Let’s face it, we’re all just a tiny bit bored with this generation.
Sure, there’re some interesting titles still to come on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but we’re now at the stage were publishers are taking fewer risks than normal, preferring to play it safe with masses of homogenised shooters and rehashes of old ‘classics’ designed to entertain late buyers rather than those who have stuck it out for the last seven years.
Even titles like Overstrike, which at least threatened to try something a little bit different with its visual style, have been boiled down and reprocessed into fitting into categories and pigeon holes that represent a much lesser chance of failing. Good business sense? Sure. Boring as hell and hardly going to make a dent on this year’s Call of Battlefield: Super Soldier Ops? Quite probably, sadly.
[drop]And yet, as delicate glimpses of next-generation tease with their fluid animation and rich landscapes (I’m looking at you two, Watch Dogs and Ground Zeroes) it’s almost certain that we’ve reached the zenith of what these current machines can do with just the ubiquitous Halo 4 left to really test Microsoft’s machine and a handful of sequels for PS3.But in amongst all the fluffy subtitles and Zerox-style wholesale duplication of themes and ideas, is The Last Of Us, SCEA’s final champion, its segue into PlayStation 4. Naughty Dog’s second team, able to keep development quiet for far too long, have managed to wow and surpass expectations at every showing, the game constantly looking better.
Why? Well, technically it looks incredible – the animation is ridiculously slick and tactile, more so than stablemate Drake’s last outing and up there with the very best; the textures sharp, the framerate solid. But it’s in the enemy AI (and that of your partner, of course) that seems to shine above everything else: it’s reactive, complex, believable.
I don’t have a problem with dumb enemies, as long as they’re not dressed as anything but. A blast through Doom, setting Cacodemons off against an arch-vile is simplistic fun, but since Halo I’ve craved games that challenge the player not through ridiculous difficulty spikes or covering the bad guys in bullet sponges, but through intelligence.
Make the foe play like a human, and the game’s instantly better to play.
Bungie’s ability to stack a hierarchy with grunts and elites was (and still is) a joy to play with, a deadly sandbox of needler spikes and plasma balls that dissipate and reform depending on your actions and targets. They didn’t really push beyond the basics (and there’s little need to) but since then most first person shooters have just felt rather basic, unless heavy scripting covered up the holes.
The best games allow you to tackle challenges in any way you saw fit. That’s what I’m liking the most about The Last Of us – a sense of freeform, tactical choice is present in everything we’ve seen so far, even if the outcomes and certain segments will play out the same each run. Facing off against humans with a handful of bullets and a child to protect is one thing, but make the enemy smart and it’s a whole new ball game.
[drop2]And of course Ellie, Joel’s companion, reacts intelligently, communicating in response to what’s happening and what’s around her. It’s often surprisingly well done.Next generation is certain to bring vastly improved visuals (where budgets allow) but the area that excites me the most is AI – increased RAM and quicker processors are likely to allow developers the chance to really demonstrate what videogames can do in an area that previously many have simple ticked the most basic checkboxes rather than really pushing the envelope any further.
In a shooter, a bad guy ducking behind a box isn’t smart AI. Co-ordinating with fellow teammates to create covering fire, find space and then devise a fresh approach to attack the player safely is. It’s this that The Last Of Us is striving to at least portray, even if there’s a hint that there are elements of smoke and mirrors at work.
I’ve got huge amounts of faith in Naughty Dog, and currently their latest is the game I’m most looking forward to before the inevitable rollover to PS4 and 720 starts to grind into life.
xdarkmagician
I honestly feel no generation fatigue at all, but I also didn’t feel any generation fatigue at the end of the PS2 days either… until the 360 came out. I imagine it’ll be the same this gen too. I’m more then happy to keep investing in this gen, but once I see the “shinny” that next gen has to offer I’m sure I’ll jump ship. As far as smarter AI, I would be happier if they spent more time developing the multiplayer aspects of a game. I just imagine a game (like demon souls) where real people invade a single player story like uncharted or killzone, because no matter how smart they get the AI, it’s only a program, it can’t compete with a real person.
Personally The Last of Us doesn’t look like anything other than a reskinned Uncharted… that’s not a bad thing, but I don’t really see the game as being revolutionary. I think that Naughty Dog needs to do a better job trying to convince people that it’s more then just another action/platforming/shooter. But even, I can’t see anybody but uncharted fans buying it.
Roynaldo
Correct me if im wrong but isnt AI mostly smoke and mirrors anyway? eg You shoot in the vicinity of an enemy….he ducks for cover. You throw a grenade….they run. Its action and reaction. You act, they react. They dont forsee your button presses, the system interprets them and sends a message.
Taylor Made
You thinking of Killzone 3, this AI is clever it thinks like you, what you would do if you heard a noise or being attacked
Roynaldo
again action and reaction…you made the noise and it sent them a message to do a set play. Its not intelligence…its faked dependant on what you do. Simple computer code “If X does Y then Z does A.”
Taylor Made
U not looking at the bigger picture yes it’s a computer receiving messages but it also challenging & trying to out smart you knowing exactly what you will do, your next move, forcing you to try outsmart it.
Obviously if you play a game on easy it dumbens the AI, you play it on the hardest level it challenges you. Basically there is no game out there with a better responsive AI like The Last of us has shown us
Roynaldo
I think you might be missing my point completely mate. They dont /ever/ know what you will do. They react to what you /have/ done. Your button press can be reacted to before you have even let go of the button.
Thats where smoke and mirtrors come into play…it may look like they are smart but they arnt really.
Adam Garrett
They don’t foresee button presses no, as that would be a really bad idea. There’s a lot more to it though than just reacting to the action. Any half intelligent AI has lots of classes (think of it as “Alert phase”, “search phase”, “attack phase” … all of these have different actions that the AI needs to perform) with many possible outcomes for each one that the AI has to decide on the fly as it’s not predetermined what the player will do. It’s often very processor and memory hungry (as said above in the article) so it’s often cut back on or not focussed on as much as graphics takes a lot of priority these days.
Roynaldo
Think of any single racing game ever…. why do they never try to outbrake you? Because they cant react until you press that brake button. Virtually everything about gameplay is a pre determined set play made to look believable.
Its simple coding made much harder to piece together the more variables there are to consider. I dont envy developers trying to master it….. must keep them up at night.
Adam Garrett
Not really. Players button input as almost nothing to do with AI. AI tends to reacts on it’s surroundings. I’m not really sure what the point you’re trying to make is though, it sounds like you’re trying to say that AI programming is really easy or AI is really stupid?
Or are you just saying that AI is what it is, “artificial” intelligence :P.
Roynaldo
I suppose what im trying to say is that it’s all artificial. The clue is in the name. Smoke and mirrors top to bottom.
bunimomike
I think Roy’s trying to point out that the current AI we see in video games feels very reactive as oppose to pro-active and able to process things independently without us intruding in their “lives”.
Is there a racer on the market where 15 of 16 racers (which are AI) will be given personalities? Distinguishable traits and characteristics which means they’d duke-it-out regardless of whether you’re there or not? Sure, you’re supposed to be there but seeing something truly intelligent, as oppose to the current Yes/No “thinking” flowchart most AI we see at present appears to go through.
Roynaldo
Trying being the operative word :)
Adam Garrett
It would be great to see that, I think Codies are trying to add a bit of personalities into F1 with Schumacher being more aggressive for example but I’ve only heard of very simple things such as that.
It would be very resource intensive to make them have the intelligence an characteristics that we’d all love to see but if they did it with the resources that they have now (or the resources that they are allowed to allocate to AI) I think they’d only be able to achieve a fraction of that.
Roynaldo
The question now is Would a bit more grunt under the bonnet change things much for the next gen?
Peter Chapman
Yes, in game AI is about making it appear that the computer-controlled characters are realistically reacting with (and to) you.
There’s a lot to it, things like how their cone of vision works (horizontally but also – as lamented in Arkham City – vertically), what sounds they can hear and what their patrol routes are (or how they move around and what routes they take, dependent on what else is going on – often there aren’t pre-scripted routes anymore).
Then there’s the way they interact with each other, too. So if one enemy is keeping you pinned down behind a wall, do the other enemies “know” that and react appropriately by trying to outflank you? In FIFA, does a CPU controlled Nemanja Vidic know to move over and cover when Patrice Evra has made a run down the pitch and lost the ball? There are thousands of actions that a developer basically either has to program cause and effect reactions to or they have to have a decent stab and working out what leads to those decision being made organically and try to make that “thought” process happen for in-game characters.
It’s incredibly complicated and I’m sure my explanation is very simplified but that, as far as I understand it, is how it works.
Roynaldo
The cone of vision must be a fucking nightmare to determine…. not just for one but for all simultaneously. How much memory space would that take up??
Simple things(If x=y then z) made much much harder the more realistic you dare to achieve.
Tuffcub
As per usual I complete disagree with everything Alex has written :)
Beyond: Two Souls looks like progressing storytelling and emotional involvement to levels we’ve never seen and Dishonored is mashing genres and splicing in a roll call of Hollywood talent never witnessed in a game. Todays glowing reviews across the board – inlcuding TSA – of Borderlands shows that you don’t need next gen to have fun, likewise the massively improved PES.
Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry III are looking stunning, XCOM is bringing the little scene strategy genre to consoles, Colonial Marines is actual cannon to a 25 yr old movie franchise, something of unheard of in gaming – and need I mentioned Bioshock?
Unfinsihed Swan? Heard of that? Ever seen anything like that before?
LBP Vita & Karting will provide endless hours of entertainment via endless supply of user generated content, Book of Spells looks like a superb game for kids and who can resist the lure of Euro Truck Simulator 2 when it’s released on PC next month?
The Last Of Us being ‘believable’? The whole point of games is to lose yourselves in a magical, fantastical world where you can slice the head off a 400 ft titan, you can be a giganatic robotic T-rex and you can win the World Cup. No one wants actual real life – Codemasters tried to make a ‘real life’ shooter where you died when you got shot once and no fucker bought it.
Frankly you couldnt be more wrong unless you were wearing a pair of those hideous red trousers I keep seeing around town and you liked The Script.
I’ll be geting a PS4 but to write off everything released until then is just a load of tosh.
XisTG
I’ve been playing Max Payne 3 and I actually thing those guys did a good job on the AI, at least in hard mode (or whatever the name is). It’s not “human behavior”, but they do seem to work as a team to smoke you out from cover more than in other games.
aerobes
While I don’t necessarily feel bored with “this” generation as such, I think the fatigue is creeping in across all of gaming and even Naughty Dog’s next offering (which I’m not looking forward to incidentally but that’s besides the point) won’t reverse that trend.
Sitorimon
I’m not bored with this generation. I find that a bizarre statement to make but maybe that’s because I’m taking it literally. I think if there’s fatigue its not down to “generation” as down to the over exploitation is the same two genres. But then if that’s what companies which to do – chase that elusive million seller in a month game – they will try to emulate / imitate the same game over and over. Blame rising budgets. Blame the recession for streamlining things a bit. Don’t blame the generation itself. What it has shown, albeit more PC based currently, is that weird and wonderful concepts and made and now importantly embraced and celebrated. ThatGameCompany is living proof of excitement and innovation done right. For me its been a good period that shows some of the real potential and it feels like a transitioning to a really open gaming world for where things are to come. Upon building blocks we step :-)
Sympozium
The last of US looks great however whenever I play it I’d probably not be interested enough to play it. Its not just Frig-sake-PS3-install-faster-you-shun-a-bish its just burnt out from the same games. I just don’t have the burning desire to play games passionately, perhaps only ones where I’ll play friends these days. Its even when I get sick of something like with Uncharted 3 where I’d continue dying I’d just completely give up considering I don’t find the gameplay to be any fun its much like Killzone 2 as well didn’t find it great at all. Yay graphics, its shite and much of a modern take of Unreal Tournament. 4/10 (*rant)
stueeeee
I’m not really bored with this generation. Sure, there’s countless shooters at the moment but that’s a bit like how a lot of games (including platformers on ps2 went open world after gta was successful.
I feel that current gen is still great to look at and immensely great to play and I still have quite a pile of games I’m yet to finish, that should keep me going up until months/a year after ps4 is released. I do think The Last of Us looks a lot like a new Uncharted but that’s not a bad thing, we know it should be awesome? The games announced and shown at Gamescom put a new spark into ps3 that xbox has not got for me to.
OneShotWook
Last years pc gametime for me was around 65%,the year before was zero,a sure sign i have generation fatigue(or whatever it’s called).I can’t wait for new console hardware personally but it’s less about what i expect from it and more about what i don’t expect.
The last of us looks good sure but i’m more interested in zombi U at the mo.
cc_star
I agree with that sentiment
2010 = zero on PC
2011 less than 10%
2012 more than 50%
2013 will probably be 90%