's not AI, but...
In Spongebob Squarepants the movie for GBA, the stage "Yoodle a Sea Doo" has this skeleton platform falling towards you. If you used an OoB glitch like in the TAS, you'll find that the wall actually speeds up just to catch up with you. (Despite moving at a lower constant speed as soon as it appears on the screen)
Joined: 10/28/2013
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Rubberband AI and insane CPU abilities are definitely unfair, sure. But I was angling more for situations where the CPU "fixes" the outcome, rather than just having abilities that the player doesn't.
I'm especially interested in games that pretend to use a RNG or give the player a choice between multiple options, but where in reality you're forced to fail or make the wrong choice. The Bastet game mentioned on that TVTropes page is along the right lines -- it always gives you the worst piece for whatever situation you're in -- but at least that's overt about its cheating.
Infamous "Rubber Band AI" in Mario Kart games, by never giving good items to people in front. However, not really cheating considering it's known that this was the intention, rather than passing it off as just bad luck.
In Mario Party 1, despite the die showing random numbers, no matter when you activate it, it'll give the same number each time. They only truly randomized the die roll on future games.
I'm especially interested in games that pretend to use a RNG or give the player a choice between multiple options, but where in reality you're forced to fail or make the wrong choice.
There are plenty games, especially RPGs that encourages you to complete something but in reality there's no chance to.
In GBC Magi Nation (and the remake GBA Magi Nation), you need to grab the crystal and escape the cave. It has multiple pathes and you can "outrun" the collapsing ground but all of the roads (even the start of the cave) is a dead end. Even if you would get out of bounds (in theory), the game will say you are trapped once a scripted timer hits.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
This isn't really the game cheating but...
In Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, at the place where you get your hammer upgrade in the cave, there is a bonus game nearby where you pay a Thwomp money in order to choose from 3 rocks that can give you more money, nothing or a bros attack scroll. But as soon as you enter the room, the item is already decided and will be revealed regardless what rock you break.
Pokemon Stadium AI is infamous for knowing things it shouldn't be able to. Some examples:
1) If you switch pokemon, the enemy will select a move that is strong against the pokemon you switch in, if you load state and decide not to switch they won't.
2) They know in advance if a move they select will work or not, and if it doesn't they won't pick it, they'll pick something else instead, giving them seemingly uncanny accuracy.
Pokemon Frontier (Emerald etc) AI may cheat as well, but I haven't looked into this yet.
Most Slots abilities in Final Fantasy games are biased away from giving you the best possible outcome, moreso than the rareness of it in the slot reels would imply (For example, in FF6 you have to do RNG manipulation to be able to hit Joker Doom at all). As in, even if your skill is perfect and by the slot machine's physics you would have gotten it, it will slide off.
The Arcade/sideshow game 'Stacker' appears to be a game of 100% skill - a block slides from left to right, and you have to press the button when it is exactly on top of your tower of stacked blocks. But actually, when you are about to win a prize, the game rolls an RNG (the probability of which can be tuned by the machine's owner), and if the RNG says you can't win, even if your accuracy is perfect, it will slide one block further and you will lose.
I think it was The Saboteur where they went one step further than rubberband AI. In one race, the cars were specifically scripted so you'd be overtaken by everyone during the first lap, then you'd work your way back to position 1 during the second. I suppose they wanted to make the race more exciting, since it isn't even a racing game.
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one. Pretty tame example, but fits your "dead end" definition.
Joined: 10/28/2013
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Tub wrote:
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one. Pretty tame example, but fits your "dead end" definition.
Aha! Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about -- not situations where the odds are against you or the computer has an unfair advantage, but where the game actually forces a negative outcome in a situation where there's an illusion of randomness ("fixed" games of chance) or free choice (multiple paths, first choice always fails).
Think of a Concentration game, for instance, that reconfigures the board so that your first N picks are never a match. (I suspect Alfred Hitchcock Presents on the 3DO might do this in order to make itself unwinnable on Hard, but probably that's just a grumpy impression.)
Aha! Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about -- not situations where the odds are against you or the computer has an unfair advantage, but where the game actually forces a negative outcome in a situation where there's an illusion of randomness ("fixed" games of chance) or free choice (multiple paths, first choice always fails).
Well, if you want an unwinable situation like that, in SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis for the GBA, the minigame at the start of world 2 (Bubble Catcher) on Hard mode is impossible to get the highest rank on even if you do it perfectly like in the TAS due to it giving you too little time (Rank is determined by time left).
In several Command and Conquer games, the computer can simultaneously give orders to units at far-flung locations in a way that a human player could never do because, ultimately, he's limited by the map's scrolling speed.
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one.
If you want another (similar) example, I believe GTA IV does the same thing with a mission where you have to find which of three vans is filled with flat-screen TVs. Out of 4 attempts (resetting if I died so I didn't lose money), I never got the right van on the first try, so it could be the same as San Andreas.
In Dragon Quest VII there's a poker mini-game where, when you win something, you can start doubling your winnings. You guess "high" or "low" compared to the previous card, and if you guess right, your winnings are doubled, but if you guess wrong, you lose everything.
The cards come otherwise at random, except that at the beginning of each round the game decides in advance how many times at most you are allowed to guess right. If you get that far, you will lose no matter what you choose (if you choose high, it will deliberately give you a lower card, and vice-versa.)
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thatguy wrote:
In several Command and Conquer games, the computer can simultaneously give orders to units at far-flung locations in a way that a human player could never do because, ultimately, he's limited by the map's scrolling speed.
You can move your view of the map using the minimap if you have a radar though, so once you have a radar it's not that unfair anymore.
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one. Pretty tame example, but fits your "dead end" definition.
Similarly, but a minor example: in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, there's three lockers that could contain a figurine you're looking for. No matter which order you check them, the figurine is always in the last one you open.
Also, the princess is always in the last castle you're checking. ;)
Making sure that parts of the game with random elements aren't trivialized by dumb luck.. I wouldn't call that "cheating" but rather "proper gamedesign". At least in singleplayer games, where you're not competing with a computer player.
If you want the player to visit three locations to get the MacGuffin, you can either make sure the MacGuffin is always in the third location you check, or you could add a MacGuffin-Vendor that requires three plot trinkets, and hide the plot trinkets in said locations.
Sure, the first choice is somewhat dishonest if the player is told it could be anywhere. But it's not necessarily worse than introducing questionable plot trinkets. In most cases I wouldn't even call it unfair. Your task is to finish all three dungeons, get on with it.
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one. Pretty tame example, but fits your "dead end" definition.
In GTA San Andreas itself there's another example. Some San Fierro mission with Cesar that you have to go to the docks, get in a crane and pick the container with a car they want to steal. Iirc there are 3 containers, but no matter what, it's always the last one.
Also, in Pokémon games the AI seems to always know your Pokémon's exact ability even if it can have multiple ones. They will never use Earthquake on your Bronzong if it has Levitate, but they will for sure if it has Heatproof.
And there's Touhou 09 (Phantasmagoria of Flower View). Both on the final stage on Lunatic, and Vs Mode on Lunatic, the AI will dodge absolutely everything until you lose, unless you use Aya and Medicine that are known for being broken against the AI, or Reimu and Eiki that aren't broken but can potentially trap the AI (Reimu) or catch them with a laser because they don't notice it before it's about to materialize (Eiki). The story mode is possible because every round you lose the AI gets dumber for that stage, but without these characters I mentioned, it's pretty much impossible to win everything at first round.
In Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, you can search for the culprit by talking to an informant, talking to a witness, or using the scanner. The first option you choose never works. I never got around to checking the game's code for why that is.
In GTA San Andreas, there's a mission where you need to find a person in one of three ambulances. No matter which ambulance you check first, it's always the wrong one.
If you want another (similar) example, I believe GTA IV does the same thing with a mission where you have to find which of three vans is filled with flat-screen TVs. Out of 4 attempts (resetting if I died so I didn't lose money), I never got the right van on the first try, so it could be the same as San Andreas.
Ugh, GTA IV pissed me off terribly in one mission. At one point, you have to hijack a van. So, you can see the van in the distance, so I figured I'd use the sniper rifle to take out the driver. I did a dead on shot, and the driver drove off. There is ONE instance of bullet-proof glass in this game, and it isn't in a SWAT van, police car, or any other sane logical place. Its in a stupid delivery van, so you are forced to play the bane of all modern video games, a quick-time event. This particular scenario ruined open-world gaming for me. Now, it seems, OWG just means spending an extra 5-10 minutes traveling around to get to the next incredibly linear mission. Assassin's Creed is extremely guilty of this.
Oh, and back on topic - Double Dribble for the arcade lets you hit half-court shots if you are down by 10 or more points. If you are up, good luck hitting any shots at all.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
