Which shooter has the best enemy A.I?

[pauseandeffect]

FEAR for me. PITA for some of those missions espeecially when being chased by ghosts.

 

[The Wooster]

FEAR had some fantastic AI. As did the original Half Life (The combine never seemed to show as much awareness or ingenuity as the marines from the original. Perhaps that was deliberate)

 

[Ironsouled]

STALKER by far, they felt like real people, one of the very few games I've played where an enemy group made a tactical retreat.

That freaking killed me once. Perfect tac-retreat. I of course, followed straight into more buddies than I could handle.


Beyond Stalker...
Halo Reach had some annoyingly challenging enemies.
Fear in any of its iterations was fairly good, but (if we're counting it) Top Gun is my vote. Dogfighting isn't exactly a first person shooter, but the AI in that game were competent, sneaky, and made no bones about using comrades as meatshields and decoys. Mean, mean combat on the highest difficulty.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Any shooter with an A.I. that doesn't automatically see you through walls and smoke is a good A.I. to me.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Oblivion! The AI was so highly advanced that all npcs were part of an omnipresent hive-mind. This not only explains why guards in Anvil knew you stole a spoon in Burma the instance you did the deed, but also how they were instantly able to triangulate your position down to a nanometer.

In all seriousness, STALKER. Good god, the highest difficulty setting was a struggle, but oh so rewarding.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I'm going as well with F.E.A.R on this one.Best enemy AI I've encountered throughout all the FPS's I've played.

 

[TheEldestScroll]

ArmA 2 hands down. a little glitchy at times, but the AI is very very smart.

Even if they're smart, I can't really take them seriously with the hilarious voice acting.

haha yeah its awful. but if you play online you don't have to worry about horrific voice acting, and the enemy ai is still great.

 

[icame]

The A.I. In valkyria chronicles would repeatedly hand my ass to me on a silver platter. I loved every second of it.

 

[Tsaba]

ArmA 2 hands down. a little glitchy at times, but the AI is very very smart.

damn the Arma 2 ai and their accurate tactics... DAMN THEM I SAY!

 

[Cronq]

F.E.A.R.

Fights with the clones are the best parts of the game.

This get's my vote. They'd flank you, something so simple and yet barely any games have it. Most games the same guy will sit there behind the same cover and pop up for the same amount of time at the exact same intervals.

Also, those damn sideways running infected in L4D were pretty good.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

I agree with all the people saying Halo: Reach. The enemy AI is very good, going so far as to commander the turrets on empty warthogs to open fire on you. In Firefight the enemies are very persistent without all just bum rushing you at the same time. The reason the enemy AI works so much better than the allied one is that much of the enemy AI is based on complex plans they're given based on the scenario the player enters.

For example, near the end of the first level there's a sequence where you chase some Elite Zealots down a dark corridor filled with Grunts and Jackals. The Elites immediately fall back as you attack, but the Grunts and Jackals are more likely to panic if you can hit them hard and fast enough. This setup would be a weakness in a more open world game, but here it works very well. The allied AI has to rely on a more generic system, as they have to go for the entire course of the level and as such they have to use their basic programming. Or rather, this is the approach they used in Halo 3 and I have no reason to believe they radically altered it for Reach.

 

[Krantos]

Edit: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 also had pretty good AI. My friend and I always get flanked on terrorist hunt missions, and they usually move in small groups. However, they are sometimes pretty blind.

eh? what?

The number of times I've sat in a single spot in that game and just mowed down terrorists charging in through an obvious choke point?

Or the time I got shot by an enemy standing on the opposite side of a table my AI team mates were hiding behind?

Most times the enemy in that game comes across as efficient, not because they're intelligent, but because they exploit the awkwardness of the controls (i.e. shooting you when you're hiding in cover and can plainly see them, but can't shoot them because they're just outside of the arc you an aim in), or have superhuman reflexes (facing away from you yet still able to one shot you in the time it takes you to throw a grenade from cover).

It's one of those games I want to like, but is so unwieldy that I just can't stomach it for long.

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

I just love the Splinter Cell enemies. Their dialogue, A.I, personality, and quirky death positions.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576668559110813604/41AE553A745E4B1B963AB70A98DE00256A0DF9B4/

 

[Avatar Roku]

F.E.A.R.

Fights with the clones are the best parts of the game.

Beat me to it. I love FEAR. Several years old, and I've still not seen AI as good. Even in the godawful sequel.

Fun fact about FEAR's AI. Their AI was so good because...they didn't have the resources to script everything, so they worked around it. I love that.

 

[Nexus4]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, the fact that the AI is actually able to complete each game if set along the main quest is pretty impressive. And their combat skills are more than formidable, especially on higher difficulties where they start surrounding you in groups and gun you down from all sides. Animals travel and fight in packs, fleeing if they get wounded. Bloodsuckers who abuse their camo ability by phasing in, attacking once, then phasing back out again.

 

[wax88]

Yeah, Halo: Reach had good A.I, at least on the enemy side. The friendlies.... I can't even list the amount of controllers I've broke to Kat running over me or driving my vehicle off a cliff! Oh yeah, and Jorge was cool except for the fact he acted like a blind Heavy Weapons Guy and was good for little else then a meatshield.

If I remember correctly, the mission with Kat driving the Warthog is also the mission that there is the achievement of going the whole mission on foot.

I was attacking some intrenched grunts behind some fallen debris, when I heard the sound of the Warthog behind me and a second later Kat ran me and the grunts over and then proceeded to back up over my corpse. Oh, and that apparently counted as me being in a Warthog.

Reach's enemy AI can be good, but there are times on Legendary where it is like the enemies are psychic. I could be hidden somewhere out of sight, breathe in real life, and a grunt will say, "He's over there!"

that's bordering on cheating isn't it? granted it's legendary level but still...-looks at TV troupes' "computer is a cheating bastard"-http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard

anyways, kat's driving is legendarily horrendous, some attribute it to the AI, others like "beer baron" from nextgenwalkthroughs.com(now wikigameguides.com)attribute it to the fact that Kat is both AI and at the same time a female driver, and therefore doubly bad at driving, thus playing to the steroeptype that women cant drive.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Halo Reach for sure. Fighting the enemies is actually a challenge because of their intelligence in that game.

 

[Nemesis729]

The first F.E.A.R had great A.I.... Cant think of any others at the moment...

 

[urahara75]

I'm going to be the sacrificial lamb/black sheep and say (believe in or not) the Geth's AI in ME2, on any difficulty north of "Normal". They can get brutal during Tali's recruitment mission, where Geth Troopers and Rocket Troopers flank you in exhausting waves, while Destroyers (& a Prime or 2) attempt to riddle you with messy holes when you try to stop their counter-advance.