Feel free to contribute! I'm kinda feeling lazy. (By the way, there is a grave lack of arcade cabinet icons so I'm choosing the game and watch one.) CPU tactics: 1) CPU crouches and gives you low kicks whenever a player character walk toward it, and good luck trying to do the same to it. 2) CPU jumps backward with pixel precision to avoid being hit when it's a few hits away from being defeated. 3) CPU will relentlessly jump punch a cornered player character if it tries to jump. trickery and/or luck is needed to fool the cpu and jump away from an arena's corners. 4) CPU will jump punch a jumping player character with pixel precision, almost always having priority over the player's moves, and often reads the player's inpout, ensuring an easy uppercut or a special move if the player does its move sooner than the CPU could have. 5) CPU will often throw the player character in mid-air (i.e. after being frozen, or after a blocked cannonball move's recoil), something that is naturally impossible to do by the player. 6) The AI controlling Shang Tsung reads the player's input and reacts according to its moves with great efficiency thanks to his ability to morph in and out at any moment. (i.e. Tsung morphs into Raiden, teleports out of range of sub-zero's slide or raiden's own air slam, then switch back into normal form to launch three fireballs before morphing into goro(!). time taken: roughly 5 seconds.) 7) CPU generally has higher priority when in situations where both characters are using the same move, for exemple high punches or leg sweeps. CPU exploits: 1) After an air slam, blocked or not by the player's character, Raiden will move forward without reacting to any attacks coming his way. 2) Jump backward, jump forward while doing a jump kick. It's a cheap but powerful exploit as the CPU only react to those moves near the end of the game (the third endurance match, for exemple), and will only rarely block the kicks even then. it's a safe way to tip a losing match back into the player's favor as long as the pattern is not broken by the CPU using a special move. Learning to efficiently block is recommended as the player can block said special moves and resume the pattern quickly. 3) step backward once and immediately jump toward the CPU character while kicking. It is similar to the exploit above, but it is much less reliable as the CPU is more likely to block the kick. (On a related note, this is the exploit of choice when fighting Kintaro in Mortal Kombat II.) Weird things: 1) Often, Sonya will make a regular MALE pain sound when fatalities are done against her. 2) Kano's scream during his victory pose regularly cut off the announcer's voice. ("Ka-YEAAAH! ..... Flawless Victory. Fatality.") and vice-versa. 3) It is possible to freeze a dizzied opponent in round 2/3 without killing them, but it only seems to be possible if it's done immediately after the cpu is thrown, said throw being the attack that defeats the opponent. Doing sub zero's spine rip fatality on the frozen opponent results in something similar to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8GVH49sh58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfYw6vMIj0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL here. it shows both the jump back, jump kick forward exploit and raiden's lack of awareness after an air slam (at 07:56).
good thread. I played them when they were released, but I always enjoyed SFII more. The tactics employed by the computer were pretty unforgiving, but I always like the style of the MK games!
Is it physically impossible to throw an opponent after you block a jump kick like the CPU? Or just really hard without pixel perfect frame counting precision?
Something that works in every 2D Mortal Komabt game is just to pull away from the CPU, jump backwards while doing a kick twice or more. The CPU will attack with a projectile. If you are using Scorpion or in the later games, Smoke, just telepor to the other side and attack while the CPU is vulnerable.
Finishing MK3/UMK3 with Smoke is quite a joke with the Jump/Kick + Teleport + Uppercut trick. Shao Kahn is also a joke with the Spear + Run,LP,LP (repeat) trick. I finished the game at "Very Hard" / "Master II" without dying. However without using Smoke, I have a hard time finishing it at "Very Easy" / "Novice".
There's a lot of stuff the ai does in mk games that is impossible to pull off. an exemple that comes to mind is in the snes version of MK2, where repeatedly doing projectile attacks while the cpu is ducking will result in the cpu character sliding across to you, while still ducked, and gives you an uppercut. a more common exemple is the cpu ending an animation faster to throw you away. (think, punching -> throwing)
not quite. the cpu wisens up and blocks the teleport punch. cue in uppercut! also, in MK2, jumping backward and kicking often has the cpu stopping in its track, blocking for a few frames. it's a good thing when you're fighting kintaro and shao kahn. speaking of which, kintaro has an odd pattern where if you land a jump kick on him after evading his stomp move, he'll throw attacks at you no matter what, not caring to block at all. That means that with some timing, you'll give him a lot of damage before he starts blocking again. Also, more often than not, if he walks toward you and stops in his tracks for a couple frames, he's about to shoot a projectile at you. as for shao kahn, jump kicks all the way. he blocks them but doesn't bother to cheat on you like in mk3, so the entire two rounds will be him blocking your jump kicks, taking damage, and often taking an unblocked kick to the face.
