Well, you do make a good point.
That may be so, but F.E.A.R. won industry AI awards for a reason- the enemies in that game are highly mobile and intelligent opponents to fight. They do everything the HL AI did, but they do it with style and speed- doing unscripted jumps through windows, climbing ladders, etc. I still remember one of those guys crawling under a drain pipe after me.
Yeah, FEAR AI was all tactical on our shit. Flanking, boxing, all sorts of maneuvers (I named TWO, one of which isn’t a proper name!). The whole thing was on a level of intelligence above the current generation of games at the time.
yet no body seems to be able to do any better - as far as i’ve encountered.
the FEAR ai actually hid in cover properly, none of this i just hide here behind this glass panel and hang half my body out any way.
loved how when you went into cover they’d move and you’d go to shoot the same place only for them to have flanked in a 5 second window.
Shit, I’m gonna go play that game again right now.
F.E.A.R. had great AI. It was awesome fighting the soldiers, and when you blew up a room and filled it with the debris and smoke they actually had trouble seeing like you did.
The first Unreal had similar advances in AI like HL, it was the same year too. HL’s was smart because they actually acted like soldiers and flanked you and flushed you out and shit, but Unreal’s was smart because they actually acted like intelligent aliens. They would chase you down, avoid your shots, look for ways to get behind you without being seen, etc.
I remember one of my earlier playthroughs I came across one of the skaarj guys with low health and I ran all the way back looking for health, and that fucker chased me up an elevator and without me even knowing went a different path to find me. he jumped off the bridge above me in a room I found some ammo in and killed me.
Hell sometimes they would even fake being dead while you shoot so you down them and think its safe, then you go and they would get up and attack from behind. It was pretty awesome (or scary?) stuff for 98
From what I remember reading a few years back, the FEAR AI actually wasn’t as smart as it seemed to be because the developers used a bunch of tricks and dialogue queues to make them seem like they were working together, even though they weren’t.
Necromorphs in Dead Space do that all the time, though it’s extremely easy to tell when they are, so you can just shoot them on the ground and kill them.
That’s good AI for you; It doesn’t have to actually be smart, just seem like it. If it feels and acts like you’d expect an actual human to, then it’s good. HL2’s Combine AI is pretty smart, but it just doesn’t feel human. (Okay, technically it shouldn’t, since Overwatch soldiers aren’t human anymore, but the example still works.)
Yeah, also, fluid and realistic motion always make AI look smarter. But that’s all about animation.
I’ve never seen any NPC in a game run backwards and fire realistically.
One of the worst cases are the CPs in Half Life 2.
True enough. I just remember reading (I could’ve sworn it was on BM 3 or so years ago), that in FEAR, if a soldier yelled, “Flank him!”, for instance, if you looked around and killed a guy who happened to be in your vicinity, the player would just think “Well, I got the guy who was going to flank me.” or, if an enemy was just wandering around and got to your side, the player would say “Holy shit, they’re actually working together!” even though it was just pure coincidence that the enemy was actually there. And if nobody at all showed up, they would think “I must’ve killed the soldiers being ordered to flank me.”
I wonder how long it’ll take to get actually smart AI.
Edit: BF3’s AI put a bad taste in my mouth.
Far Cry had good AI, but they could see a bit too far on higher difficulties. I remember I was so amazed that you could throw rocks and distract them, except if they were looking towards your hiding spot they could see the rock and they would know it was you :FFFUUU:
I know FEAR’s AI was scripted a lot, but I’m pretty sure the flanking maneuvers and stuff were tied in to what soldiers said at least somewhat. Like they made predefined areas where the AI could do those actions, the AI just had to be in the right situation to perform them.
never the less even if it was by cheap lighting. its the most impressive ive played against. certanly beats the AI in black ops, you’d watch the ill cam and all you could see was them following you threw the wall.
does not exist
Sounds like Left 4 Dead Versus, pinpoint accuracy against infected who haven’t even spawned, that are running around half way across the map. :hmph:
any body had trouble with bs threw steam? i get to the elevator in the first chapter and cant descend, then the scientists explode and i fail the game cause i pressed the button that made the elevator go down.
i should really record it, its quite funny.
I probably have it worse than most here. I’ve been waiting for this mod for years and refuse to play Episode 2 until I can play Black Mesa and the entire saga through in one fell swoop. A HL fanboy that doesn’t even know what the cliffhanger from ep2 that everyone talks about is 
I’ve played the original HL like ten times though so to answer OP, play the original if you haven’t.
You’re incredibly fucking lucky that you’ve been able to avoid hearing about the ending to HL2:E2. Why don’t you just play it though?
Alyx and Gordon are subdued and forced to watch as Eli Vance gets his brains sucked out by a Combine advisor. The game ends with Alyx sobbing over the body of her dead father.
There ya go - glad to oblige a fellow scientist.
P.S. Rosebud is a sled, Bruce Willis was dead the entire time, Soylent Green IS people, and Darth Vader is Luke’s father.
I’m waiting on BM in order to blitz through the entire HL series. It’s my strange way of sort of honoring my favorite videogame of all time by putting myself through this seemingly never ending wait that I feel will pay off…at least in terms of entertainment. My OCD may have something to do with it but either way, it’s going to be a memorable week in gaming for me once BM comes out.