I have been trying to decide which game engine to use for my new project. I have not used Unreal before for AI and was wondering if anyone with previous experience using it could help me decide. I am working on a zombie style game for a client and need to know if unreal would be good for an open world type zombie game. is the AI out of the box good enough to figure out player position and melee attack them or does it need alot of scripting to achieve this? Any thoughts/suggestions here would be greatly appreciated.

Considering that:

• "figuring out the player position" is a world data query,
  
• movement to that position is somewhere between a "rotate to face" and a pathfind, and
  
• "melee attack them" is an animation change based on proximity (which is also simply world data),
  
  I'm going to say that your requirements list is likely satisfied in any engine.
  
  Since you seem a bit new (I might be wrong), you might want to consider simply going with Unity instead like all the cool kids are doing these days (including me for many things).

Most of the AI stuff you would like to achieve would have to be done with UnrealScript. Here is a good site for intermediate-advanced UnrealScript tutorials, specifically this is the AIController tutorial: http://www.moug-portfolio.info/index.php?page=ai-pawns

Considering that:

• "figuring out the player position" is a world data query,
  
• movement to that position is somewhere between a "rotate to face" and a pathfind, and
  
• "melee attack them" is an animation change based on proximity (which is also simply world data),
  
  I'm going to say that your requirements list is likely satisfied in any engine.
  
  Since you seem a bit new (I might be wrong), you might want to consider simply going with Unity instead like all the cool kids are doing these days (including me for many things).
  

I would try Unity but everything i have seen of it just looks too cartoony. i like the real look you get from unreal and cryengine

[quote name='IADaveMark' timestamp='1340980519' post='4953967']
Considering that:

• "figuring out the player position" is a world data query,
  
• movement to that position is somewhere between a "rotate to face" and a pathfind, and
  
• "melee attack them" is an animation change based on proximity (which is also simply world data),
  
  I'm going to say that your requirements list is likely satisfied in any engine.
  
  Since you seem a bit new (I might be wrong), you might want to consider simply going with Unity instead like all the cool kids are doing these days (including me for many things).
  

I would try Unity but everything i have seen of it just looks too cartoony. i like the real look you get from unreal and cryengine
[/quote]

The look of the final product has nothing to do with the engine really, (some effects might be easier to create in some engines than in others though), The main reason alot of Unity games look "bad" is that they use the free version (Which doesn't support dynamic shadows or render to texture, thus preventing some effects from being used) and are using amateur artists(Who don't produce the high quality assets you need for a good looking game) professional games made with Unity can look really impressive (These are harder to identify though as the pro version allows you to remove the Unity splashscreen making it virtually impossible for the end user to identify the engine used)