Video Games and Artificial Intelligence Research Paper

Video Games and Artificial Intelligence - Research Paper Example Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the gaming arena together, have been a sought after area of research since the discovery of AI. Even though, the main objective of the domain of AI which is of creating an interactive human like robot is far from the reality but the field has definitely revolutionized the world of video games, making them more life like and innovative ( Calero & Martin vii). Furthermore, the authors state that the video games provide an interactive real world environment to the player by depicting complex behavior, where perceptions are under total control, through the utilization of enhanced resolution of photo realization and state of the art multiprocessor architecture (vii). Before delving into the crux of AI and the components that drives this phenomenon, it would be a better idea to configure concept of what AI actually is and how it came about. Millington and Funge states that AI enables computers to perform task that human and animals are exclusively capable o f for instances, tasks such as sorting, arithmetic etc are solved easily by a computer system but for it to perform tasks such as face recognition, decision making and language compatibilities needs AI to develop algorithms to give the instructions to the underlying hardware as to what to do next (4). They further add that these algorithms are developed using either using the philosophical notion by retracing the trail of human thoughts or by using the psychological technique, through the process of understanding the human brain and the processes therein. Thirdly, the algorithms can also be engineered by configuring them to perform human-like tasks (4). Millington and Fudge say that the AI in game is divided into three sections: Movement, Decision making and strategy (4). Shedding light into the movement segment of an AI model, gives us a clear indication that in most of the games except the combat ones, the movement is related to path finding. Jones explain that in most of the game s integrating the path finding strategy, the main objective is to find a path between an arbitrary point A to another point B. In many game, multiple pathways exist between the two required points so constraints such as finding the shortest path or least cost exists (123). The authors illustrate this point by laying out a scenario in which multiple paths exists by considering two points separated by a hill, it is faster to take the path that round the hill that the one that goes up it, however it may prove to be an advantage for the player to go up the hill in terms of general progress of the game (123). Path finding, at certain times is actually searching for the shortest path that exists in a graph, in terms of games, a graph is a particular land route a gamer has to pass through. It consists of edges and nodes. Nodes are the points A and B that we discussed above and the path joining them are called edges, most of the time, these edges are weighted, giving them a measure of the d istance that they cover. In a graph we have multiple nodes and edges and to find a shortest path between two particular