multiplayer games with CPU Opponents?

[kisrael]

I'm kind of fascinated by Atari games that were multiplayer but then could have a computer opponent - those must be some of the earliest commercial forms of AI out there!

And the AI is more impressive when the computer is having to play a game the same way a human would - generally the movement etc is more freeform than with the enemies in regular games.

 

What are some impressive examples?

* Warlords

* Ice Hockey (Activision)

* Boxing (Activision)

* Pelés Soccer

 

My own JoustPong/FlapPing homebrew did this - actually one of the things I like about the game is that it's easy to make a good but not great oponnent.

 

(I was thinking about building up a computer opponent in Loaded4Bear as well but am a little intimidated by it)

 

In modern games, I'm impressed with the computer players in the Mario Party series-- they had to figure out how to build fake players for a wide variety of games...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Some people have praised Gunfight for its AI.

[fiddlepaddle]

I know it's not multiplayer, but I've always been impressed that someone was able to program Chess on the Atari.

[kisrael]

Thomas, great point.... I'd love for Loaded4Bear to get an opponent like that, similar sense of frantic-ness.

 

And yeah chess in 128 bytes is fricking crazy amazing

[+FujiSkunk]

All of Atari's RealSports and "Super" sports games offer computer-controlled opponents. For the most part they play fairly well, and some even have different degrees of difficulty. I think RealSpots Volleyball and RealSports Soccer are particularly good examples, while RealSports Baseball and Super Baseball can go jump in a lake.

[+wongojack]

Gunfight is what I thought of when I read the title of this thread.

 

I don't see Video Olympics mentioned. I could swear there was at least 1 game with a one player mode that was pretty good in there.

[kisrael]

One game that kinda has the feel, even though it's not multiplayer, is Tron Deadly Discs - yeah, the enemies are constrained so that they don't cross the same space horizontally, but it feels like you're dueling 3 dudes with capabilities similar to your own.

 

Frogs and Flies! I can't think of many other games that had the CPU say "oh, no one else playing this guy? I'll start in then"

 

What other non-sport games? And it doesn't have to be multiplayer per se, but just having the enemies fairly symmetrical to the player...

[RamrodHare]

Fishing Derby. If there was one game I'd like to see have a decent AI, it's Combat. I love playing it, but it's very rare for me to ever have anyone willing to play against me. Not that I'm good, it's just there's never anyone else here.

[kisrael]

Ha, 2 years later and I finally added Loaded4Bear to this list - https://alienbill.com/loaded4bear/

[RamrodHare]

That's awesome! I'll be playing this for a while. Still like to see Combat get some love.?

[davyK]

The Warlords AI isn't that hot to be honest though my experience was with the PAL version which might have been broken. Medieval Mayhem has far better AI.

 

Fishing Derby provides a decent opponent but I'm not sure many action games got decent AI. The vs CPU modes in Video Olympics and Surround leave a lot to be desired - not sure why they even bothered. Hard to imagine getting good AI built into the few cycles available for computing between frames!!!

 

 

EDIT: Realsports Tennis has a good 1P mode. Activision Tennis too.

 

Othello, Checkers, 3D Tic Tac Toe etc can give a good challenge but they don't have framerates to worry about.

 

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by davyK