I'm coming to think that AI allies in games are almost always a liability instead of an asset to gameplay. They basically break down into two categories:
1. Allies that play the game far worse than I would. Case in point: Advance Wars DS, which I was playing last night. In one of the campaign missions (those who've finished the campaign will know which one I'm talking about) your AI teammate needs to complete a mission-critical task before you yourself can complete a second mission-critical task. The mission has a limited number of turns, so efficiency is of the utmost importance. So given the choice between bombing a mission-critical black crystal, or bombing a nearby empty APC that has no offensive capability whatsoever, what does the AI teammate do? Of course it bombs the empty APC! Thanks, AI teammate! I also liked the fact that it kept building bombers even though a fighter (which bombers are defenseless against) was waiting in the space right next to the airport to blow them away.
1a. The corollary to this is helpless allies (usually female) that need to be "escorted." See Natalya in Goldeneye, and that girl in Ico. This is usually accounted for by making it "part of the gameplay," though.
2. Allies that are so efficient at what they do that they suck all the challenge out of the game. Case in point: Tales of Symphonia. God forbid I should actually take damage, because then my AI teammate will instantly summon a nurse that comes skipping across the field of battle, throwing health all over the place. Does that game even have a game-over screen? I don't remember.
I didn't seem to be able to tweak the AI into not holding my hand and making my controller manipulations completely superfluous whenever I went into battle, though!
At first I thought I had to think all the way back to Wing Commander 2 to come up with an AI teammate I was truly happy with (that Kilrathi wingman--don't remember his name). But Farah in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was excellent as well--her performance was sort of miraculous, actually. And I will begrudgingly grant you the squad AI in Freedom Fighters, though the most efficient way to clear out a room by far was to send all your squad members to the same spot in a clump and tell them to fire at anything that moved. And I rarely ever play sports games like Madden, etc.--maybe that's the one area where teammate AI has made significant advances.
But nine times out of ten, whenever a game saddles me with an AI teammate to "help me out," it either frustrates me because the game's made difficult in a way that I have to work around, or makes me feel that the game is so simple that I shouldn't even bother playing it.
1. Allies that play the game far worse than I would. Case in point: Advance Wars DS, which I was playing last night. In one of the campaign missions (those who've finished the campaign will know which one I'm talking about) your AI teammate needs to complete a mission-critical task before you yourself can complete a second mission-critical task. The mission has a limited number of turns, so efficiency is of the utmost importance. So given the choice between bombing a mission-critical black crystal, or bombing a nearby empty APC that has no offensive capability whatsoever, what does the AI teammate do? Of course it bombs the empty APC! Thanks, AI teammate! I also liked the fact that it kept building bombers even though a fighter (which bombers are defenseless against) was waiting in the space right next to the airport to blow them away.
1a. The corollary to this is helpless allies (usually female) that need to be "escorted." See Natalya in Goldeneye, and that girl in Ico. This is usually accounted for by making it "part of the gameplay," though.
2. Allies that are so efficient at what they do that they suck all the challenge out of the game. Case in point: Tales of Symphonia. God forbid I should actually take damage, because then my AI teammate will instantly summon a nurse that comes skipping across the field of battle, throwing health all over the place. Does that game even have a game-over screen? I don't remember.
A future poster in this thread said:
I didn't seem to be able to tweak the AI into not holding my hand and making my controller manipulations completely superfluous whenever I went into battle, though!
At first I thought I had to think all the way back to Wing Commander 2 to come up with an AI teammate I was truly happy with (that Kilrathi wingman--don't remember his name). But Farah in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was excellent as well--her performance was sort of miraculous, actually. And I will begrudgingly grant you the squad AI in Freedom Fighters, though the most efficient way to clear out a room by far was to send all your squad members to the same spot in a clump and tell them to fire at anything that moved. And I rarely ever play sports games like Madden, etc.--maybe that's the one area where teammate AI has made significant advances.
But nine times out of ten, whenever a game saddles me with an AI teammate to "help me out," it either frustrates me because the game's made difficult in a way that I have to work around, or makes me feel that the game is so simple that I shouldn't even bother playing it.