which shooter has the best AI?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Sep 29, 2004
18,656
68
91
With 10+ years of develpment under it's belt ... my money is on Duke Nukem Forever. it will have hte best AI ever.
 

40sTheme

Golden Member
Sep 24, 2006
1,607
0
0
Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy
Far Cry for combat AI and Hitman: Blood Money for an AI that doesn't cheat. FEAR's AI is horrible. It's just the same prearranged battle with different obstacles for the scripted cyborg/robot/marine people to move around. At first the AI seems brilliant but when you reload the same battle a few times it becomes really easy to exploit.

Hmm, I do not experience this kind of thing in FEAR. Every battle is different for me. When I first got FEAR, I tested the AI everyone was raving about by reloading a save 5 times and fighting the battle in a different way (different weapons, movement patterns). Every single time the enemies knew exactly where I was going and outflanked me (although it was on easy and therefore easy to win). I just wanted to see if they would develop different tactics for each style. They did.
 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
38,416
4
0
Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I cant think of any games that have great AI. Most just try to zerg you to death, bosses just have loads of hit points and hit hard. Some of the things in WoW are amazing, like the Scarlet Crusaders healing themselves when they are at full health till they are out of mana, mages (cloth) that freeze rogues in place and then melee them.

Heh, I've seen the opposite in WoW quite often. Two mobs that will heal eachother and mobs that root you and move back to use ranged attacks :p.

As for AI's in FPS games.. I don't think I've seen one that really blew me out of the water.

My statement was from around the launch of WoW, I think they fixed most of that by now.
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,069
0
81
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Originally posted by: irishScott
Splinter Cell has pretty good AI on the harder levels. When someone glimpses you they will thoroughly scout out possible hiding places, but it's also not a traditional FPS (much more stealth oriented).

System Shock 2 also has AI ranging from great to dumb (The cyborg assassins will lure you into traps, but the parasite infected hosts and other creatures will just come at until you kill them).

As previously mentioned, the descent series is great. Especially the bosses on the harder levels. I remember there's on level in the original descent (mars or mercury I believe) where you have to kill this fricken huge boss that has plasma cannons/missiles, and rapid fire of both on the harder levels. He can also teleport and cloak. The weapons are fairly easy to avoid at medium to long rages, but the thing has teleported either above, behind, blow, or sometimes in front of me at short range. It will also retreat more as it takes more damage.
The final bosses in Descent II and Descent II: Vertigo are also completely invulnerable from the side facing you (meaning, you have to hit them in the backside using indirect weapons like Smart Missiles, Earthshaker Missiles or the Phoenix Cannon). AND if you hit their shields with energy weapons, YOUR energy gets converted directly into more robots spawning off the boss to attack you! Talk about some TOUGH bosses. :Q

Not to mention they're invisible most of the time, they can teleport right on top of you as noted, and they're armed with some hellacious weapons. I found myself instinctively leaning to try to peek around corners, as if that would change anything when I'm looking at a computer monitor :eek: Must reinstall Win98 and the Voodoo2 sometime...

And then there was Thiefbot. *blood pressure rises*

My first goal in any level = destroy that annoying Thiefbot. :)

 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,679
779
126
Originally posted by: mechBgonWow, someone who played Descent 3! :) I used to play it with LCD shutterglasses for true stereo-3D vision... now THAT was intense :shocked: Aieee, homing missiles incoming!!! *hides under table*

I've remained a big fan of the Descent games over the years and still play them fairly often. :)

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The final bosses in Descent II and Descent II: Vertigo are also completely invulnerable from the side facing you (meaning, you have to hit them in the backside using indirect weapons like Smart Missiles, Earthshaker Missiles or the Phoenix Cannon). AND if you hit their shields with energy weapons, YOUR energy gets converted directly into more robots spawning off the boss to attack you! Talk about some TOUGH bosses. :Q

Not to mention they're invisible most of the time, they can teleport right on top of you as noted, and they're armed with some hellacious weapons. I found myself instinctively leaning to try to peek around corners, as if that would change anything when I'm looking at a computer monitor :eek: Must reinstall Win98 and the Voodoo2 sometime...

And then there was Thiefbot. *blood pressure rises*

I beat that Vertigo boss again only a few weeks ago. :) I've recently been doing a marathon re-run through all the Descent 2 level packs I have collected.

I actually find the D2 level 16 boss (homing flash missiles and omega cannon) much harder than either of those final bosses though. I'm usually loaded up with a lot of stuff (10+ earthshakers) by the final level, so it's not too hard to take them down, but you only have one earthshaker for that 16 boss (and it's in a secret level) and you're basically dead if you get hit by one of his missiles and become blinded.

By the way, you can use D2X-XL to play it on XP. It's a fanmade update based off the D2 source code that has tons of enhancements over the original game. Last summer, I was playing daily multiplayer games using this with some people on the HLP/Freespace forums, although everyone seems to have gotten busy in real life since then.

My first goal in any level = destroy that annoying Thiefbot. :)

I do that too. One easy way to destroy him is to stare at a wall - he only comes at you when your back is turned towards him - with a smart mine or two behind you. You can see him coming through the rear view. He runs away after hitting the smart mine, but comes back a minute later. After you do this three or four times, he dies.

There is one secret level (Mephisto Hardcore) where the Thief keeps respawning though, so you have to just try and ignore him if you go to that level. :p