Videogames are getting smarter
Videogames are getting smarter with virtual enemies improvising during battles, storylines shifting based on moral choices and in-game characters sending players text messages for help.
Titles unveiled at the just-concluded Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles feature artificial intelligence (AI), making in-game worlds more realistic and less predictable.
“There was a lot we had to do,” Peter Hines of Bethesda Softworks said as AFP tried the studio’s eagerly-awaited “Fallout 3” shooter game, set in a post nuclear war Washington, DC.
AI software in “Fallout 3” lets enemies change tactics depending on what players do.
“They are being smart about being in a combat situation,” Hines said.
The game is also designed so that players’ choices effect which computer-controlled factions become their allies or enemies.
A “Project Origin” action horror game built by Monolith Productions for Warner Interactive Studios boasts “vastly enhanced” AI that makes enemies act realistically and use environments to their advantage.
“See, he threw the car door open because it was the smartest way to take cover,” a Monolith developer said of an on-screen adversary while showing AFP the game.
“That isn’t scripted. He is figuring it out as he goes.”