Next Gen Artifical Intelligence

With all the hooplah over next gen graphics, physics, high definition signals, network services and controller innovation, one element seems to have been largely overlooked by many, an aspect that for me  will truly herald the coming of the next generation… intelligent artificial intelligence.

Developers would argue, and with good reason that character A.I has come an awfully long way since the days of Quake and Doom, and in some respects it has, but the end result is still largely the same – the enemies pop out, we shoot at them, they duck/hide behind some cover, wash, rinse, repeat. We’ve occasionally heard devs talking about their enemies using true squad AI to flank you, force you out in the open, surround you and basically perform all sorts of dastardly clever military tactics. To this day the only game that’s really come close to delivering on this promise is F.E.A.R. (on the PC).

The truth is that current generation A.I is tremendously simple, rigid and predictable. Consider that the most lasting impression made by a game is how the player experiences and interacts with the world (profound, I know). For the most part game worlds have been painfully static, and only recently have we truly begun to breathe life into them with detail and physical simulations. It’s time we started doing the same to the characters that inhabit these worlds as well, if we can see real intelligence and genuine malice behind the face of the bad guy who kidnapped our gal, we’re more likely to invest in the game, if we understand and respect a defenseless enemy soldier we’re more likely to feel the pang of guilt that comes with shooting him.

This thinking doesn’t just apply to first person shooters, but all genres across the board, if I play a team at soccer, I want to feel like each individual player has his own tendencies, idiosyncrasies and strengths, not just the hive mind mentality we’re currently seeing. If I play an RPG I want to invest in the characters emotionally because of who they are and how they react to situations spontaneously, not prescripted events. If I’m playing Splinter Cell I want to feel bad for having killed that innocent because I killed an innocent, not because you’ll terminate my mission. And how awesome would be to play multiplayer Lumines against HAL 9000!?

For the most part we’ve been playing through worlds populated by puppets on strings, and worse, we hold those strings, maybe with the second and third generation of next gen games we’ll start to see all that horsepower put to good use. What say you guys, are you satisfied with where are right now, or would you like to see more?

With all the hooplah over next gen graphics, physics, high definition signals, network services and controller innovation, one element seems to have been largely overlooked by many, an aspect that for me  will truly herald the coming of the next generation… intelligent artificial intelligence.

Developers would argue, and with good reason that character A.I has come an awfully long way since the days of Quake and Doom, and in some respects it has, but the end result is still largely the same – the enemies pop out, we shoot at them, they duck/hide behind some cover, wash, rinse, repeat. We’ve occasionally heard devs talking about their enemies using true squad AI to flank you, force you out in the open, surround you and basically perform all sorts of dastardly clever military tactics. To this day the only game that’s really come close to delivering on this promise is F.E.A.R. (on the PC).

The truth is that current generation A.I is tremendously simple, rigid and predictable. Consider that the most lasting impression made by a game is how the player experiences and interacts with the world (profound, I know). For the most part game worlds have been painfully static, and only recently have we truly begun to breathe life into them with detail and physical simulations. It’s time we started doing the same to the characters that inhabit these worlds as well, if we can see real intelligence and genuine malice behind the face of the bad guy who kidnapped our gal, we’re more likely to invest in the game, if we understand and respect a defenseless enemy soldier we’re more likely to feel the pang of guilt that comes with shooting him.

This thinking doesn’t just apply to first person shooters, but all genres across the board, if I play a team at soccer, I want to feel like each individual player has his own tendencies, idiosyncrasies and strengths, not just the hive mind mentality we’re currently seeing. If I play an RPG I want to invest in the characters emotionally because of who they are and how they react to situations spontaneously, not prescripted events. If I’m playing Splinter Cell I want to feel bad for having killed that innocent because I killed an innocent, not because you’ll terminate my mission. And how awesome would be to play multiplayer Lumines against HAL 9000!?

For the most part we’ve been playing through worlds populated by puppets on strings, and worse, we hold those strings, maybe with the second and third generation of next gen games we’ll start to see all that horsepower put to good use. What say you guys, are you satisfied with where are right now, or would you like to see more?