Video analysis clearly shows how computer cheats in Street Fighter II

The computer-controlled player in Street Fighter 2 cheated. A YouTuber specializing in fighting games explains in a video how the computer took our coins by ignoring hits, recovering faster, launching attacks much faster and more.

YouTuber desk comes up with irrefutable video evidence of the cases. It uses recordings of battles against the CPU and mimics the same situations in player-versus-player situations. It’s easy to see that the CPU does things that simply cost a player more frames or are not possible at all. He divides his video into five chapters: God Mode, Dizzy, Charging, Mashing and Unblockables. Desk also links to an article that takes a closer look at artificial intelligence and its dark side in SFII.

These practices are perhaps not entirely surprising. Street Fighter II originally came out on arcade machines. In addition, players had to pay with coins to get a number of lives in a game. So it was quite important from a financial point of view that the games in arcades were not too easy. A secretly cheating CPU is then of course a hugely effective way to ensure that players were not too successful and kept spending.

For those who cried with frustration but without certainty that the computer cheats in the 90s: you were certainly right. For those wondering whether this kind of practice still occurs in newer Street Fighter games: yes.