Examples of amazing and/or interesting game AI?

[J T]

The first time I ever remember being really impressed with AI was when Street Fighter II came out. I was so impressed that a computer based opponent could respond to my every move and not just run preset patterns.

[MrPopo]

The first time I ever remember being really impressed with AI was when Street Fighter II came out. I was so impressed that a computer based opponent could respond to my every move and not just run preset patterns.

I think that falls more under the category of "The computer is a cheating bastard."

[J T]

Really? I usually feel that I have a good clean fight against the Street Fighter II AI. The only exception is that the computer can do a sonic boom or flash kick without charging, that's unfair, plus there's a few throws that the computer pulls off that I don't think it should have been able to. Otherwise, I like to battle the AI opponents in Street Fighter.

Mortal Kombat, however, cheats shamelessly. It starts out way too easy and you can beat the computer by simply doing a foot sweep or uppercut all the time, then it suddenly becomes impossible and it just keeps moving toward you, slapping you in the face, and throwing you. There's not much you can do at that point. I can play really competitively in Mortal Kombat II and beat some of the best of em, but I can't beat that stupid cheating AI.

[Pulsar_t]

Mortal Kombat, however, cheats shamelessly. It starts out way too easy and you can beat the computer by simply doing a foot sweep or uppercut all the time, then it suddenly becomes impossible and it just keeps moving toward you, slapping you in the face, and throwing you. There's not much you can do at that point. I can play really competitively in Mortal Kombat II and beat some of the best of em, but I can't beat that stupid cheating AI.

The MK games had such cheap AI, especially the SNES ports.

[Ack]

Nah, worst version of the MK AI is in the GBA version. The AI on easy has a tendency to stand still, but bump it up one slot and they suddenly begin performing uber long combos. It's apparently pretty sick to watch and a nightmare to play, even without the crappy controls and poor framerates. And there are some pretty odd tricks to getting around that charge time for a sonic boom, like doing it at an angle so you're ducking at the same time. It all comes down to timing, but truthfully I've never been comfortable with special moves based on that control style.

[MrPopo]

Really? I usually feel that I have a good clean fight against the Street Fighter II AI. The only exception is that the computer can do a sonic boom or flash kick without charging, that's unfair, plus there's a few throws that the computer pulls off that I don't think it should have been able to. Otherwise, I like to battle the AI opponents in Street Fighter.

The trick when making a good cheating AI is to have it choose to do the wrong thing based on its known information sometimes. With Mortal Kombat the computer decides wrong more rarely than it will in Street Fighter.

When it comes to charge moves, though, the computer actually does play fair. The trick is with something like a sonic boom you can do something like this: hold back, tap forward and punch, then immediately hold back again, two seconds later hit forward and punch again for rapid sonic booms. Or something like jump in, as soon as you leave the ground you hold back, by the time you've air-attacked and landed you can hit forward and punch. It's much harder for humans to get right, but the top Guile players are good at it. Similarly, there are several throws that are legal and people CAN pull them off, but they are extremely challenging to technically perform, since you exploit hit boxes and frame advantage.

[Ivo]

Examples of interesting (not perfect) AI will certainly include Black & White, and particularly the expansion Creature Isle where you get to play more with the creature (but the villagers also have a bit of interaction). I hear that B & W 2 sort of toned it down as it made too apparent that you were just turning a bunch of "AI flags" on and off - but perhaps it is still a perfected version of the AI.

A couple of lower profile stuff for you to check out, both "freeware":

1. the shooter "Warning Forever" (there is an article here in Racketboy about it), where you consecutively fight larger and larger "bosses". The "AI" part is that the next boss you fight "learns" from how you defeated the previous one and tries to adapt accordingly. Also it allegedly keeps track of how it manages to kill you and boasts more of those weapons in the next iteration.

2. this isn't really a "game", but "Facade" should prove rather interesting as far as "AI" goes.
http://www.interactivestory.net/

[jfrost]

The computer really did skip the charging in SF2? I don't recall that. I know that that didn't happen in Alpha games. If you play against Bison, he just ducks the whole time to charge his moves.

[MrPopo]

The computer really did skip the charging in SF2? I don't recall that. I know that that didn't happen in Alpha games. If you play against Bison, he just ducks the whole time to charge his moves.

As far as I saw in SF2 the computer never skipped the charging, but it did to the standard tricks to speed it up (charge during other moves). Of course, when a computer does those tricks it does them so perfectly that it seems like they skipped the charging, so it makes sense they'd throttle that back in Alpha.

[J T]

Maybe you're right MrPopo. I haven't played SFII in awhile. I played it a TON in the past though and I swear there were times where Guile threw a Sonic Boom, which I jumped only to be hit by a flash kick immediately after, before I even hit the apex of my jump. Or there were times he was walking forward and somehow managed to throw a Sonic Boom. This would have most likely been the SNES version. This is just my memory though, which is fallable.