Stolen Pixels #184: Dead Faction

[Al_]

I didn't quite get the nano-bots. Sure, the gun was rather nifty, but why, all of a sudden, when slotted into a missile, did they eat a whole battle cruiser rather just a little bit of it? A tank could take quite a few hits from it before evaporating. Again, like with the black hole bombs, if it actually worked the way it was described, a single shot should have eaten Mars, surely?

 

[Abnaxus]

I don`t know why but I recommend you to play STALKER ( Call of Pripyat is the most polished) because there you would find a game that has atmosphere and a really well balanced gameplay !

 

[Eatspeeple]

I recall multiple occasions where I would be involved in an indoor gunfight and I would suddenly lose morale because some people outside joined me and then dived under a truck.
Seems odd that the game would penalize the player for something fully beyond their control.Makes me wonder if anyone on the dev team realised how crap the AI was before they released the game.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I don`t know why but I recommend you to play STALKER ( Call of Pripyat is the most polished) because there you would find a game that has atmosphere and a really well balanced gameplay !

While that is true, it's not really relevant to Red Faction's bad AI. But now that I'm thinking about it, I've realized that I haven't actually seen the AI in Call of Pripyat do anything really stupid (yet). The only thing I can recall that was "stupid" was a group of Duty soldiers deciding to kill Freedom members, and then immediately being torn apart by some Buerers after they won. But that wasn't really bad AI design so much as an unfortunate series of events. Though I'm sure as I spend more time with them I'll begin to notice their stupidity.

On-Topic: Yes, the AI in Red Faction was pretty bad. I had a similar situation with the bridge you mentioned. Whilst attempting to blow it up my followers just wouldn't leave me alone. Then they caught the attention of an EDF patrol, and things only went downhill from there. By that point I didn't care if they were standing on the bridge. I was going to blow it up anyways.

 

[Gentelman Jim]

I feel your pain, an NPC that tried to deliver a truck to me while I was on foot exploring (and not even WANTING the truck)managed to run me over twice in the process of getting it as close to me as the AI thought I wanted it to be, and then the game called ME an asshole for attaching a demo mine to his head and smacking him with the sledgehammer.

EDIT: I also intend to use the kiloawesome scale to measure things in the future.

 

[cyber_andyy]

I barely had any problems with moral or NPCs. Any Moral you lose can be gained by getting an easy as pie kill streak.

Also I never really had many AI problems. The teammates went away after the alert went to green anyways.

 

[Exocet]

I found that finding a big mech,walking to a rebel hideout and smashing every thing was the most fun I had in the game.The mech with a jetpack is particularly awesome because it has a jetpack,so you can fly up,land on the roof of a building and smash through like the fucking kool-aid man,rampaging inside like an enraged rhino.
Also,attaching demo charges to their faces was fun.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

Why do game designer forget to have the AI stay the fuck out of the player's way?
HL2 suffered from this as well, the number of times those bloody antlions set off an explosion and killed me. >:/

Atleast in BFBC2 you can actually walk into the AI and they'll just move no matter what so you're not stuck behind them (plus they don't die which is awful for realism but good for not getting frustrated to all hell).

 

[fesc]

The AI in this game is priceless.

 

[Burst6]

Damn allies. Sometimes a little bit of morale is worth it.

Also when a large building is standing up on 2 thin sticks that make no gravitational sense, and I'm about to knock them down, walking into the building is a BAD idea.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I haven't played Red Faction, but come on let's be honest if it wasn't for NPC stupidity what would we have to laugh at?

 

[chris11246]

Yea the AI can be pretty bad but its not worse than just trying to play the game on pc. The aim is horrible, the mouse movement laggs all the time, and if a building goes down the whole game laggs. I have a good gaming computer which should easily handle the game but its broken on pc. (it looks good tho)

 

[Grand_Poohbah]

I honestly think the ability to choose your side would have made that game much more fun.

 

[Death on Trapezoids]

Yes, it sucks when the AI decides that the best place of residence for your "helpers" is on the front of you hammer/vehicle, but moral is so laughably easy to raise (and EDF buildings drop lots of scrap anyway) that it was never really a problem for me.

Also, if you get out of range of your helpers by grabbing a vehicle, you can sometimes get away before they are killed.

This is what I generally do. However, one occasion sticks in my mind:
I was being followed by a scout car with a machine gun on the top. I had stopped to switch vehicles, and the one near my previous one conveniently stopped and a dude hopped out to help me. I was seconds away from hopping in and speeding away when the guy shouts "mason needs help!", whips out an assult rifle, and starts hammering on the scout car. Realising that he would probably be run down, I blew up the scout car and drove away.

 

[Metal Brother]

@Shamus - I don't know if you'll take this as a positive or a negative, but your coverage of Red Faction in Stolen Pixels has convinced me to buy the game. I can't wait to blow up stupid people. ;-)

 

[CaptainLudicrous]

If you could fight with the EDF in Red Faction, Mason would make a great Cowboy Cop. Let's cause some property damage!

 

[RelexCryo]

The wookies on Imperial Kashyyk suffer from the same problem in The Force Unleashed. However, you aren't penalized for killing them, and you can

*spoiler* turn to the darkside.

That said, I agree with Metal Brother,

@Shamus - I don't know if you'll take this as a positive or a negative, but your coverage of Red Faction in Stolen Pixels has convinced me to buy the game. I can't wait to blow up stupid people. ;-)

Blowing up stupid AI does sound like fun.

 

[Orzene]

I applaud their deaths.. I guess that would be the equivalent of assisted suicide... HURRAY!!!!