Rubberband AI
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Rubberband AI is a simple form of artificial intelligence that is used in most racing and sports video games, in particular, those of the "kart racing" genre. It is used to give games a challenge level that adapts to the skill of the player, making opposing computer-controlled opponents less competitive when the player falls behind or more competitive when the player takes the lead. It is often a derogatory term because the technique has little to do with "intelligence" and more to do with "upgrading" the opponents' base properties such as speed, agility, and a few others.
In racing games, Rubberband AI involves increasing or decreasing the speed of the opponents vehicles. If the player falls behind, the opposing cars will slow down, thus giving the player some ability to catch up and remain competitive in the game; but if the player takes the lead, the opposing cars will speed up, even beyond the top speed that they should otherwise be capable of going, so that the player cannot gain an insurmountable lead. The technique is often used in kart and combat racing games, most of which feature weapons to attack other drivers; as such, it prevents players in the lead from putting enough distance between them and the opponent behind them to get out of firing range. As a result players are often punished for good racing skills; instead games of this type favor combat skills, or pure luck to win. Often the best tactic is to simply drive safely through the bulk of the race, saving up weapons and turbos (if available), then going all out on the last lap or final stretch of the race. This essentially makes the majority of the race meaningless, and is a major criticism of rubberband AI. This does not only apply to CPU opponents; often multiplayer games use the rubberband effect to keep the race close. While it may keep the race consistently exciting, the same criticisms apply as it may cause the technically better player to lose because of an unfair handicap.
Many critics also pointed out that rubberband AI is also an undocumented feature of more "legitimate" football titles such as the Madden NFL series.
[edit] Forms
One form of rubberband AI also has the computer controlled cars trying to finish the race in a certain order; if one car has a spill and falls back a few places, it will speed up in order to regain its position, and other cars will allow it to pass instead of trying to keep their new position. In games that feature a circuit style tournament, points are awarded based on the ranks that each car finishes in. By having the cars finish in a particular order, a favored car collects the most points, forcing the player to win most—if not all—of the races in order to win the circuit. If a favored car has a spill near the end of the race, causing them to fall in the point standings, then the AI will change to favor the cars that overtake them in the standings; therefore, whoever has the most points will try to finish first. In essence, all the computer controlled cars conspire against the player by helping one specific opponent to win most of the races, and gain more points in the standings.
As mentioned above, rubberband AI can also be found in some arcade-style sports games as well. Sports game rubberband AI works by either altering the abilities or skills of the teams involved or by causing a higher-than-probable number of occurences of a potentially game-breaking event (a timely turnover or injury). It should be noted that this feature can be turned off in some games. For example, the arcade version of NBA Hangtime allowed the operator to disable rubberband AI in order to allow for a result based on skill alone.
