Most impressive AI?

[SiC-Disaster]

So i'm just wondering what (good) experiences you guys have with AI.
Having played games like Gothic 1, 2, and 3, STALKER, Sniper Elite, Operation Flashpoint etc where AI play a significant role to gameplay, i'm wondering what other games you think had great AI?
And with them, some examples of what the AI did, would be in particular interesting.
Here are some of my greatest moments:

1. Operation Flashpoint
- Our sergeant leading us into the woods (and neglecting the straight road from objective to objective, wich most AI would take as its the most simple and fast, straight line from A to B), because we had tanks on our tail and they could not follow us into the dense forest, or see us that well either.
Seen in the second combat mission where you have to retake a town from the soviets in the 1985 campaign, then get chased back by enemy tanks.
- Made a stupid mission once in the editor. It was on the desert island, made a small american encampment, and put in around 2 squads of infantry. Further into the desert i spawned around 6 soviet squads, who were to assault in a straight line at the american encampment. Americans would have better cover thanks to the camp.
After killing rougly around 4 squads of the soviets, i started figuring there were not nearly enough dead enemies lying in the field, and i started to wonder where the feck they were... Only to find out that 2 squads decided to flank our position. They had crawled all around our camp, and then attacked from the back! I never gave them any such waypoint, they were to run at me in a straight line, instead of that they made a huge walk around the camp to attack us in the back. Most impressive.

2. Far Cry
- I had crawled into a ventilating system in a corridor, wich gave me an alternate route into the next room. From there, i killed 1 of 3 mercenaries who where engaging Trigen (awfull critters... fecking hate them). All Trigen got killed, and 1 soldier survived, but he was onto me as well, but he ran out of sight towards the corridor. I stayed in the vent, waiting for him to come out, figuring he would be behind the corner. After a while, waiting got boring and i decided to flank him by going back through the vent, only to discover the bastard had crawled inside the vent system as well, to flank me... That give me a HOLY CRAP! moment for sure lol.

3. STALKER
- Being uncarefull, i sprinted over a hill. When i got to the other side, i found myself in the middle of a pack of around 15 mutated dogs, and i jumped in my seat lol. After killing around 8 or so, the rest of the dogs scared off with their tail between their legs ^^

4. Sniper Elite
- Watching enemy snipers shoot and scoot. As lame as regular soldier AI is (running and gunning mofo's), sniper AI rocks and feels somewhat like the real deal. They practice patience, cover, 1 shot and move tactics. Once i was lying in a hideout (or so i thought), when suddenly i heard a shot from the left. I looked, nothing there. Continued looking around. Again a shot from the left, and this time i was quick enough to see a small spot on a roof crawling backwards out of sight. I thought he would come back out soon, so i waited, but it took him 5 minutes to get back on the edge of the roof, and in a different place.
Another sniper was down on street level on another map. He shot, stood up, and sprinted away, into some kind of sewer system. He came back on the other side of the map, went prone and crawled to cover, staying behind it for 2 minutes, then slowly crawled to the side, put a shot in my direction, and dissapearing again into the sewer system, to get back out again on other locations. Most impressive.

5. Gothic series.
Not as much individual AI i guess, but it rocks how people have a daily routine and follow it. People get up from bed, go wash their face in a pool, go to work or sit around a campfire, individuals playing guitar, talking, walking, cooking, crafting swords, you name it. It felt so alive.
AI would remember you if you stole stuff, and everything you did had some kind of result in the global world or just with individual AI's.
Small example, i did not pay the guards protection money in the Old Camp. Result: at some point in the game, a digger aproaches you and asks you for help, appereantly he lost something outside the camp... You, allways helpfull and needful of exp, followed him outside, to find that he had 3 buddies waiting for you, and together they beat you up (if your not strong enough yet, that is ^^), steal all your money and the dropped weapon. So when your getting back in the camp, the guard you never paid protection money to is waiting for you, and gives you a hint he set you up for not paying And that is just a SMALL example.
I'd even go as far as saying, that Gothic 1's world allready feels much more lifelike then Oblivion's, who was hailed as having every NPC doing usefull stuff... Stuff i'd never see them do.

Well, i'll end now but i'm sure i'll think of some more soon heheh

 

[spraduke]

Farcry defo gets a thumbs up for the AI. I was up a watch tower picking of the merc's coming straight up the hill towards me to then be blown sky high by a nade that a merc who had snuck up to my right threw. I was like holy ****.

A worst team AI award goes to GRAW for standing in front of an enemy taking hits and saying "im being hit" whilst not firing back. Man they piss me off!!

 

[Murphy]

The Halflife 1 mercs were very impressive in my opinion. They used nades to great effect and they didn't just swarm at you. Scripted events like when they blast the ceiling and come down on ropes were pretty impressive too.
The ones in Halflife 2 were great too, but they weren't as impressive to me because they didn't seem much more intelligent.

Ninja Gaiden Black has some awesome AI enemies. Some bosses don't count, as they just follow a pattern (Smaugan the shortsighted dragon), but almost every other foe puts up a great fight (Ninjas of all color variations, cat-fiends, Clone Ryus).

Operation Flashpoint has a very effective, very realistic AI. When you start to play the game and you try your typical shooter "tactics" (step out of cover - shoot - step back - step out of cover - shoot - etc) you realize they don't work and you might damn the AI for being unfair as it sees and hits quite far. But when you begin to understand how the game works, and that you should behave like it was your body you are putting on the line here, and as if you were playing against real foes (e.g. pop out of different holes of your cover when you attack someone so they can't already aim at your last destination and kill you as soon as you try it again there; crawl a bit after lying down before shooting back, because the enemy saw were you dropped to the floor and has an easier time returning fire; avoid to be seen against the horizon) the AI gets more impressive which each mission.
... Until you fight them up close in close quarters more often. They seem to suck there.

Brothers in Arms RtH30 and EiB have a great AI too. Friendly AI rarely makes mistakes if you don't tell them to. I read about several people who sent their men to attack a tank or an enemy and they complained that they were killed in the process and didn't approach it intelligently enough. Well, if you send your men somewhere to kill something, the Germans tend to kill them off. Its YOUR job to apply tactics. Your men just follow orders. Its not like there is a command "Baker! Go complete the level with your men and send me an SMS when you are finished! NOW!"...
If you send them somewhere safe, they almost always recognize cover and use it and their communication is very good too. Even the random screams are great and add a lot to the game imo.
The enemy AI is good too but if you play a lone flanker they seem to be less likely to counteract it. Still, they have to be overcomable and overall they don't do overly stupid stuff so in my opinion they are great.
You have to understand that the game has nothing to do with realism though. The ranges are ridiculous for example. If you can get past that and realize that its just a game which requires its own set of tactics which are nonsense in a real war or a war simulator but work out well in BiA the game is great.

Close Combat: First to Fight shouldn't be named Close Combat. Other than that its a pretty good arcadey tactical shooter with a good AI. Your own men follow orders pretty good, e.g. if you order them to clear a room they apply cool tactics to do so and they are pretty good at watching their sector. A lot of people, including reviewers, complained about the friendly's AI because sometimes there were enemies right ahead of you that shot at you and your men but your men didn't return fire. Well, the AI is concipated to watch their sector and their sector only unless you give them special orders to watch for something else. Understand that, act accordingly and the AI should work excellently for you.
The game is a very underappreciated shooter in my opinion.

Rainbow Six Raven Shield. The AI is pretty crappy (the enemy AI anyway, but your own folks lack some braincells too) but it is pretty impressive how good the ordering system works both ingame with that circle menu and in the planing section.
The AI in SWAT3 is similar. Its great how well you can command them although the number system isn't as great as the circle menu in RvS and they are good at doing what they are told to do. The enemies aren't as overly dumb as in RvS but they don't seem to work much for their kills either.

Why does the AI in strategy games almost always cheat on higher difficulties? Why don't they just play better but seem to get unlimited resources too?

 

[Oldih]

Ninja Gaiden Black has some awesome AI enemies. Some bosses don't count, as they just follow a pattern (Smaugan the shortsighted dragon), but almost every other foe puts up a great fight (Ninjas of all color variations, cat-fiends, Clone Ryus).

Well almost every common enemy do have also their own patters, but they do have some intelligence around since especially on Very Hard or Master Ninja difficulties they are quite unpredicatble. Quite sneaky bastards to be more exact. I still hate those green multi-eye fiends almost more than anything else since when you least expect it they tend to team up and do multiple sweep attacks at time

The Battle for Middle-Earth 2 : Rise of the Witch-King expansion has... well, it does have one of the best AIs I have seen in RTS games. Sure the gameplay of the expansion itself isn't exactly the best or that great compared to vanilla BFME2, but AI in RotWK plays beter than over half of the human players I have played the game against. I used to beat three brutal AIs in vanilla BFME2 single handedly, in RotWK I can barely keep my base up against a single brutal AI

Brothers in Arms RTH30 did have decent AI, even though enemies were quite static, but in EiB the enemy AI is excellent. Sure they have sometimes some kind of farsight ability, but what I appreciate the most is that they can actually do their own manouvers and tricks by their own 'brains' - and they do that quite often.

There's quite a many games I could name with decent AIs, but too lazy to remember atm.

 

[Hyperion2010]

Farcry. The STALKER ai was ok, and pretty nice to fight alongside, but there was a time when I killed every single guy in the freedom base because they ran directly to one point where the ai couldnt detect me and I just popped them all off (WAY too much loot).

 

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN]

Why does the AI in strategy games almost always cheat on higher difficulties? Why don't they just play better but seem to get unlimited resources too?

Because an AI can never match up to a human. A skilled human player will blow an AI away because it can't predict, it can't plan, it can't strategise. All it can do is mass produce units and attack repeatedly. To balance this imbalance and to add an actual challenge, they get ESP and always know exactly where you are, where your secondary bases are, etc. They also get unlimited resources and in some games, the ability to build things whenever they want. I remember playing Red Alert in the old days and my connection dropped. I was watching my opponents base at the time and the instant the AI took over, four new buildings appeared simulataneously and three tanks drove out of three garages, all at the same time. To do that was physically impossible as a player, as you could only build one thing at a time.

As far as good AI goes, I wouldn't classify OFP's AI as particularly bright. They're unpredictable at times, but they do some really dumb things and frequently rely on ESP and aimbots to simulate skill. They certainly can't handle tactics, though I must admit that ArmA's AI have improved a little in that regard. Last night an AI tank attempted to flank us and had it not been for the fact we could hear it the whole time, it would have worked. Consequently, I re-flanked it and put a couple of rockets up its tailpipe...

I'm a big fan of the AI in F.E.A.R. They weren't overly intelligent per se, but some clever scripting meant that they seemed like it. They'd try to flush you out with grenades, they'd take cover as soon as the bullets started flying, they'd call for help and bring other nearby enemies in, they'd physically pull down objects to use as cover and to block your path and best of all, they'd actually work together. They'd perform a pincer movement on you while another kept your attention to the front, or one would throw a grenade into your cover to make you move, while two buddies waited for the instant you ran to start shooting.

For me, a good AI is one that acts and reacts in a suitably believable way. When they do really stupid things though, or are crackshots with split second reaction time, then that pretty much kills a game for me. The original Rainbow 6 for example. The AI almost never missed, even on easy, and they'd shoot the second you poked your head around a corner - instant reaction time. You literally needed the autoaim feature to play the bloody thing.

 

[dogbadger]

I don't know advanced the HL grunt's AI actually was - but they certainly felt like was at the time. The femail snipers used to freak me out too.
UT '99 had decent bots, farcry and FEAR were good - i guess this is one area where our game isn't gonna rank up there to be honest.
I think this is where there are massive advances to be made soon hopefully- as it has seemed to have been a lower priority than visual presentation in most past games.

 

[Zell]

My thought is, any game where you don't have to take advantage of a glitch in the A.I. to be able to beat (Like in Hyperion's post) is good A.I. by my standards.

 

[Reddog]

Far Cry had some great AI, I remember moments like sniping a few guys at a base from miles off and having the rest fan out into the woods looking for me. I then cut a few down silently with my MP5SD and the others freaked and ran back to the base.

Funny stuff.

 

[Sidus Preclarum]

Far cry had some good AI, but then again I also remember the "what's this noise?"...*pause* ... "oh, well, then, even if there's something there, I don't care!" lines from the guards...
Condemned surprised me in good way: enemies seemingly fleeing, only to be able to ambush you at the corner of a corridor...

 

[Murphy]

Far cry had some good AI, but then again I also remember the "what's this noise?"...*pause* ... "oh, well, then, even if there's something there, I don't care!" lines from the guards...

I LOVE lines like that. That's why I LOVE Dark Project/Thief (all of them) because these games so full of these lines and some of them are so ridiculously silly that I had to laugh although the game is supposed to be serious. Its just a great way to ease the tense when you still got shivers down your spine because of them Zombies.
Other than these lines the AI in Dark Project/Thief is pretty weak. There were kind of good back in the days, because you could hide in the shadows and sneak around, but other than that they don't have any striking features that would be worth mentioning.

 

[entertainer]

SWAT4 had interesting AI - they spawned in different places each you time you played a map.
And sometimes it was very frustrating when they shoot you the same millisecond you see them.

 

[SgtH3nry3]

Brothers in Arms seemed to have a good AI system, but once you look in to it.
It's actually horrible.


Anyway, FarCry's AI was real good. I've been outflanked numerous times without even noticing it.


Another AI system which amazed me was Half-Life 2.
I was hiding in a shack for Combine troops, so I blocked the door.

They apparently split up in two teams, one was trying to breach the door somehow, lobbing grenades in through a window while the other tryed to go through a backdoor.

I was like OMFG!

 

[Oldih]

Another AI system which amazed me was Half-Life 2.
I was hiding in a shack for Combine troops, so I blocked the door.

Is it just me or why on earth those guys just seem to mindlesly rush to you or stand still and do one or two sidesteps per every one hour?

 

[Grobut]

I was very impressed with European Air War's AI back in the day, that sim had hundreds of planes flying, more than IL2 can muster, yet opponents and freindly alike where fun to fly with and against, that was a good sim, be sure!

Unreal aswell had some great enemies for its time, thouse sneaky Skaarj could actually flank you, stalk you and take routes you never though they would think to take, if you came straight at them at clouse range they would pretty much just rush you, and try to dodge your attack a bit, but they could be very inventive if you put some distance between you.

Half-Life grunts where also fun! they used grenades to good effekt, and would retreat to cover if you gave them hell, they made good enemies.

FEAR was also quite impressive, i know quite a bit of it was scripted, but unlike games like Doom3, it didn't feel that way! you bought into it hook, line and sinker!


Theres more, but my caffeine depraved mind struggles to function at normal levels.. coffee!

 

[Murphy]

They already lobbed 'nades like crazy ROPlayers in HL1 and somehow they don't seem much smarter in HL2. I know the AI was praised a lot, but tbh I didn't find them to be particulary impressive. And I played on Hard.

 

[Grobut]

They already lobbed 'nades like crazy ROPlayers in HL1 and somehow they don't seem much smarter in HL2. I know the AI was praised a lot, but tbh I didn't find them to be particulary impressive. And I played on Hard.

HL2's AI was a big dissapointment to me, a victim of HL1's success really, HL1 impressed me greatly in that department, and i was expecting HL2 to do the same, to be just as impressive for its time as HL1 was in the AI department.. turns out it was just HL1 AI that had learned a few tricks.. meh.

 

[Fu. Svedberg]

Unreal aswell had some great enemies for its time, thouse sneaky Skaarj could actually flank you, stalk you and take routes you never though they would think to take, if you came straight at them at clouse range they would pretty much just rush you, and try to dodge your attack a bit, but they could be very inventive if you put some distance between you.

This is why I hold Unreals AI above the AI from any other FPS games I have ever played.

One instance is in that water temple map that has multiple floors:
A skaarj warrior on the bottom floor spots me (I was on the 2nd floor) and dives in trough a door. I didn't think much about it and continue to muck around on the 2nd floor looking for something (can't remember what I was looking for). about 2 minutes later (it was a long way to get from the 1st floor where that skaarj was to the point where I was since you had to make your way trough a maze) the door to the floor where I am opens and that skaarj comes running out and blasts me to pieces.

I have alot of other situations like that from the original Unreal.

 

[Grobut]

This is why I hold Unreals AI above the AI from any other FPS games I have ever played.

One instance is in that water temple map that has multiple floors:
A skaarj warrior on the bottom floor spots me (I was on the 2nd floor) and dives in trough a door. I didn't think much about it and continue to muck around on the 2nd floor looking for something (can't remember what I was looking for). about 2 minutes later (it was a long way to get from the 1st floor where that skaarj was to the point where I was since you had to make your way trough a maze) the door to the floor where I am opens and that skaarj comes running out and blasts me to pieces.

I have alot of other situations like that from the original Unreal.

Now we just gotta convince TWI that is a great idea to assasinate CliffyB and somehow obtain the license to make a real sequel to Unreal!

 

[Zell]

Far Cry had some great AI, I remember moments like sniping a few guys at a base from miles off and having the rest fan out into the woods looking for me. I then cut a few down silently with my MP5SD and the others freaked and ran back to the base.

Funny stuff.

Wierd, when I play Far Cry I have wayy too many experiences of hiding in a bush, shooting a guy with a silenced sniper rifle, and having everyone know exactly where I am.