A nearly 10 year old game is still AI king

I'm talking about F.E.A.R.

Read this blog entry here:

http://aigamedev.com/open/articles/fear-sdk/

and ESPECIALLY its comments, the guys really know what they're talking about.

had a feeling this thread would be about FEAR

you know, I bought the game and didnt play it

simply too afraid haha

I came here to see F.E.A.R and saw just that. I agree and i think devs just don't give a crap about AI cuz no way in hell we would be seeing braindead AI that does nothing else but rush on you in 2014

So you Feared the worst? Haha, get it?

I know, not funny.

Yeah, that game was bad ass! Much love for that.

A.I., in shooters most of all, have been neglected. I blame too much stop and cover, ads and all that, lazy devs take those concepts and make shooting galleries, glorified whack-moles. I'm not a fan o FEAR, but had the dev sticked true to it's concepts it's sequels would end up being fantastic games.

It's also one of the best in terms of gunplay. The game is one of the best FPS of all time and dwarfs many games coming out today.

Splinter Cell Blacklist, most underrated game of 2013 and my personal sleeper hit title, has some of the best AI in any game period.

Not only do they work for stealth but if you play it as a straight up shooter they are easily smarter than most other enemies.

But Blacklist had totally scripted patrol pathways. That being said, it was still a really good game.

The whole FEAR series is on my backlog. I look forward to checking this AI out when I get around to playing it.

The first one, by far. I've never played any expansions so I wouldn't know about that. Second one was still solid, albeit slightly streamlined, but it was otherwise flawless, just not spectacular game like the first one.

Depends on the game mode you choose, the story was heavily scripted but in the Charlie and Kobin missions I'm pretty sure it isn't.

its a very good game. i remember you needed a decent set up to play it back in the day.

love games with a built in benchmark.

Good AI is very difficult to make, even PC exclusive devs don't really bother. Easier to build your games around hordes of proficient enemies rather than smaller amounts of really intelligent enemies or just skip AI all together and built multiplayer games. Ever wonder why so many small budget shooters are multiplayer only? Small studios do not have the capabilities to program good AI. It requires a level of skill that only some of the most talented individuals can bring and those people cost a lot of money as there is high demand.

Your entire game has to be designed around good AI. Even the best AI programming requires the levels to be structured in such a way the AI can read and react to the situations and do so while feeling immersive and lifelike. It also requires static level design and a lot of waypointing and other hardcoded scripting to do right.

Game engine's today are trying to move to more dynamic setups. For how crappy the AI is in Crysis 1-3, it's actually quite impressive given it's quite dynamic in the ways it reads the environments and reacts to player situations. Another impressive game that comes across as bad is the ArmA series. All you need to do with the AI is put them on the map and tell them to patrol between two spots and they'll react very well to enemy movement and actions.

The problem with developing AI is that players expect a certain level of competence because of all of the multiplayer the average player has played. It's easier into challenging the player with extremely uneven odds with simple AI that is much more friendly on the CPU and easier to script than trying to make the AI think to beat the player.

I knew exactly what game you were talking about when I saw the title. FEAR is still AI king imo.

Expected FEAR. Good job TC. Amazing game, amazing, creepy gameplay, great gunplay and fantastic AI. It's a shame Monolith didn't make a good game since then.

lol.

as soon as i saw the title i knew you were talking about fear.

the first time the ai flanked me i was pretty happy with how well the game was designed.

I really need to finish FEAR, I started it but ended up reformatting at some point and haven't downloaded it again

That's strange. I remember in May/June '13 TLOU was the best AI ever, along with everything else on these boards.

Looks like me and a lot of people here agree that F.E.A.R. still has great A.I to this day. I remember when I played the game the first time how impressed I was at the A.I. The enemies would jump out of a window when you throw a grenade at them in a room, use things for cover, and try to run away from you in fear (no pun intended) when you are chasing and shooting at them.

lol TLOU AI

I expected you would say F.E.A.R. Seems a lot of other people did too.

The game was a blast to play, but the cow love that came from it was hilarious. I love Halo, enjoyed the crap out of 4, but never fooled myself into believing it was a high mark in gaming.

They did have scripted patrols, but when they got a glimpse of you, damn would they investigate the hell out of the area.

Knew this thread was about FEAR though. It always makes me laugh that people think devs are gonna devote tons of system resources to AI and such just because of new hardware, as if any of them ever did that when any other new hardware was launched. AI will be on the backburner as devs focus on the shiny shit. Gotta have dat bloom and lens flare!

Oh I liked the game a lot, but the AI was rather derpy sometimes, of course I wasn't on super hardcore survival mode

I dont know about FEAR but the best A.I by far i've seen belongs to another 10year old title. Unreal tournament 2k4. Heck i preferred playing against bots and had a ton of fun

Yeah, Blacklist was great.

Such a shame FEAR was Monolith's last good game.

FEAR had good AI...but it was outright wasted on cramped, boring level design and a monotone approach to enemies. You'd always engage them head on while they're patrolling. I think its pathetic on the part of developers that Half-Life 1 and Thief have better AI than most games today. How hard can it be with all the dollars they throw into graphics and advertisement? Get some decent programmers.

That said, I thought Batman: AA had very good AI. I love the way the guards get scared when you start taking down their friends. A lot of cool tricks were used there.

Loved that nail gun - nailing people to the wall was great fun.

Hell yeah, those bots were great. I was always dumbfounded at how bad the bots in Gears series were considering Epic's previous work. I mean, they literally served no other purpose than to be cannon fodder. I'm talking about multiplayer by the way.

F.E.A.R.'s A.I. is awesome but so is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which also has some outstanding A.I.

This is funny cause Right now I am having a fear marathon after buying three and fear files(even though they aren't canon I figure why not I wanna see the alternative story they made) and man are the Ai brilliant still, But I would also put Halo's AI in the top for sure, hell To me Top spot for best AI is the halo and Fear series

The first F.E.A.R is legendary.
That nail gun... and even the background story to it... Very creepy and looked fantastic.

F.E.A.R.'s AI is incredible -- only game that comes close is the Halo series, but due to regenerative health and the general super soldier feeling in that series, I don't think it's quite as appreciated.

I thought the thread would be about UT99 but I guess FEAR is just as good.

Yep. Speaking of which, it's probably time I sat down and played the game.

Is it really that good? We are talking about ai that was built mainly to fight in very small cramped spaces. FEAR is such an easy game as well, you can easily blast enemies away if you use the slo mo ability.

The ai in FEAR is definitely more active than any ai in any FPS today

knew it would be fear before i clicked this

This is a good thread - it is sad we don't see AI as impressive as FEAR, STALKER and even the old Halos and original Half-Life.

Shadow of Chernobyl.

FEAR AI is great, but the STALKER AI doesn't get enough credit. The AI makes the more organic gameplay scenarios that much more satisfying.

I agree.

People talking about 'oh we have better hardware, we're gonna have better AI!!1', but really, there's barely, if it all, anything as impressive as Halo:CE's or the original Half Life's AI. Crysis 2 for example has one shitty AI script.

More than a decade old games have AI that rivals anything out there. It's clear to me that it is not a priority.

FEAR's AI is good, but it doesn't allow for a stealth approach, therefore TLOU is still king.

What I was thinking.

STALKER AI can be brutal. Doesn't help that the game is pretty damn open. Even in those open areas where you think you have a hold on things, they mess up your shit.

FEAR AI was excellent indeed. I was surprised though how great the AI in Army of Two 2: The 40th Day works, thats the only game that comes to mind that could compete with FEAR in terms of AI.

Yeah FEAR is one of the few games that has a good AI, but in my opinion The Last Of Us has a slightly better AI.