Dumb AI in games..

[Tricky]

Ok so games now have reached the point where even the crap ones look good,but even in the best games out there im still finding the AI is seriously lacking!Company of heroes is an awesome game,really good to play & it looks jaw dropping!but when playing a single player game in skirmish mode,its obvious that AI hasnt advanced since the first command & conquer game,the computer player follows exactly the same patterns,it makes no attempt to fortify its base with the sandbags,tank obstacles,machine gun nests & mines that are available,it just rapidly builds up its production buildings & captures all the resources it can,then just throws wave after wave of random units at your base with no form of tactic whatsoever!it tends to win in company of heroes,its kicked my backside loads of times!but not through tactics,just through the sheer volume of troops & tanks it throws at you while you sit there wondering where its got all the resources from & attempting to mount a desperate defence!its fun but the computer plays dumb,i'd much rather it tried to outflank me,or built up an impressive looking fortified base for me to attack! Same goes for other games though,in medieval 2 the cpu player will lay seige to one of your towns/castles with an army over 1000 strong which would be worrying,until you get to the battle screen & see that its just throwing 1000 peasants at your army of heavily armoured imperial knights and it never attempts a flank,even while using good units,it just sits there until you make a move,or just runs headlong into your mass of spears & lances & then routs while you chase them down with your mounted knights!and in most first person shooters ive played,the enemy just stands there in the open shooting at you until you hit it enough times so it drops.In most FPS games now the enemy will use cover,but all you have to do is not fire for a couple of seconds & they will stand up again right in your crosshairs!Come on games producers,you've got the visuals spot on now so lets have some real intelligence from our opponents!

[bassman]

Ok so games now have reached the point where even the crap ones look good,but even in the best games out there im still finding the AI is seriously lacking!Company of heroes is an awesome game,really good to play & it looks jaw dropping!but when playing a single player game in skirmish mode,its obvious that AI hasnt advanced since the first command & conquer game,the computer player follows exactly the same patterns,it makes no attempt to fortify its base with the sandbags,tank obstacles,machine gun nests & mines that are available,it just rapidly builds up its production buildings & captures all the resources it can,then just throws wave after wave of random units at your base with no form of tactic whatsoever!it tends to win in company of heroes,its kicked my backside loads of times!but not through tactics,just through the sheer volume of troops & tanks it throws at you while you sit there wondering where its got all the resources from & attempting to mount a desperate defence!its fun but the computer plays dumb,i'd much rather it tried to outflank me,or built up an impressive looking fortified base for me to attack! Same goes for other games though,in medieval 2 the cpu player will lay seige to one of your towns/castles with an army over 1000 strong which would be worrying,until you get to the battle screen & see that its just throwing 1000 peasants at your army of heavily armoured imperial knights and it never attempts a flank,even while using good units,it just sits there until you make a move,or just runs headlong into your mass of spears & lances & then routs while you chase them down with your mounted knights!and in most first person shooters ive played,the enemy just stands there in the open shooting at you until you hit it enough times so it drops.In most FPS games now the enemy will use cover,but all you have to do is not fire for a couple of seconds & they will stand up again right in your crosshairs!Come on games producers,you've got the visuals spot on now so lets have some real intelligence from our opponents! I'm not sure about the games that you're mentioning, but I can remember a few games that had great AI. One that comes to mind is "Call Of Duty 2". Maybe it was 3. I can't remember, but anyway.....it seemed pretty life-like to me.

[Danny]

man there are some pretty bad ones out there, far cry instincts on the xbox is a crappy port and you dont need to sneak up sometimes just walk up behind enemys and they just stand there, whats the point of crouching to sneak then? One that pissed me off when i was younger was the elite four in the pokemon games, how even when they were down to there last one and had no hopes of iwnning theyd still use a full restore just to be a bitch adn drag it out longer, damn that annoyed me when i was younger. The covenant in the origional halo get pretty dumb sometimes, so do the flood, the either shoot at you or run at you, they dont use cover or anything they just stand and shoot or run, cannon fodder aint the word.

[MinionZombie]

You're probably thinking of COD3, because there were times in COD2 when the enemies would just stand there waiting to get shot...but not a lot at all, they put up a good fight, but occasionally they'd lapse their attention and that's when you'd barge their head in with a bullet. Haven't played COD3 yet, even though it's not technically a proper COD game as InfinityWard weren't involved in it's making and it wasn't on the PC...but when it's cheap, I'll pick it up for a fondle... Currently re-obsessing over Dead Rising now.

[Tricky]

As much as i love call of duty 2,the health regeneration thing really ground my gears,you could frontal assault an MG42,taking loads of hits,quickly shoot the gunner in the head,then just wait a few seconds to "recharge" before attacking the next batch of germans,it worked in Halo because thats part of the futuristic master chiefs ability & woven into the plot,but not when your playing a lowly grunt in a war that happened 60 years ago i know running round hoovering up health packs isnt realistic either,but at least it gave you the sense that you didnt want to take any bullets because there might not be any health packs about,so you had to duck & dive a bit more & avoid taking hits.But yeah the AI could be a bit daft there as well,germans crouching & not moving as if behind cover,when theres no cover in front of them anyway!I thought the AI in far cry was quite good,i got out-flanked a fair few times on that,and the radio operator attached to a squad of mercs would call in support from the other enemies on the island if you didnt take him out quick.The trigens were plain dumb though,i killed a fair few who had got stuck behind objects or trees & just stood there to let me shoot them Thats the beauty of battlefield 2/other online games i think,its full of human opponents who do unexpected things & makes it really enjoyable.saying that ive come across some human opponents who do really stupid things as well

[Danny]

yeah but online other people kick my ass.

[CoinReturn]

I'm about to go on a tangent about Call of Duty, so bare with me. I played through the first one, and really enjoyed it. By the time Call of Duty 2 came out, I was sick to death of WWII games, so I didn't try it even though it was universally acclaimed as a great FPS. Call of Duty 3 wasn't even developed by Infinity Ward, and I heard it was pretty mediocre. This brings us to Call of Duty 4. I signed up for the first wave of online beta signups at charlieoscardelta.com. I never thought I'd have gotten in, but they announced that everyone who signed up would get a token to download the beta. These past few nights have been dominated by this game. I thought Halo 3 would easily walk away with the best FPS titile this year. Now, I'm not so sure. You can create a character, ranging from snipers, special ops, assault, basically your run-of-the-mill stuff. What makes CoD4 different is that you can assign 3 unique perks to your character. These range from C4 and rocket launchers, to the ability to sprint for further distances, or even deeper bullet penetration, so that you can shoot through walls. There is even one that reminds me of Gears of War, where you don't die right away, you pull out your pistol and make your last stand as you bleed out. I always told myself I'd be more interested in Call of Duty if they brought it out of WWII and in to modern times. I got my wish, and they delivered (and then some). Based only on a 3 level multiplayer beta, Call of Duty 4 has shown its game of the year potential.