"From very early on in production, the team realised that in order to achieve superior AI, the characters in the game needed to be aware of how to use their environment. "You can build an intelligent AI, but in truth what you really have to do is build an intelligent world around the AI," says Far Cry's producer, Christopher Natsuume: "The AI has to know what is in the universe around him. What can I do? Where can I go? Is that a car there? Can I fix it? Is that a tree? I'll hide behind it. Because each character in the game has a certain behaviour, they know how to react with these things."
We watched a scout and a cover guard move around a specially created level and it was eerie the way they both handled the environment in different ways. The guard glided from one tree to another staying covered the whole time. The scout on the other hand was not so concerned with cover. His mission quite clearly was to get from A to B as quickly as possible.
BIN THE SCRIPT
Another intriguing aspect of Far Cry is its lack of scripted set pieces. Even when the action is bigger, louder and more cinematic than usual, the CryENGINE is generating it all on the fly. In most shooters, a situation where an enemy scout spots you and then runs to a radio to call for an airstrike would almost certainly be scripted.
In Far Cry it's a different story. As the scout has the intelligence to know that if he attempts to shoot you he will almost certainly die, he takes the next best option and goes for help. Next thing you know, paratroopers are sliding down a rope from a helicopter hovering just above the trees.
Some of the things the enemy does are truly unbelievable. When stalking a group of six soldiers we witnessed one of them run to a jeep, jump in and then drive off. Another two threw themselves on the ground in sheer panic, and the other three rolled instantly into the forest and began flitting from one tree to another taking pot shots.
Working out what the enemy is going to do next proved virtually impossible, you can't even predict how they act when they die. Some of them go for the full on gurgling, arms flung back Oscar performance. Others just slump head forward onto their chest. The events in Far Cry seem more random than the National Lottery. And as Mr Natsuume explains: "Every time we play Far Cry something different happens because the AI is actually responding to what we're doing in his environment."
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Laatst bewerkt: 24 feb 2003