Killzone 2 pre-release discussion thread

[rounin]

Took a look already Great video

By the way, I'm just taking a look at the reviews now and came across this in the IGN AU review

We played several games hosted in Europe over a standard ADSL2+ connection and experienced little to no lag, which is excellent. There were also options to limit your game selections to your local region, which should please Aussies frustrated with a lack of local sorting in other multiplayer games. Sadly, we're not going to see vehicles in multiplayer from day one; there's a promise of a content patch coming, though, that should add these – as well as two-player co-op – before too long. Let's hope that's not just a hollow promise.

Does anyone know anymore of this?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm always skeptical about reviewers comments on AI. I think it's easy to see a lot of intelligence where there is little. For example flanking as I've seen mentioned a number of times in reviews can happen by coincidence.

Hopefully I am wrong because its been ages since I played a game where I felt the AI bar had really been raised.

 

[patsu]

Took a look already Great video

By the way, I'm just taking a look at the reviews now and came across this in the IGN AU review


Does anyone know anymore of this?

I won't bet on it. GG denied the rumor earlier.

I'm always skeptical about reviewers comments on AI. I think it's easy to see a lot of intelligence where there is little. For example flanking as I've seen mentioned a number of times in reviews can happen by coincidence.

Hopefully I am wrong because its been ages since I played a game where I felt the AI bar had really been raised.

Uncharted has pretty good path finding, dodging and flanking AI.

Besides "regular" combat AI, KZ2 has bots and mini-bosses. One of their AI programmers wrote an AI article on the web too. Let me find it.

EDIT:

Demoes of KZ2 AI:

Video interview on KZ2 AI:
[gt]43458[/gt]

The article I mentioned is here: http://aigamedev.com/reviews/crysis-animation-integration
(Alex J. Champandard worked in RockStar, and then went on to program AI for KZ2)

Incidentally, ThreeSpeech had an AI article series here:
Part I: Autonomy -- http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/11/intelligent-design-where-is-ai-going-part-one-autonomy/
Part II: Perception -- http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/11/intelligent-design-where-is-ai-going-part-two-perception/
Part III: Appearance and Deception -- http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/11...ai-going-part-three-appearance-and-deception/
Part IV: Navigation -- http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/11/intelligent-design-where-is-ai-going-part-four-navigation/
Part V: Unpredictability -- http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/11/intelligent-design-where-is-ai-going-part-five-unpredictability/


KZ2 may have the budget, time and talent to realize many innovations. Whether people notice and recognize them is another question altogether.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'll check all that out when I get home, patsu. Looks like they've put in a lot of effort, so I hope the AI really is good.

 

[patsu]

Yup, we all know AI is not like algebra. They have to hit the right balance for most gamers to like the implementation.

I am keen to toy with the AI myself to see how convincing, seamless and challenging they can get. e.g., In the video demo above, how the enemy knew his destroyed cover is no longer suitable for hiding, and he went on to find a big enough one.

Right now, my favorite AI is Uncharted.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I got invited to play KZ2 3 weeks before release at a cinema through PSN, its on the information board thingy, just a heads up.

 

[patsu]

When's the exact date ?

EDIT: The US Info Bar has different content.

 

[Cornsnake]

Took a look already Great video

By the way, I'm just taking a look at the reviews now and came across this in the IGN AU review


Does anyone know anymore of this?

There was talk about possibly adding co-op through a patch a while back. But later it was said that adding co-op wasn't possible because the game was designed around 1 player.

I think IGN AU are still going by old information. If there is a patch with co-op coming, we would have heard more about it by now.

 

[rounin]

Bah.

 

[RudeCurve]

The AI for finding cover when cover has been destroyed is very cool, but there is at least one other game that I've personally played where the AI does that too, still impressive nonetheless. That part where they talk about the AI crouching down when the cover gets small isn't really AI it's just a function of which animatiion sets to trigger with different sized cover.

 

[tha_con]

I think both AI and animation are tied together, afterall, something has to tell the enemy how to react when the cover explodes.

Hopeful for the AI, though honestly, It really doesn't matter to me. As long as the game presents some fun, that's all I care about. If the AI is mobile, and moves, and uses cover some of the time, that's all I need.

Uncharted gave me just about as much as I could handle when it came to amazing AI, I need a break, you know, until the next Uncharted game comes out (or I finally decide to replay it on crushing to get that stupid trophy).

 

[patsu]

The AI for finding cover when cover has been destroyed is very cool, but there is at least one other game that I've personally played where the AI does that too, still impressive nonetheless. That part where they talk about the AI crouching down when the cover gets small isn't really AI it's just a function of which animatiion sets to trigger with different sized cover.

If you read this article I linked to above: http://aigamedev.com/reviews/crysis-animation-integration
you'd see how they are related. It's all part of the same scheme to create an illusion of smarts.




Aye, I agree. Fun is the top priority.

 

[temesgen]

Has anyone seen articles revealing how Killzone is handling AI? Is it being handled by the SPEs or is the core running the AI? I ask because one of the long term negative talking points about Cell has been that AI can't be done on the SPEs so I really am curious how the developer has achieved such great AI if this is an area of weakness for the PS3.

 

[Nano]

Has anyone seen articles revealing how Killzone is handling AI? Is it being handled by the SPEs or is the core running the AI? I ask because one of the long term negative talking points about Cell has been that AI can't be done on the SPEs so I really am curious how the developer has achieved such great AI if this is an area of weakness for the PS3.

The A.I is being handled on the PPE.

A.I can be done on SPEs, but the limited branch prediction capabilities, the data structures suited to these vector processors and such aren't considered as ideal for realistic A.I. When A.I is handled on SPEs, it tends to be for primitive A.I i.e. when displaying huge crowds on screen (showing 'some' behaviour), more complex A.I for smaller groups that actually interact with the player tends to be processed on the PPE.

I'm always skeptical about reviewers comments on AI. I think it's easy to see a lot of intelligence where there is little. For example flanking as I've seen mentioned a number of times in reviews can happen by coincidence.

Hopefully I am wrong because its been ages since I played a game where I felt the AI bar had really been raised.

I feel A.I is probably the least exploited area in games this generation.

 

[patsu]

I feel A.I is probably the least exploited area in games this generation.

Off topic, but Eye of Judgment has a soft spot in my heart. The merciless card game AI + computer vision beat the crap out of me numerous times.

 

[vanquish]

Yeah, the Eurogamer review suggests that the real star of Killzone 2 is the AI, since the HGHs have very dynamic and unpredictable behaviours. The higher difficulty settings are said to be utterly brutal and relentless in terms of AI tenacity and resilience.

Is the AI really that special? Or is it just good animation making above average shooter AI seem exceptional? Far Cry 1 had enemies that could flank you well.

And I hate COD4's AI, very stupid and very cheap.
I wonder how KZ2's AI compares to stuff like Halo 3 , GoW2, Crysis, Uncharted etc.

 

[shadowstryker19]

i dont want to seem like im spaming since i basically just said this in the r2 thread but, i already have k2 pre-ordered and i play a bunch of ps3 games like r2 and LBP so feel free to add me, my psn ID is this SN and ill be playing k2 once that comes out

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Right now, my favorite AI is Uncharted.

Imo Uncharted AI is highly overrated.

All it does flank you and take cover (some select few stay behind cover, most of the time scripted). Its not exactly hard to make decent pathfinding skills. It also makes the game easier as third person + cover + semi accurate blind fire + uzi = easy mode

F.E.A.R. is what? 3 years old and does everything Uncharted does and much more.

AI in general thought (even in FEAR) are rather simple and stupid thought, a testamony of this is how difficulty settings work in 99% of all games: instead of having the AI behaving smarter, they just upp the AI's accuracy, damage and reaction time. They still do the same dumb things, they just get much more effective at it.

 

[patsu]

Is the AI really that special? Or is it just good animation making above average shooter AI seem exceptional?

The contribution is bi-directional *if* they managed to flesh out Alex Champandard's idea in that writeup. We won't know for sure until they say something.

Far Cry 1 had enemies that could flank you well.

Halo and R1 did too.
For now.... all we know is something like this: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/killzone-2-review?page=2

For the most part, they attack in squads. They'll flank you. They'll use grenades to flush you out. They'll take it in turns to keep you busy with suppressing fire, then wait for you to reload and rush your position. Die, restart and take a different approach, try a different angle of attack, and you'll see the enemy reacting to your actions rather than simply popping out of the same cover spots like sideshow ducks. The landscape may not change as often as some would like, you're battling the same enemies from the start of the game through to the end, and there are few obvious set-piece moments, but that's because the gameplay itself is the set-piece. Battling your way across Salamun Bridge may not sound particularly amazing in theory, but in practice it's the sort of seriously meaty tactical challenge that too few shooters bother with these days.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It seems much of the quote that Patsu posted above me was first seen in the original Half-Life.

1. Using grenades to flush you out. Check.
2. Flanking. Check.
3. Acting in squads, somewhat check. You were never usually attacked by more than 1 squad but they tended to act in tandem. IE - while one threw grenades and used gunfire to draw your attention the others would work to flank you.

Waiting for you to reload before rushing. Didn't have that though. But then in the flash and noise of constant fighting how in the world will you hear another guy reloading? If it waits until a pause in the gunfire, then you could trick them like you could a normal person.

However if it's just code that checks to see if a player has initiated a reload, I'd call that cheating rather than good AI.

Regards,
SB