Monday, February 06, 2012

AI and predictability

I played the Syndicate demo again. My character is level 7 now. I have probably played that same mission seven or eight times now.

What strikes me is how important the AI is to the replayability. I see players using the same weapons and skills, yet the battle is a little different every time.

In the movie The Ghost and the Darkness , one character tells another, "They've got a saying in prize fighting: Everyone's got a plan until they've been hit."

Good, dynamic AI forces players to adapt every time. It provides just enough predictability to enable strategy, but it doesn't let players anticipate everything.