What was that noise?
No, not SHODAN or GLaDOS.
I mean the other sort.
Good AI is not an unbeatable genius.
It is smartly stupid.
It is both surprisingly clever and capable of wonderful carelessness.
It can remind us of ourselves.
Quick-witted on a good day, an absolute dunderhead on a bad one.
Here’s a list of the 7 best AI in PC games.
Molly -Deep Rock Galactic
Pathfinding is AI.
This machine cash carrier has never let me down.
At which point, the only solution is a bullet.
And it’s not Molly who’s getting shot.
Director -Left 4 Dead
The Director of Left 4 Dead is an oft-mentioned example of beefy AI.
Truthfully, I still don’t know what makes this machine tick.
This is part of the joy of AI.
you’re free to’t know.
It’s all some computer magician’s confidence trick.
But if it seems intelligent, then hey, it’s intelligent.
And this makes you feel superior as you snap another neck.
But they will also learn from your tactics over time.
Shoot a lot of these dweebs in the head and they’ll start to wear helmets.
Gas them and they start donning gas masks.
Always visit at night and you’ll notice more soldiers with night vision goggles.
The result is an impressive adaptation and escalation of enemy competence.
Still won’t stop them getting ballooned into the sky by their belt strap, mind.
It may as well give an unconvincing “ha ha, oops” in the chat.
Into The Breach contains no such feeling.
The AI kaiju move as you would in their place.
They don’t muck about.
The only advantage you have is knowing what they’re going to do next.
This is letting us human players display our problem-solving chops without handicapping the cleverness of the AI.
It turns the human into a natural defender and the bots into natural attrackers.
Would you look at that, Into The Breach fixed chess.
Xenomorph -Alien Isolation
Another much-lauded work of AI programming and one more example of clever balance..
The phallus-headed beast of Alien is rendered faithfully frightening through lurid corridor creeping and instakill grabs.
Run around the space station Sevastopol making noise and the big lad will show up for dinner.
Good horror lets you take a breather.
Thanks, alie– oh god it’s back it’s back move it move it.
They are a sort of do-it-yourself AI, letting you fiddle with their priorities.
After ticking boxes and setting roles, everything in the camp should run smoothly and without incident.
But it don’t.
Some characters will flat-out refuse to do certain jobs.
Many of the other AI in this list are orderly machines.
By contrast, RimWorld’s pawns are chaotic, proving that unpredictability can be just as entertaining as intelligence.
But it must also retain plausible shortsightedness, so we feel clever too.
That’s the whole point I’m making here.
God, have you even been listening?
I love these clever idiots.
But one of these was an indecipherable collection of spidery handwriting and must be eliminated.
It’s…Stardew Valley.
“Stardew off the list,” says farmhand ‘Durgendorf’ with a brutal decisiveness.
Remember to argue for one of our AI to be eliminated.
And to give some examples of AI I have missed.
Have at it, friend.
I have nothing to hide.
See you all next time!
