AI: Hollow Promises
I've never done a scientific study regarding the most commonly mentioned feature on a game box, but if I did invest the time and money to do one, I bet "advanced AI" would come out on top.  No matter the game genre or theme, publishers love to promise that their game has somehow taken enemy artificial intelligence to a new stratum.  And you know what?  I really haven't felt like any game advanced artificial intelligence since Half-Life.

What's going on here?  Are the new levels of AI so advanced that they somehow subvert our conscious?  Are enemies so wise that they just pretend to play dumb?  I don't think so.  What's happened is that "advanced AI" has come to mean absolutely nothing.  Believe me, when was the last time you finished playing a game and said, "Wow, the AI in this game was fantastic! I mean, I can't believe how smart the enemy were."    Exactly.  That’s my point.   The AI in games today is competent, but it certainly isn't anything that should be promoted to no end on every game box.

Part of the problem involves the fact that developers have to re-write enemy artificial intelligence from scratch for most games.  That doesn't make sense, does it?  When you think about it, enemy AI is almost the same in every game – the foes should work together as a team, run through available options of attack, and then pick one.   But that never happens.   Some RTS games present reasonably interesting attack patterns from the opposition, but first person shooters and flight sims still lack any real sense of enemy wit, in part because it takes the developers months to write AI that is competitive with other games out there.  That's wasted time.  Developers should spent time improving AI through an iterative process that builds on previous work.  Some developers do this on sequels and such, but most don’t.

Nevertheless, expect marketers to continue to promote "advanced new enemy intelligence."  Just remember what it means on a box: absolutely nothing.