| rdfs:comment | - Artificial Intelligence. The golden dream of both game designers trying to make the next Killer App, and megalomaniacs attempting to build a viable Robot Army to Take Over the World. Artificial Brilliance is, quite simply, the ability of the computer characters to make the player think "Hey, these guys are actually pretty smart!" It occurs when the A.I.'s freeform actions, based on real-time decisions, result in behavior that seems, frankly, brilliant. It can be anything from an enemy that manages to outwit and outmanuever the player on the player's own terms and by the player's own rules, to an NPC ally who manages to assist and even save the player in ways that are unexpectedly helpful and seemingly smart. Just being able to react quickly and enter button combinations flawlessly doesn't
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| abstract | - Artificial Intelligence. The golden dream of both game designers trying to make the next Killer App, and megalomaniacs attempting to build a viable Robot Army to Take Over the World. Artificial Brilliance is, quite simply, the ability of the computer characters to make the player think "Hey, these guys are actually pretty smart!" It occurs when the A.I.'s freeform actions, based on real-time decisions, result in behavior that seems, frankly, brilliant. It can be anything from an enemy that manages to outwit and outmanuever the player on the player's own terms and by the player's own rules, to an NPC ally who manages to assist and even save the player in ways that are unexpectedly helpful and seemingly smart. Just being able to react quickly and enter button combinations flawlessly doesn't count, computers are naturally good at that; in fact, toning down a computer player's inhuman speed can be a facet of Artificial Brilliance. The polar opposite of Artificial Stupidity, when the A.I. makes unbelievably bad decisions that make the player think it's a complete moron. That doesn't mean Artificial Brilliance and Artificial Stupidity can't overlap, however. No A.I. is perfect, and glaring imperfections and mistakes can be all the more obvious in a game with A.I. that is generally impressively smart. Of course, it's a balancing act between an AI that is bad at the game and an AI that is too good at the game. The trick is allowing the AI to make human like mistakes while also allowing it to make human like brilliance. After all, in a first person shooter, the AI isn't really playing the game in the same way a human does. They don't actually have a mouse/keyboard to manipulate or have to watch a monitor. Thus it's an easy task to make an AI that always knows where you are and can hit you perfectly; it's not so easy to make an AI that can act like it doesn't know where you are and can act like it has reflexes. And as some of the examples below note (see the Half-Life example about greatest threat), sometimes being smart makes it dumb. Some games avert the issue by explicitly making the computer play a completely different game thus negating the need for the AI to present the illusion of competence equal to the player. For more discussion on AI's, see Video Game AI. Examples of Artificial Brilliance include:
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