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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
AI software in “Fallout 3” lets enemies change tactics depending on what players do.<\/p>\n
“They are being smart about being in a combat situation,” Hines said.<\/p>\n
The game is also designed so that players’ choices effect which computer-controlled factions become their allies or enemies.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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."<\/p>\n
Custom software that Gearbox Software built “Borderlands” video game generates a “near-endless” array of missions, enemies, environments and weapons.<\/p>\n
“Borderlands” is an “evolutionary leap in game design and technology,” 2K Games president Christoph Hartmann said when it was announced that the title will be published by his firm’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive.<\/p>\n
“Borderlands” is set on a lawless planet called Pandora where bandits rove badlands with a “very ‘Mad Max’ vibe,” Gearbox president Randy Pickford said while demonstrating the game.<\/p>\n
The videogame’s software has generated more than a half million weapons and hidden them about Pandora, surprising even its creators.<\/p>\n
“Wow, that’s a cool gun and it has a blade,” Pickford said to a colleague playing the game. “You definitely want to pick that one up."<\/p>\n
Lionshead Studio built AI into an animated dog that serves as an enviable companion for players of “Fable 2,” according to the firm’s creative director Peter Molyneaux.<\/p>\n
“Fable 2” also has a “dynamic landscape” that changes depending on whether players prefer to visit towns, linger in faux taverns, or hack and slash adversaries, Molyneaux said during an E3 preview of the game.<\/p>\n
Nintendo software developer Katsuya Eguchi’s “Animal Crossing” game inhabited by creatures with lives that go one whether players are not in-world.<\/p>\n
“Even when you aren’t playing the game the animals get up in the morning and go to bed at night,” Eguchi said.<\/p>\n
The multi-player online game for Nintendo’s Wii consoles is time-synched to give people the illusion they are playing together, no matter when they venture into the virtual realm.<\/p>\n
Nintendo is also marketing “MotionPlus” devices that attach to Wii controllers so the motion-sensing devices pick up more nuanced movements.<\/p>\n
Sony Online Entertainment is putting finishing touches on an online secret agent game called “The Agency” that gives players command of operatives that work around the clock.<\/p>\n
If operatives need help, they can send real-world team leaders email or mobile telephone text messages, Matt Wilson of “The Agency” development team told AFP.<\/p>\n
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