OK, I admit that I had not gotten around to playing Half Life 2 until now. (It's part of my post-book writing, pre-GDC ramp up.) I am not terribly far into it. I am alternating between riding my airboat (kinda fun!) and having to stop and do the various side-tasks.

So far the enemy AI is decent, although bland. (I'm playing on Normal, if that matters.) I've noticed a little ADD in the soldiers, however. They can sometimes forget where I am (or just was). If they are supposed to be looking for me, it isn't working.

Another annoyance was the rails that the background people are walking on. During some of the opening scenes, when I was in the middle of a large room, people would walk straight through me. At one point, I didn't notice what had happened right away other than that I was jostled out of the way. However, only about 15 seconds later, while I was standing in the same spot in the middle of the room, another person walked down that exact same line. I looked around a little to see if there was an obvious path that I was on but I didn't see one. It looked like they were simply going from one point of interest to another and didn't care that I was in the way.

Possible solutions involve the addition of a steering behavior on top of the standard pathfind. Even just the addition of a vocal cue of "excuse me" or "look out" would have softened the blow somewhat. Instead, the citizens came off as completely mindless.

On a positive note. The manhacks are convincing in their movements, though. They remind me of how difficult it is to control those little remote-control helicopters... which I suspect is the effect they were after.

(Remember to click on the tags below to see more about my observations of Half Life 2.)

Labels: Half Life 2, pathfinding, steering