Is the computer player at chess.com retarded?

A harsh question perhaps, but here is the game I just played against the "1600" computer. There are at least 3 massive glaring mistakes from the computer and I'm sure several from myself as well. Is there an algorithm in effect that forces the computer to make idiotic mistakes to "simulate" a 1600 player? In my experience 1600 tourney players are quite good and rarely make mistakes like these. Also, could someone tell me what this opening is?

I agree a 1600 rated player wouldn't hang those pieces in that manner, but it's really more difficult to make a computer play naturally bad than to make it play better at the highest level.

At the end of the day, its rated 1600 for a reason: it beats enough rated players to maintain that rating.

Over the past few days I've played the hard computer in numerous lightening games, despite its pathetic play (terrible endgames, poor openings, and crazy unsound sacrificies) it actually must have beaten me about 12 games in a row (with my rating, it should have been at least 50-50),I was blundering everywhere. I eventually got my own back and beat it about 12 in a row, which is kind of my point: we can laugh about how the chess.com computers play bad chess, but at the end of the day, they win enough games to maintain their rating.  The fact is doesnt play chess like a 1600/1400/2000 human is irrelevant.

I just went over this game I played long ago. Man, I played terrible! 

lol

The computer is not consistent. Sometimes it plays well enough, other times it blunders badly. The bots generally play a better standard. A 1600 bot will play a higher standard than the computer rated 1600.