Forum

Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising has to win an award for the worst friendly AI ever. Clealy, its a game meant to be played online with others as the AI are shockingly dumb. Once, i told my anti-tank guy to fire, so he fired a missile into a tree that was right infront of him killing himself. They also cant drive for sh*t, they would try to drive over rocks and up cliffs .

However, the enermy AI were the best ive ever seen. I thought i was flanking them when all of a sudden, i realised they had flanked me! The AI tactics were really impressive, it made the game near impossible on hardcore.

My critique's all about shooters.

Halo's AI, upon first glance, was completely amazing. They'd take cover, they'd jump out the way, they'd flank, they'd run… Admittedly, after a while, you start to notice the pattern to how things work, and how you can exploit it, but that initial impact was amazing.

Unfortunately, whilst enemy AI has tended to get better, on an individual NPC level, I've found friendly AI and squad dynamics to be rather disappointing. 

Take Modern Warfare 2 as, for me, one of the least impressive releases of last year. Your friendly AI doesn't work like a proper squad. The urban warfare section, moving from house to house, the houses aren't cleared properly, so that a ruskie can just nip downstairs and shoot you in the back, whilst your squad is having a little sit down near the exit.

I know it's difficult to strike a balance between fun, reality, and general player incompetence when it comes to military tactics, but isn't that what the difficulty levels are for? Id wan to see the top difficulty level have both sides using real life tactics, and you'd better learn damned quick and be able to keep up with your squad, because they aren't waiting around for you. They're going to get the job done, and you've got to fall in or you'll be picked off and die very quickly.

But a soldier will have been trained in how to engage their enemy, with only slight variations in tactics based on individuals, the commander and circumstance. Aside from that, it's basically pin them down and flank them/call in an air strike.

Another thing that Halo got right was with the random placement of the covenant troops. Forcing their AI to be able to use cover, advance, retreat, flank and everything else. The problem I often see is that the enemies are always in the same places, spawn from the same spots in the same order… So that if someone dies in a section, they start to get into a routine order of how to take down enemies. Where, if they're random, then you as a player have to adapt to them too…

But I do appreciate how difficult it is to get AI and level design (after all, enemy placement comes under that) right, specially when you're randomising things..

Good

The police cars in Driver – persistent buggers that had only 1 goal, which was to smash your car into oblivion. Unless you had some fancy driving skills and knew the shortcuts they'd take you down in seconds. Fooling them was actually pretty hard, unless you drove into a car park.

Your horse, Agro, in Shadow of the Colossus – He moved and behaved like an actual horse and companion to Wander. In some games where you control animals it can feel rigid and it's easy to get stuck on the scenery, but Agro was fluid and sometimes invaluable when it came to beating the Colossi. Which brings me to…

The Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus – Although most of the actions are set depending on exactly what you're doing, the Colossi were believable beasts. No glitches or confusion to be seen.

Elika from Prince of Persia – No fuss, no confusion, no crazy antics. She just followed you perfectly.

Alyx Vance from Half Life 2 – Programmed to be believable; no canned phrases or glitchy annoyances to be seen here. Probably one of the most memorable sidekicks ever.

Bad

Your fellow soldiers in Call of Duty (Classic) – Yes, they generally shoot in the right direction and manage to miss you, it's just they have no desire for self preservation. They'll continually respawn and run into action without a care in the world, probably to be cut down by machine gun fire before they reach the destination. The ones that do make it through stay in the open and fire for way to long, leading to their inevitable demise. The funniest aspect, though, is how they always run like they're desperate to have a shit.

Your fellow soldiers in Battlefield: 1942 – They don't do anything you tell them to do and they always nick the vehicles before you have a chance. Normally to be destroyed 30 seconds later. Bastards.

Your crew in The Godfather II – They're pretty good in a fight and at doing their job. Just don't ask them to get in a car unless you want them to do a few insane laps first.

Your wing mates in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron – In a nutshell they did sod all and were shot down every time on every mission. Pointless.

Chosen squad mates in Star Wars: Battlefront II – They did everything you told them and they did it well, you just couldn't tell them to be on their bike. Part of their programming was to always remain behind you, no matter how fast your turned or what actions you performed. To chuck them from your squad you had to have the guy in front of you for the prompt to appear. You can probably see the issue here.

Opposition in NFS: Shift – If you've played this game you know what I'm talking about. Switch up to the hardest difficulty expecting a close race and all you'll get is cheap tactics and a bumper-full of wall.

Every Space Marine ever – Canned phrases, unnecessary profanities and so generic that you'd rather be pointing the gun at them than the enemy. You could replace every character in Gears of War or Killzone 2 (two examples, there are so many others…so many)  with their basic wireframe models and it would improve the games no end.

Your fellow soldiers in Call of Duty (Classic) – Yes, they generally shoot in the right direction and manage to miss you, it's just they have no desire for self preservation. They'll continually respawn and run into action without a care in the world, probably to be cut down by machine gun fire before they reach the destination. The ones that do make it through stay in the open and fire for way to long, leading to their inevitable demise. The funniest aspect, though, is how they always run like they're desperate to have a shit.

I so have to agree with this on the first two russian levels.