There and Back Again - The issue with AI

Is it just me or are games stupid? Picture the scene. You're in a tranquil setting, an underground cavern say. You're chatting with a mate about some random rubbish, perhaps going over the day's events laughing at how that last beggar just wouldn't die despite being on fire and smashed about the head with maces. When THUNK...an arrow is suddenly protruding out of your mates head. He's dead, no two ways about it. Arrows in the head tend to have that effect. You're naturally taken aback, but this is no time to get upset, action must be taken, fiends must be brought to justice.


So you mount a single man search party and begin to look around for where the arrow could have come from, you search high and low...for 10 seconds...in one direction. And after performing this 'exhaustive' search you return to our original position and stare at the wall...well your mate has just been killed, who are you going to talk to? Then THUNK...another arrow, except this one has found it's way into you. You get lucky though; you still have the ability to walk. So you go in search of where this new arrow could have come from - and you search high and low...for 10 seconds...in one direction...and then you give up and return to your original wall staring position. THUNK. Another arrow has joined its' friend. 'Right' you think 'The bugger must still be around, lets mount another search'. But this time you're going to outsmart him, you're going to cover the exact same path as before and for the same amount of time, he won't be expecting that. And thus your search turns up...nothing. 'I must've imagined it' you say, which would be true if we were to ignore the two huge metal tipped splinters sticking out of you. Oh well, back to your favourite standing spot. THUNK!


This above example actually happened...not in the real world obviously, I'm a gamer, I don't know about such a place. No it happened in Skyrim, Bethesda's answer to the question 'What would Fallout look like if no one had invented the toaster?'. However it's not the only place I've encountered NPCs displaying a distinct lack of common sense.



Hitman Absolution featured guards who forgot that 4 previous guys had gone to investigate a mysterious noise only to never return, but no worry, the 5th guy will solve the enigma...THUNK. Half Life 2 (hid in 1 cupboard and killed 40 enemies), Metal Gear Solid (killed enemies are forgotten about after 20 seconds of vigorous perpendicular searching) are further examples of dumb characters. Don't worry, if you miss there's probably a rock you can hide behind, 'Ah you say', but in Skyrim sometimes the shot enemy shouts for backup. Yes he does, and to get around said backup all I have to do is either retreat 20 yards and hide behind a rock (or at one point the chair they were sat in) or exit through the door, wait 5 seconds and re-enter the room where the bandits have all buggered off thinking they've successfully scared me away.

Is it really too much to ask that game characters show a little common sense, or is this some bizarre form of equal rights and games are being populated with Alzheimer sufferers. Now I'm sure the programmers amongst you are shouting about how hard it is to write code that accurately conveys real behaviour...to give characters actual logic...fair enough, if NPCs actually did what we'd expect they'd all be rolling around on the floor clutching their legs crying about the arrow wounds. However this is an example as to why games really haven't moved forward in the last 20 years.

Those of you who still remember a time when games came on cassettes may recall a game called 'Manic Miner' in which a character called Miner Willy (stop sniggering at the back) had to traverse single screen rooms, dodging enemies and collecting shiny things. Now these aforementioned enemies would travel along a set path, stop, turn around and return to where they started from before doing the journey all over again. Sound familiar? Too young for that game, no problem, just imagine Super Mario Bros where the enemies would travel along a set path, stop, turn around and return. Deja vu. Or for our even younger readers how about Splinter Cell where the enemies would travel along a set path, stop...I think you get the idea. 

But it does sort of prove my point, aside from being shinier, how exactly have games moved forward?. Developers are still giving us games that are little more than a fairground shooting gallery. Did this set an early benchmark as yet unsurpassed? A few games have tried to combat this problem, Gears of War Judgement being a recent example with it's 'adaptive' gameplay, the idea being that the game would check your style of play and adapt to give you more of a challenge. Didn't work, because what it actually meant was each time you play you just got different enemies, all of whom doing the GoW attack of charge forward and absorb enough bullets to allow the guy behind to get slightly closer. Teach them the pincer movement for God's sake. 

With the next-gen consoles almost upon us a lot of the publicity propaganda has been aimed at telling us how powerful they are and how shinier the graphics are going to be. How about this for an idea. Cut back on some of the colours, don't fill the games memory with photo-realistic sparrows and tulips and use that spare data to give me an enemy that when shot runs away to warn his mates and then forms a defensive position forcing me to rethink my approach. Or even better, give some of that spare memory to the characters so they at least remember why that arrow is in their leg and not in my quiver.