RPS Hands On: Buggy AI and dodgy game mechanics

[SpeedyMaxx]

It's just possible there is a happy medium to be found between, let's say, taking a collective load from the game devs in the face in some sort of glorious sycophant bukkake triumph months before the game comes out, or condemning it as the Antichrist in game form, sent to us on leathery wings from brimstone-reeking smilers with the knives behind their backs.

I haven't seen anything untoward from the developer team that I found particularly scandalous or inappropriate in how they discuss their game or what they want to do with it. All I see is the resultant hyperbole their previews generate around forums, both positive and negative. I think all of it's very, very far removed from any kind of rational reality.

As to the review itself, I'm staying agnostic on the game myself but this is why I stay far, far away from all forms of amateur journalism. It reads to me as "I died too much, unfair, also the alien is played out so why are they making a game about it? I was hot and tired." When you've been unfortunate enough to attend film festivals with these guys present, you've heard this rhythm and blues before.

[Valaquen]

And that's why I expressed concern over them maintaining the intensity and interest over the course of this entire game.

I'm quite confident the Alien sections of the game will deliver. What worries me is the absolute secrecy over the rest of the game: combat, puzzles, exploration, enemies, etc. The Alien can be fantastic but it seems to me that those other parts of the game are being hidden because C.A. are not confident in pulling them off, or might be having trouble doing so. It could very well be a one-trick pony. That's my concern. And I could of course be wrong. In everything!

[PsyKore]

I think his complaints regarding the AI were legitimate enough. I worry myself about the AI being inconsistent and the frustration that might come with annoying deaths. It's impossible to replicate the movie while maintaining fun gameplay, so some leeway has to be given. Unpredictable AI would be cool to see, but the player still needs to stand a chance to survive and should always be able to apply logic - if the Alien just randomly kills you and then another time walks straight past you in a same scenario situation, then there's something wrong.

[Xhan]

amateur journalism

Except this isn't a grass roots journalism revamp with SEGA realizing that giving power to the little guy makes for a great synergy and provides a fairer view of the game from a journalistic panel of considered peers, this is SEGA realizing that entreating mass media didn't really do much good the last two go rounds, as "professional" journalists were mostly apathetic towards 2010, if not outright hostile (GR, GI, Eurogamer) and the OMGHIXNNOOT hype train that was A:CM was the literal definition of smoke and mirrors.

maintain

That might hold for the Pred campaign were the predominance of effort and artistry shown through with -> relative <- complexity and and a clear and defined sense of variation and progression, the Marine campaign was a broken mess of glitches, faulty flags/tokens and broken pathfinding/hilariously bad AI , replete with bugs that literally stopped the game cold until fixed, glitchy models with randomized animations and the Alien campaign was both skeletal and repetitive from mission one.

AI

Is definitely another area where the eye of the beholder holds sway. Aside from one or two staffers, RPS generally tends to not be particularly good at playing games, and in this particular view seems to be as much, because the frustration seems more borne of "the game didn't telegraph how to beat it like I wanted it to" more than "the Alien cheats and does cheap things through broken AI".

[SpeedyMaxx]

I don't care about the last AVP game, myself, or AVP in general. And I don't really care what CA's motives are for going to which games journalism outfit or why, that's all inside baseball stuff which has nothing to do with me or the final product - I just found it to be a poorly-done report on this game.

[PsyKore]

AI

Is definitely another area where the eye of the beholder holds sway. Aside from one or two staffers, RPS generally tends to not be particularly good at playing games, and in this particular view seems to be as much, because the frustration seems more borne of "the game didn't telegraph how to beat it like I wanted it to" more than "the Alien cheats and does cheap things through broken AI".

I don't know enough about RPS, so you're probably right. I just hope the AI isn't filled with inconsistent behaviour.

[Mus]

It's bound to have inconsistent behavior if it's really just going to walk around aimlessly and follow environmental triggers. There's so many variables. Even the example in that article, it could have homed in on some background light/noise/whatever when it was walking past the player, and then that was a higher priority. Then the following time it wasn't focusing on anything so when the player made a sound, it set off the CPU's detect mode. I wonder how exactly it's going to work, I assume the levels will have various objects with similar parameters to the player. So there would be like a steampipe making noise, with I guess like a loudness value. Like let's say 5. The alien is all like, I detect sound -> go to sound. Then the player comes along with his footstep noises, and as long as the sound level stays lower than the pipe, it won't trigger the CPU. But if it hits 6, it'll make the alien switch targets

[gabgrave]

Actually, wouldn't what RPS said about how the Alien walked pass when he hid in the corner the first time, then the second time he tried that, it homed in on him, an example of the learning curve of the Alien AI? I mean, this is what CA have said is one of the Alien key mechanics for keeping the player on their toes after all.

What I'm more concerned about, is how the AI script gets stored in the game. Does it roll over every play-through, or gets reset after every save load? And is it possible to load up an AI that has learned every single pattern a player can come up with? That would be the definition of omniscient then...

[Valaquen]

What I'm more concerned about, is how the AI script gets stored in the game. Does it roll over every play-through, or gets reset after every save load? And is it possible to load up an AI that has learned every single pattern a player can come up with? That would be the definition of omniscient then...

Good question to ask the devs, I think.

[Xenoscream]

Worrying interview, but not really surprising, getting that AI working as well as they claim was always going to be a huge challenge.

One thought I did have, when he was talking about moving from one hiding place to another, was I saw in some interview that you leave an invisible trail which lasts some seconds that the Alien can detect, which vanishes after staying in one place for a bit, this is possibly why it found him the second time.

One thing I've found frustrating about is the whole "we are not telling you whats in the rest of the game", "we are not telling you about any other gameplay mechanics", "no, we are not answering that question".

[newbeing]

One thing I've found frustrating about is the whole "we are not telling you whats in the rest of the game", "we are not telling you about any other gameplay mechanics", "no, we are not answering that question".

Understandable, but I mind it less than "Here is all the cool stuff that's going to be in the game" That is never actually in the final game.

I'm sure they're also saving up surprises for E3, Gamescom and whatever other conventions arrive this year.

[WinterActual]

Not good, but the game has another, 8-9 months until it's out? That is quite some time.

No, just 6. And we can count out the last month when the game is golden and they are distributing the DVDs and such.

[PRI. HUDSON]

Not good, but the game has another, 8-9 months until it's out? That is quite some time.

No, just 6. And we can count out the last month when the game is golden and they are distributing the DVDs and such.

Okay, so 5ish.

Man, I hope the stuff they have been showing was a little dated, but that video of the people going in before and after seemed promising. The girl in particular said she didn't want to play it again, as she found it stressful.