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curl-6 on 16 April 2014
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S.Peelman said:
curl-6 said:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandAI

The most blatant instance is Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 64, which has a shortcut that can literally skip 40% of the course (which is, to this date, the longest course in the game series's history). Even if you hit said shortcut on all three laps, the computer is still able to catch you on the last lap.

  • By turning on the map-view in Mario Kart 64 it's possible to watch opponents suddenly accelerate to unrealistic speed when they are far behind or ahead. Allow a single CPU driver to get too far ahead in 150cc and they'll reach the finish line in times no human player, even drifting experts, can finish in.

tvtropes sometimes likes to exaggerate. Regardless, I know it happened in 64, it indeed was noticable on the course map and the comment was meant a bit tongue-in-cheek .

Still, I've finished way, way ahead of the AI on many occasions, just like in the other games. It worked the other way around as well, when the player is in last place, the lower ranked AI will slow down to allow you to catch up so I'm not completely sure about that last sentence.

Rubber banding can be done well, I just think MK64 went way too far with it.