1) Assassin’s Creed (any)
Assassin’s Creed is a franchise that demands attention. Every release is a critically acclaimed tale of ancient cloak-and-dagger brotherhoods, secret societies, and of course, politically motivated assassinations – all dressed up in vast, historically accurate towns that you can seamlessly bound over at your leisure. The problem is, they’re actually terrible games.
Perhaps I should elaborate. The titles in the Assassin’s Creed franchise are boring, overly long, nonsensical (with hideous modern-day exposition), buggy, have hideous mission layouts and dreadful combat, and – the reason it made this list – they all have severe NPC issues. Everyone you interact with appears to either be a complete imbecile or suffering from some kind of very recent trauma that has rendered them utterly witless. Whether it be guards who haven’t got a blind clue what’s going on (despite said events unfolding in front of them), friendly characters going off on a tangent, or any of the other thousand street-dwellers who run away if you jump off a roof near them but don’t bat an eye when you throw a corpse in their direction.
I have paid, with my own money, for every single one of the games in the Creed franchise, and every single time I get about halfway through before wondering just what on Earth is wrong with the human race for liking it. Assassin’s Creed is basically the next-gen FarmVille, though I think even that has better AI.
Played any other games that have appalling character AI? Let us know in the comments below!