good evening everybody,

Recently i have been playing a lot of Forza 3 on my XBOX 360 and i noticed that the opponent AI in this game differs quite a lot from the previous entries in the series. In previous Forza games, AI opponents would rarely ever crash and race at a fairly constant pace around the track (at least in my perception). With Forza 3 however, AI opponents sometimes make 'crazy' mistakes, such as entering a corner at a speed thats way too high, and of course ending up crashing against the wall.

In most reviews i read about the game, this was seen as a bug or at least a very negative feature of the game. It was claimed to be unrealistic that AI opponents make these mistakes. However, when i played the game, i actually enjoyed these moment of unexpected crashes, because in my opinion it makes the opponents much more lifelike and realistic. Right now, when you are behind an opponent you usually wouldn't be able to catch up with, you can now always hope that your opponent makes a mistake (just like human opponents). It gives the gameplay a whole new dimension in my opinion.

I was wondering if anybody else has played this game and had the same experience, or maybe somebody knows if this was an intentional design choice or a bug.

While I'm not familiar with the game, I will say this... there is a difference between creating an AI that makes realistic mistakes, and creating an AI that makes wildly ridiculous errors. One of them is believable, the other looks broken.

Most racing games don't seem to have anything resembling AI.

The opponents all just follow their own predetermined curves around the track, and race the perfect race. I'm sure those curves also have data in them with things like how hard to turn, and what speeds to drop to. They never get distracted. They never under or over estimate things. They don't even realize that they are grinding into each other on the corners! They are completely unaware anything or anyone around them, and just blindly interpolate around their curves.

The only decisions the AI drivers ever seem to make is to react in unison depending on if you are ahead or behind.

Real drivers will learn the layout of the track and how to take all the corners. They try to drive like the AI. They just have to deal with human error, other drivers, and other random conditions that pop up. In the games, your final rank ends up being determined by how well you know and play the the track.

If you are going to make the AI suddenly make mistakes, you might as well make it stand out if it's going to be a selling point,