ARTIFICIAL IDIOCY
We start this wiikend out with a long article. We will end it with an article just as good and just as long.
Witless enemies are an oft-cited failing of videogames, but while AI designers are forever finding ways to make more formidable opponents, is smarter always better?
Pandemonium breaks out. Alarm bells sound, red warning lights flash and guards come running to the scene of the crime. Meanwhile, you, the perpetrator, slink unnoticed into some shadowy crevice. Less than a minute later, peace has been restored. Guards return to their patrols – no more aware of you now than they were before you shot one of their colleagues in broad daylight. These guys are idiots. Of course, it is the very fact that they are such short-sighted, amnesiac goons, who don’t think to peer too closely into shadows or perform a systematic sweep of their surroundings that allows the player to overcome the tremendous odds stacked against them. It makes the game possible. It also makes it a game.