10 Video Games With The Worst Enemy A.I.
When the enemy is somehow dumber than a brick.
AI is one of those things in video games you probably won't pay much attention to unless it's done incredibly or, more likely, horribly.
Simulating the behaviours of an actual, living thing is an extremely challenging task for video game developers, such that games that make strident leaps in AI programming - such as Halo: Combat Evolved, F.E.A.R., and Alien: Isolation - are desperately few-and-far-between.
And while there's an argument to be made that excessively smart AI enemies actually aren't very fun to play against, some games simply dumb-down the player's adversaries to the point that it comes across as lazy.
These 10 video games, from critically acclaimed blockbusters to more low-key budget titles, all offered up antagonist AI that didn't cut the mustard.
In some cases the developers promised state-of-the-art AI that they just couldn't deliver, while elsewhere it's clear that believably sentient, self-preserving meat shields weren't on the team's priority list.
In some cases it ruins the combat by rendering enemies trivial and boring to fight, while in a select few instances the game is still enjoyable enough to overcome its obvious developmental shortcomings...
10. Crysis 2
Nothing will put critics and players alike on the back foot more than a game that over-promises and under-delivers, and at least in the AI department, that's Crysis 2 in a nutshell.
In the lead-up to the sci-fi shooter's 2011 release, Crytek promised that Crysis 2 would feature "the most advanced AI system" seen in any video game, with enemy combatants being "truly intelligent, thinking, fair enemies" who would continually adapt to player behaviour.
Despite these lofty claims, Crysis 2's AI is arguably even worse than the original game's widely-ridiculed enemy programming, largely because it's so maddeningly erratic and inconsistent.
Enemies will often fail to put up any sort of meaningful fight against you, running out of cover directly into your gunfire and getting stuck on walls.
Yet in ranged combat they'll often be able to detect you with a jarringly pin-sharp accuracy, and on occasion you might even get shot through a wall for no apparent reason. It all makes for a wildly frustrating and uneven experience.
Sadly the recent Crysis 2 remaster failed to fix the garbage AI, which is infinitely more irritating because the developer was so confident in their own brilliance, and it somehow regressed back past the previous game.