Welcome to the 1st Annual AiGameDev.com Awards for Game AI, where the best games of the year are nominated and voted by professionals, enthusiasts, and researchers in artificial intelligence for games.
Last week you submitted your nominations, and here are the finalists. You have exactly one week to vote for the best candidates!
Best AI in a Mainstream Game
In alphabetical order:
BioShock was one of the most popular nominations, praised for its emergent behaviors that were expertly tied into the overall design.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has some of the best AI in a story-driven shooter to date, and features some of the best scripted sequences of the year.
Halo 3 features some of the most entertaining enemy AIs this year, particularly because of the interplay between the different types of enemy.
Half-Life 2 Episode 2 pushes the limits in non-player character interaction, notably with Alyx partnering with the player through levels in the game.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R., thanks to its A-Life system, capitalizes on the concept of emergent gameplay and sandbox environments in a way never seen before.
Best AI in a Mainstream Game
- Halo 3 (79%, 564 Votes)
- Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (7%, 52 Votes)
- BioShock (6%, 43 Votes)
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (4%, 29 Votes)
- Call of Duty 4 (4%, 27 Votes)
Total Voters: 715
Loading …Best AI in a Independent Game
Armageddon Empires was the most popular nomination, with its AI keeping players on their toes thanks to long term plans and good countering strategies.
Democracy 2 is a simulation game that stands for being one of the few games that uses a neural network as part of the AI.
Depths of Peril is an innovative RPG where you can compete against other AI-controlled heroes with the same goals as you!
GalCon can be classed as a text-book application of game AI using python as a scripting language. The AIs are simple but used in addictive scenarios.
Best AI in an Independent Game
- Armageddon Empires (43%, 52 Votes)
- Democracy 2 (31%, 37 Votes)
- GalCon (13%, 16 Votes)
- Depths of Peril (13%, 15 Votes)
Total Voters: 120
Loading …Technical Innovation in Game AI
Assassin’s Creed features some innovative animation technology, which is used to great effect for the crowd behaviors.
Kynapse has improved tremendously as an AI middleware notably with features for managing large crowds, dynamic worlds and support for next-gen consoles.
Path Engine has grown from strength to strength this year by providing a robust and efficient implementation of the most commonly used by game developers.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has taken sandbox gameplay to the next level using its A-Life system, bringing interesting non-linear gameplay to the shooter genre.
Technical Innovation in Game AI
- Assassin’s Creed (78%, 234 Votes)
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (19%, 56 Votes)
- Path Engine (2%, 6 Votes)
- Kynapse (2%, 5 Votes)
Total Voters: 301
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17 Comments ↓
I voted CoD4 for Mainstream, but if you’d given me the choice I would’ve voted for F.E.A.R. It’s not from this year but no other game’s AI enemies have ever “outsmarted” me before. Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 AI are good, but they’ve never taken me by surprise or outmanuevered me. F.E.A.R.’s AI consistently flanked and killed me, often times before I realized it was happening. It took me a while to develop counter tactics that were effective.
I think the revamped scarab AI alone should allow Halo 3 to win hands down. In H2, the scarab was scripted and programmed to walk to a certain place. Now, it will hunt you down and make you pay. Just imagine how hard it must have been to have multiple AI’s running on top of a larger AI. (Brutes,etc. on top of the scarab.)
H3’s AI isn’t that great. You have the shockingly bad driving AI where your allies will happily run you over, drive you off cliffs, get stuck on basic geometric layouts, or otherwise drive in crazy fashion. The AI also doesn’t flank you that much either, instead almost always staying back in a predictable fashion.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad per se, just not amazing, and there are far better games out there.
h3’s ai is hardly comparable to hl2ep2 or even cod4. The marines will and always have been god awful at driving any vehicle. Not to mention that it took 2 games for them to stop firing 3 round bursts from any gun. The ai in cod4 just feels too scripted, in the rare unscripted fighting, they do fare well, but i feel hl2ep2 should get it. Not so much for getting a zombie to walk after you but for the combine soldiers tactics. If you listen closely though their garbled speech they bark orders, make the team scatter from grenades and take cover. In addition that ai has been around since 2004, greatly surpassing h2’s ai. Sadly, you dont get the best taste of combine assaults as you would have in hl2.These are all excellent games mind you, and I do own and have played the top 4, but hl2ep2 seems to shine brighter than these other great titles.
Why is halo 3 even in this poll? I have been consistently killed by marines running me over with vehicles, marines can’t drive at all (halo 2 marines were better at driving), they will always shoot weopons too closely to the target. Meanwhile the brutes “pack” ai is pathetic. All they do is throw 20 grenades at you. Brutes ever seem to take cover, they just stand still and let you shoot them in the head. SNORE. Yet Bungie seems to think that this lame AI behaviour would be acceptable for the biggest videogame release of the year. I voted for Hl2ep2 because the enemy functions as a group (hunters).
You people are freakin retarded calling Halo 3’s AI crap! Think before you post, good god! NOT Allie AI… ENEMY AI. Allie AI was bed but thats not what were talking about, its enemy AI were talking about. In Halo 3, Enemy AI was great. The enemies flanked you, dove from oncoming vehicles and grenades, used equipment efficiently, etc. Dont forget the skulls! They really alter the Enemy AI and their efficieny in many different ways.
Yeah, we’re retarded for giving a justified argument?
The enemies didn’t flank you much at all. A little, yeah, but mostly they hang back. They deploy equipment sporadically and in silly fashion, such as deploying a bubble shield then not standing in it.
Before you call us retarded, A) learn how to spell, and B) quit being such a fanboy and actually THINK before you open your metaphorical mouth.
Also, the award is for best game AI, which includes Ally AI (or the lack of).
everyone sits here and complains about the ally AI for driving and such, but how many other games on that list have AI that can opperate vehicles. Ignore the fact that they might usually get killed, they still operate them pretty well.
Not the best mind you, but very solid. Look at any of the scarab encounters for example, when the AI get in their vehicles, they do a very good job of moving around, firing and avoiding the scarabs.
To top it all off, they do a pretty good job on foot as well. They snipe when appropriate, they toss grenades at the right times, they take cover, they move around to flank, they dodge when they can and their chatter fits perfectly with the moment.
Yes everyone complains about the AI driving mechanics, but come on, there is so much more to the marines than just them driving.
I can say I voted for Bioshock (while COD4 was good, Bioshock’s combination of NPC taunts and actions, as well as big daddies being quite gifted, was a big part of the game and well done), GalCon (only indie game I played although I intend to look at the others! and it was entertaining enough to play against the demo AI :) ) and Assassins Creed (good work on the crowd AI - if only such stuff existed in all “worldy” games. I don’t endorse the game as fun since I’ve not played much of it and it seems a letdown, but the crowd AI is a damn achievement!)
I’d say COD4 was a close second even though it was highly scripted. It’s still an achievement even if the AI isn’t too FEAR-like. Episode 2 sadly still has limited AI - the combine are *okay* but having played Half Life 2 (All parts) quite frequently on hard, they are not brilliant. Allied AI is okay though, although they cheat when civilians are involved and make named NPC’s near invincible to get around it’s shortcomings. If it wasn’t so scripted the Strider battle in Episode 2 had some okay AI for the stalker dog things too.
I should get STALKER to look at the AI, and read some reviews of the engines in the technical achievement category too, to see what they do.
PS: I wonder if there’s a bit of ballot stuffing going on, the votes for each part don’t match up, and you can vote multiple times it seems.
It might have been better to choose some judges and use the nominations in an oscar-like way, to have something for the judges to discuss and award the commendation too :)
Just sayin’ maybe check your referral logs ;)
I’m willing to bet a billion doll hairs that if we kept track of the people/ip addresses/ email addresses that are voting for Halo 3 it would show that this is the first and last time they visit this website.
Yeah, that’s the discrepancy I noticed :D
HBO (Halo.Bungie.Org) posted about the poll on their site, so all us Halo fanatics are coming over and running up the Halo vote count.
I voted on Halo 3 because I’m willing to look at the up side of the AI, rather than focus on the places it falls short (I.E., those idiots they call marines). Even though the brute pack hangs back, they do it for a reason. They want to draw you out. The Cheiftan is usually well protected, and he doesn’t really give a crap about his packmates. If you notice, the first guys you get a shot at in the open are probably the lower ranked brutes, and by the time you’re set and ready to fight the hammer/fuelrod/turret weilding leader, you’re out of sufficient ammo for your good gun and have to fight the guy with a plasma pistol.
I do agree that they deploy cover at inconvinent times, but I’ve seen them use the powerdrainer and regenerator pretty well.
I nominate Starcraft for its incredible Reaver/Scarab-AI
BTW, just wondering, how many of you guys that call Halo 3 AI simple or stupid, have played through the entire game on legendary, let alone with the skulls on?
well i did find out about this through hbo, but i still voted for hl2ep2. not everyone who is a halo3 fanboy is a 12yr old infantil prick who will vote for h3 over anything, but most are ;).
You know what I like about you guys? If a game is released and it is different than all the other games you’ve played… you let it aside…
People don’t talk to much about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. … I wounder why… Because you can say whatever you want (that you don’t like the genre, the animation, the story, bugs, game play, requirements) , but unfortunately it is the best… Why don’t you play it… you should see… Don’t talk as if you know everything.. Don’t judge something if you know only half of that thing…
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