The Intelligence Game

Prepare yourself for a new generation of games featuring new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, all made possible by the power of Xbox 360™. What is artificial intelligence, you ask? Artificial intelligence—A.I. for short—is the implementation of complex decision-making routines in software.

Brilliant engineers from game development studios all over the globe have created A.I. procedures to run on Xbox 360 that make in-game characters think for themselves before your eyes.

With the massive computing power of Xbox 360,
designers can make worlds come alive.

With sophisticated A.I., non-player characters (NPCs) can behave in realistic ways:

• Enemies duck, dodge, and hide from your attacks.
• Opponents work together in groups to thwart your plans.
• Computer-controlled bots mimic human behavior and follow their own agendas.
• Scenes rarely play out the same way twice.

Not only are your enemies more cunning, but your friends are more reliable. Now you can coordinate your actions with computer-controlled allies; play with and control groups of NPCs like they were comrades. As fantastic as that sounds, this is only a taste. Read on to learn more.

Confront cunning, intelligent enemies in Gears of War.

Thinking Power
Artificial intelligence as applied to games is not new. According to Chris Satchell, General Manager of the Game Developers Group at Microsoft, A.I. has been studied in academia for years. Since the coin-op days of Pac-Man, developers have invented clever ways to make your onscreen enemies "think" for themselves. This behavior previously consisted of simple pre-scripted patterns, where your foes would follow a path and then deviate from it when they detected your presence.

"Now you've got enough power to run 500 NPCs ... you get
experiences in games that you've never seen before."

Almost 20 years later, developers are still using the same old tricks. Why? As graphics have become more realistic, console hardware has evolved to keep up with the public's demand for intense visuals. At the same time, NPCs have largely stayed the same dim-witted bots they've always been, as A.I. is often an afterthought.

Fight against sexier, deadlier opponents.

According to Satchell, "The processing model we've chosen on the CPU is, as you know, three symmetric cores. Most people start their applications to run on just one core—that's really been the paradigm up until now. We knew we were making a paradigm shift and adding some difficulty to the developers' lives."

Satchell further explained, "What we wanted them to be able to do was to take these big sections of their code and run it on another core as easily as possible, and the way you do that is by making all the cores identical and symmetrical. If you want to take your A.I., for instance, and you want to put that onto the second core, then you can spend a lot more cycles doing something more interesting."

Rather than forcing the main processor to handle multiple jobs, the additional cores can take on the work. Because they're not encumbered with calculating lighting, rendering, or player stats, the other cores can be put to work to make NPCs quickly scrutinize their present situations, and react in intelligent ways.

The More the Merrier
Sheer graphical prowess is nothing without control, and it takes an entire team of talented programmers, artists, level designers, writers, and musicians to make a game world come alive. Current games can place you into a world where at any given moment you might find yourself surrounded by a dozen or more other characters.

While it works within the context of current hardware limitations, it's unrealistic when compared to an actual cityscape. With the massive computing power of Xbox 360, designers can make worlds come alive.

You're either with us, or against us.

Mr. Satchell painted a vivid picture of what gamers can expect on Xbox 360. "I love it when you take an NPC and give it some really simple rules -- by itself, it looks okay -- then you put 10 of them together and the interaction makes things start to look interesting. Then you put 100 of them together, then you put 500 of them together ... the emergent behavior is really amazing."

The NPCs not only react to you, but to each other. "You plug in some really simple things [A.I. rules]—fleeing behavior, avoidance, fright—you put these emotions in and you run it with 30 NPCs, you get one type of behavior. You run it with 500 NPCs, and you get a film. You see a scene and now you've got enough processing power to run 500 NPCs, with enough processing power to render them and to do collision for them, you get experiences in games you've never seen before."

What was once a serene city block is transformed into a riot almost instantaneously. Scripted sequences, while appropriate for many situations, just doesn't cut the mustard in creating a situation like this. The massive sense of scale—the sheer sense of chaos—is best handled by A.I. on the fly.

Looking Ahead
The sophisticated artificial intelligence made possible on Xbox 360 must be seen in action to be completely appreciated. Check out some of these Xbox 360 titles, peruse the ample selection of gorgeous screenshots, and preview the videos to get a glimpse at the future of entertainment.

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion™
• Perfect Dark Zero™
• Condemned: Criminal Origins™
• Call of Duty® 2
  

Article by Jim W. Gettys