When has game A.I showed real intelligence?

[Artlover]

Halo: Reach. Not perfect, but one of the better ones I've seen. Most of the enemies are still dumb as a sack of rocks, but some do use actual strategy and tactics.

As for me... its hard to think of anything. Left for Dead is suppose to have the best AI programming in gaming so far in the form of the Director.

Key word being "supposed to". To that end, don't anyone belive it because it's not true.

In a nut shell, it's still largely check point/timer based. If you don't play randomly, then the so called randomness is non existant. If you always go here, there will always be a swarm at this place. If you always go there, there will always be a boomer behind that wall. If you hide here for this amount of time, zombies will always spawn in that room there. That path is always blocked forcing you to go the other way. The swarm here always last this long, and always has a break that long before the next swarm. If your ammo count is above such & such level, that bench over there will be empty. If it's below such & such level, that bench will have ammo stores.

Play either game twice, and you will learn everything there is about how the AI works and how you as the player have 100% control over what the Director will do 100% of the time.

The Director is one of the biggest marketing scams I've ever seen. It's just the same old comparing of variables that every video game has done for the last 40+ years.

 

[Mordwyl]

Intelligence would imply something is learning. By that definition, Black and White's creatures were one of my favourite examples.

 

[SuperBio]

Sins of a Solar Empire Dipolmacy. I was just building up my fleet when suddenly I see a scout frigate then and entire fleet jumps in with 10 capital ships. My two capital then proceeded to bail where I hid on some backwater planet for at least 2 hours then murdered them with a massive fleet. All in all when the game ended the time read thirty hours. I did have to split that up into two days. But seriously I was not prepared for that many ships jumping in that soon in the game.

 

[Nazz3]

AI can't get much more realistic than in Arma 2.

 

[Davey Woo]

I've yet to win consistently against the AI on my chess game... On the easiest difficulty.

Seriously though I admire the enemy AI of Brink, medics will prioritise healing and reviving teammates that are needed for the primary objective, and all the bots are pretty good at meat-shielding when one of them is attempting a primary objective.

The only thing I don't like is that this is only the case for enemy AI. Friendly AI is pretty much useless.

 

[thespyisdead]

the worst example of AI (yes i'm going off topic) i've see has to be in Saboteur. when you are on the roofs, you shot down a Nazi, and go back hiding. in real life, if you would stick your head out to see what the situation is, your head would have been blown off, but not here. here you can walk, jump and dance all you want on the roof for them to see, and they won't notice.

 

[Cowabungaa]

The combine in Half-Life are similarly stupid. They never retreat - unless you throw a grenade - and more often than not, they'll just STAND there getting shot to death.

That is all.

Also, there are some games out there that don't use pre-set routines, that adapt on the fly. Especially some 4X games manage to do that. Of course it's not real intelligence, but there's no need to tell us stuff we already know.

The A.I. in Unreal Tournament 2004 and 3 is incredibly well programmed: probably the best I've ever seen. They may just be giving off the "illusion" of intelligence, but the bots in UT are damn near as smart as the humans, if not more so.

They're most likely just a hell of a lot quicker to react than humans, which makes sense of course.

 

[The Madman]

Was playing STALKER: Call of Pripyat just earlier today and fighting against a squad of Monolith fighters I was genuinely surprised by how damned clever they were. When fighting an AI you never expect them to be capable of something like suppressing fire or flanking but I'll be damned, that's exactly what it did to me. Genuine good ol' squad tactics, had me dead in no time too.

The creature's AI is also pretty clever, with dogs and wolves retreating to their packs and swarming the player while bloodsuckers will actively weave and dodge to ensure you can't find them when they're hidden.

Easily some of the most impressive AI I've ever seen in an fps, though overall the best AI I've ever encountered in a game is definitely Galactic Civilizations 2.

 

[Outright Villainy]

The uncharted games had surprisingly adept enemies. As in they'll actively flank you, so you need to keep moving, and they don't stand out in the open like lemons too much. I quite enjoyed the combat anyway, it was pleasingly tactical.

 

[Korolev]

The combine in Half-Life are similarly stupid. They never retreat - unless you throw a grenade - and more often than not, they'll just STAND there getting shot to death.

That is all.

Also, there are some games out there that don't use pre-set routines, that adapt on the fly. Especially some 4X games manage to do that. Of course it's not real intelligence, but there's no need to tell us stuff we already know.

The A.I. in Unreal Tournament 2004 and 3 is incredibly well programmed: probably the best I've ever seen. They may just be giving off the "illusion" of intelligence, but the bots in UT are damn near as smart as the humans, if not more so.

They're most likely just a hell of a lot quicker to react than humans, which makes sense of course.

Ah ha! But you can see in that video that a great deal of them DO just stand there and die. Sure, some shuffle from side to side from time to time, or run TOWARDS the person firing the gun, but it's still such a far cry from how real people behave, which is the reason why I don't call it A.I, and I find it annoying that people do. The Half Life Enemies aren't as bad as say, the enemies in Serious Sam or Doom, but they are still pretty stupid. Despite Gordon Freeman being able to take out waves of them, they still insist on attacking in little groups of 2 or 4 or 5 and although some of them back up when you point your gun at them, they still just stand there taking shots to the face. I've run similar scenarios in Garry's mod (when I still had it), and although it can be entertaining to see the "A.I" attempt to co-ordinate its actions, I wasn't particularly impressed.

I admit it - I am a fussy, stringent, pompous "words-mean-what-they-mean-in-the-dictionary" sort of person. Again, I'm not expecting real computer intelligence within my lifetime (although I do think in the future it will be possible). I just... well, I just want people to use words and concepts correctly. I similarly get extremely annoyed whenever I hear a journalist call the Higgs Boson the "God Particle" or when they say "quantum leap" when referring to a very BIG advancement, when in fact Quantum physics takes place on the realm of the very very small. Yes, I'm stuck up and no fun, and yes, you've probably guessed that I have no real friends. Nevertheless, referring to the pre-set, preprogrammed routines of enemies in the game as any sort of intelligence causes problems. You have programmers focusing on trying to make enemies "life-like", leading to bad results like the Oblivion "Radiant A.I", when instead they should have just tried to focus on getting the set routines down correctly. I'm not saying that developers *shouldn't* try to create more realistic behaviours and routines, but that they shouldn't try to program the NPCs in a way as to enable them to "react" realistically to uncontrolled events. Because when they do, the NPCs look foolish and people complain about the enemy "A.I".

The actions of enemies or NPCs in game should be referred to as "Enemy routines" or better yet, enemy "behaviour" (even though I am aware that using the word behaviour doesn't quite fit the actions of the enemies precisely).

Argh. I'm a bit of a neurotic mess of an individual who has been cooped up in a study for too long.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I'm personally waiting on Deux Ex HR. Apparently, the AI WILL pin you down with suppressing fire and flank your ass if it knows where you are. And they will wake up stunned/Ko'd enemies.

And I guess the AI of Theif is pretty good too.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Rise of Nations. Enemy civilisations will band up to fight you, use friendly territories as shields, learn from strategic/tactical mistakes. If I show that I can beat them easily, they surrender ad comply with my demands. It's awesome.

 

[anthony87]

The A.I from F.E.A.R 1 has to be mentioned.

Each squad you encounter will kick your ass if you underestimate them.

 

[ruben6f]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. AI, the humans do supressive fire, they flank, flush you out with grenades, when they are sneaking up on you they only shoot when there is a clear kill shot and they are very agressive.
The creatures from the same game like dogs run in packs, try to surround you and attack you from all sides and do hit and run tactics when alone, as for larger creatures like bloodsuckers and pseudo giants they charge you and take you down with a few hits so they don't need to be smart.

 

[mew4ever23]

Can we also post when they were amazingly stupid?

I'm going to. Check out this video of Half Life 2's AI in action some time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0WqAmuSXEQ

That's the AI's only real instance of dropping the ball though. Most times the AI is very good.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Sins of a Solar Empire Dipolmacy. I was just building up my fleet when suddenly I see a scout frigate then and entire fleet jumps in with 10 capital ships. My two capital then proceeded to bail where I hid on some backwater planet for at least 2 hours then murdered them with a massive fleet. All in all when the game ended the time read thirty hours. I did have to split that up into two days. But seriously I was not prepared for that many ships jumping in that soon in the game.

I'm thinking of buying that expansion, I've already got Entrenchment. How smart is the AI when actually in diplomatic talks?

 

[baddude1337]

The PLA in Operation Flashpoint: Red River are quite sneaky at times, especially the spec ops. They lay down covering fire while some move forward and are more than capable of flanking you.

I personally have never found the AI in Halo games smart like many people seem to say, I find them cheap.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Half-Life's AI.

They actually perform tasks as a squad, and support injured troops, flank e.t.c.

 

[Tharwen]

True A.I in games will not happen until they actually invent A.I. Until then, it's just a bunch of scripted movements, canned lines and predetermined actions.

But games technology is all about tricks and illusions. Almost no technique used is a 'true' representation of the situation in the game.

Still, humans are usually terrible at working it out, and enough tricks can allow a game opponent to pass an in-game Turing test by beating the player without him realising that it's the computer.