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Friday 13 October, 2006
Today as I played more I began to notice things about the way the game was designed. The games does not have a particular good AI in the way that it interacts with the character since the character at no points says one word or makes sounds. All the character in the games create a sense that they have very advance AI by acting in a way that many people would act if they were busy.
What I mean is that HL2 does not have cinematic which are very common for first person shooting games. They rather have you in the game and the scenes of conversations between characters take place but you can choose to turn around and ignore those conversations, when you turn around so does the sounds which enhances the environment and gives the conversation a more real feeling rather than having the sounds come from all th speakers with no difference when you are looking different games. I realize that this is not very new since you may say that putting sounds in different speakers to create that illusion has been done before, but this takes on a whole new meaning when using a 5.1 system and is not only right or left but front and back. Along with the sound another technique use in making the AI seem more real is having the characters begin conversations with each other as you pass by. Something very common in the real world but not so much in gaming. A great couple of examples of this is when walking out of the train station and walking down the street there is a guard in front of a door and inside someone is getting a beating, when passing this you see for a very short period this and hear the screams. Usually in video games that means go and inspect, well when you get close the guard stops you tell you to move along and pushes you way, the second time he actually beats you using a night stick. The second example is after entering an apartment complex you see more of the situation that residents are in and pass by a women crying in her husbands shoulder, when you enter the room the husband looks up and tell you to keep moving and go back to his wife.
The more I see about the game the more I realize that character AI in games is more of what illusion can be created rather than how to make actual characters act on their own.
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