Pac-Man
For a game made in 1980, Pac-Man had it going on. It stands to rights as the biggest grossing game ever made, and this is certainly down to the awesome ghost AI. Sure, they chased you around the screen, but it was more than that. For an artificial intelligence that is over thirty years old, those ghosts still give you a run for your money. Working in packs to hunt you down and cutting off your escape routes was the least of what they did, making Pac-Man an exhilarating experience every time.
Façade
Façade is an interesting take on the graphic novel genre, with players being invited over to the house of a couple who are in the midst of a crumbling relationship. Rather than playing out in a linear fashion however, Façade tasks players with typing out full sentences of what to say or do that the game then interprets and reacts to. The amazing thing about it is that it actually works. The complexity of reacting to full human speech makes you wonder what kind of monster AI powers Façade.
FEAR
FPS games always say on the back of the box that they have “improved AI,” but there is honestly only one game that I ever felt truly lived up to this claim: FEAR. So I’ve been breezing through the game for about an hour, until I encounter a particularly savage looking group of foes. They all dive to cover and one attempts to put on suppressing fire while the others scurry around like ants in a nest. Pretty standard, so I’m ducking back into cover to reload ready for the next shot, when two guys from the group burst out of a nearby air vent and proceed to kick my ass. I didn’t see that one coming. FEAR’s AI was miraculous for a game released in 2005, and it still kicks the crap out of the artificial intelligence in most games nowadays.
