Let’s Play Rock of Ages 2 #08: On the Curious Quirks of AI
160This is a blind playthrough. Kindly avoid posting spoilers in the comments or solutions to puzzles either in this video or future ones so as not to spoil the experience for me or those that haven’t seen the game before.
On more than one occasion in the first game, we were witness to our opponents getting stuck. The first instance was likely because the AI was up against a small ledge that I’d placed a line of explosives atop of. The AI was likely coded not to willingly jump into explosives but it was also coded to keep trying to push forward at all times. This meant that it kept wanting to jump over the ledge but knew it wouldn’t gain the height to get over the explosives and thus remained stuck. Why it didn’t decide to back up to gain speed is a mystery. The second instance was right at the end of the game and rather similar, with the AI trying to jump to an island of land covered in explosives that it wanted to avoid, resulting in it plummeting off the stage.
For the most part, the AI in the sequel has been a lot better, both on the defensive and offensive. They try to adapt to your defences, often seeking a shortcut to circumvent them. This makes placing defences at points that they can’t avoid even more important to ensure that you buy yourself those extra seconds and bits of damage to their boulder which reduces the harm dealt to your gates. That said, the AI in this game still has its quirks and though they surface less often, they’re even more interesting when they do.
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