AI is A-OK in new games
— -- Our video-game enemies are smart — and getting smarter. The artificial intelligence that guides in-game characters today leads to far more natural actions and realistic friends and foes than in the past. "As graphics improvements top out, artificial intelligence will (drive) game innovation," says University of California-Santa Cruz professor Michael Mateas. A look at AI evolution:
Halo 3
Players will notice more enemies aiming to thwart the Master Chief — and more artificially intelligent marines to help him along in this new campaign.
Where battlefields in previous Halo games might have had 15 or so combatants, Halo 3 will feature as many as 40 enemies and allies fighting intelligently. Typical Halo 2 enemies or squad mates had at most about 50 behaviors; in Halo 3, programmers have upped that to as many as 70. Each character has more rules attached to each behavior — up to 10,000, compared with 10 in the past.
The computer-controlled characters use their AI brains to calculate all these rules in milliseconds just as humans' can, and their actions are harder to predict. In the past, a Covenant "brute" (an alien attacker) would likely seek cover when you fired on him. Now the enemy can deploy a bubble shield, hold its ground, assess the situation and perhaps find a method of attack.
Microsoft, out today, for Xbox 360, $59.99, $69.99 limited edition, $129.99 Legendary Edition with Spartan helmet case. Rated M (mature) for ages 17 and older.
•Developer comment:"The interaction of all those rules is absolutely unpredictable," says Dàmiàn Isla of developer Bungie. "There is simply no way that I as a programmer can predict what is going to happen next. What we get is 'emergence,' one of the holy grails of AI: some really complex, interesting results out of very, very simple rules."
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
The Earth-invading Strogg are id Software's craftiest enemies yet, having evolved from basic hunters with a limited understanding in Quake II into tactically aware combatants who might use disguises, are aware of their teammates' status, can revive them and instantly begin a retaliatory response.
