As you might have guessed, we're really busy guys. As such, we can't be expected to actually play the video games we write about. We dish out thousands of dollars every year to get local work release program participants to handle the grunt work for us -- but if a recent entry in the Mario AI Competition is any indication, we may soon be able to keep that cash in our wallets, opting for computer-assisted gaming instead.
Posted after the break is a video demo of the entry in question -- designed by artificial intelligence programmer Robin Baumgarten, this computer script effortlessly pushes the plump plumber through the hazardous environments of Super Mario World. It handles the game's challenges much better than our prisoner assistants -- and best of all, it definitely won't try to stab us in our sleep.
Yeah, it really is a good idea. People make things easier on themselves in games all the time (see: strategy guides, FAQs, cheats, etc.), so this is basically just the ultimate assistance.
And just like those other things, it will always be entirely possible to play a game without ever using this feature.
You no longer have to play your games. You can turn it on, press start and then go out and do whatever. Come back a few hours later, and you can say you beat the game. Congrats on being a loser.
...except you can't. If you didn't play it, you didn't beat it. It's like having a friend come over and help you with it. He's the one who beat it for you, you get no bragging rights.
are you one of those gamers that brag about beating a game with your own pure hardwork? i beat games without using cheats or gamefaqs all the time (except for a few exceptions of course) and i just moved on with another game without bragging about beating the game honestly.
you see, the reason some ppl hate this nintendo demo play thing so much is that it really hurts them when a 10-year old could beat the same game as they did. no more bragging to your lil bro about being able to beat the game, eh? get a life.
Well, at no point did I say, "Brag". It's more like, I have all these games... and I still need to beat them. I put time into playing a game, and now I can check it off, and move onto my next game.
I really don't care about achievements or trophies... aren't those bragging rights? Completing the game is different than spend hours trying to kill 10,000 enemies to showoff that you did.
Secondly, the comment about 10years old not being able to beat Ninja Gaiden.. It's rated Mature in the first place. Usually that is a good indicator of the age required to comprehend what is going on in a game and how to play it.
Yeah I like beating games on my own. That is why I don't use strategy guides... it takes sooo long to beat a game sometimes but is certainly worth! I wouldn't let the AI beat the game for me...
Personally demo play doesn't bother me so long as the game records the number of times you've used it. It's not different from games having hard and easy levels and achievements. So long as you are rewarded for not using it I'm fine.
"This is based on Infinite Mario ( http://www.mojang.com/notch/mario/ ). In this version, walljumps are possible (you can see Mario climbing out of a hole)."
Apparently, this spambot doesn't agree with the idea of AIs spending all their time playing videogames, when they could be making money in advertising.
To make an AI script that can play and win is one thing (and an accomplishment of it's own, for sure), but good AI programming is really about making the computer play while displaying (some of) both the limitations and the ingenuity of a living player. If we're going to have our games play themselves, I'd rather they didn't just speedrun through it. Of course, I'm not sure what the goal of this AI competition was so I'm certainly not passing judgement.
After watching the video, I totally knew what algorithm he was running before even reading his page. Looks like that college education is finally playing off... well, kinda.
