1997 – Age of Empires
Early RTS games allowed the AI to cheat and grant itself free resources to challenge the player. Age of Empires was revolutionary for doing away with this method in favour of generally smart enemy tactics. It wasn’t always successful but the idea was a start.
1998 – Thief: The Dark Project
Seeing as a large majority of Thief’s narrative was divulged through non-scripted events and conversation’s, the AI had to be impressive for the time in order to achive this. Thief suceeded in this avenue, cementing it as one of the greatest games of all time.
1999 – Unreal Tournament
Unreal was a competitive online shooter and, whilst it was a blast online, many neglect quite how well the bots were programmed. With a variety of different and equally effective AI patterns, no two UT games were ever the same.
2000 – Perfect Dark
Though often neglected, the AI in Perfect Dark was a big step forward for console shooters. The game could be enjoyed as a run and gun, but enemies could respond tactically to situations by utilizing cover and supressing fire.
2001 – Black and White
From the way you had to handle creature training, to the reactions the villagers had to your deeds and misdemeanours, Black and White was an absolute mammoth leap forward for artificial intelligence in gaming.
