Editor's Note: Daniel uses an interview with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda as a launching point for a discussion on the problems of non-player characters in games and how developers can fix them. Do you agree with his assertion that creating believable NPCs is more important than hyper-realistic graphics? -Brett

The news story I published on Kombo last week analyzed an interview that The PlayStation Blog published with The Last Guardian director Fumito Ueda. This interview solidified for me one of Ueda's main objectives in his game design, something that many developers seem to miss: creating AI characters you actually care about.

I addressed a similar topic back in 2007 on my blog at 1UP when talking about the Locos in LocoRoco -- a game created at the same studio where Ueda's team works. These guys and a few other game developers seem to have dialed in on a certain key element when it comes to creating non-player characters that actually serve their purpose.

NPCs are normally done so badly in games over the years that we don't even expect to be able to really connect with them anymore. We've come to look at NPCs as mechanical devices at best and children to babysit at worst.

Escort missions in particular have been a much hated thing in games. Whenever a game includes an AI-controlled companion for a large part of its campaign, all we ever seem to say about it is how stupid that AI is. We take it for granted that NPCs are going to get themselves killed. In some capacity we cease to look at them as characters.

For a few games however, the friendly NPC who takes the journey with you has proven to be a focal point of the experience. These are the games that seem to directly examine and address the problems with NPCs that exist in games.

Ueda's triumph, and seemingly a large part of his mission in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, has been in focusing games around AI characters without falling into the uncanny valley -- the idea that as machines and computer graphics get more and more lifelike, the inhumaness of them becomes more apparent and more disturbing to the viewer.

Ueda's games are known for the exceptional quality of their animation. The way characters like Ico and Wander move remains unique even compared to today's animation in games like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed. People speculating over Colossus' storyline have looked at details as subtle as Wander's animations to figure out what kind of person he is.

According to Ueda's interview with The PlayStation Blog, top-notch animation is essential for the AI companion in The Last Guardian. The main reason the recent trailer from Tokyo Game Show shows just the beast waking and scratching itself is because he wanted us to pay attention to the animation.

But the quality of the animation doesn't count for much if the character behaves in unrealistic ways. This was one of my main points in my previous blog at 1UP.

If an AI character like Sheva in Resident Evil 5 does nothing but follow you, or if your squad mates in Rainbow Six Vegas do nothing but go where you tell them to go, the illusion is broken from the start. You realize right then that they're nothing but robots with faces.

Princess Yorda in Ico and the Locos in LocoRoco at the very least act as if aware of the environments around them. LocoRoco's levels are built around bringing the Locos to objectives they will then react to on their own. Their behavior will even subtly clue the players in on the locations of secrets. Yorda doesn't do anything so functional, but watching her play with doves or shriek when you hit a hard object with your club gives her a bit of character you don't normally see in NPCs. Agro from Shadow of the Colossus has his own habits, and you get an idea of the relationship that exists between him and Wander just from the way he responds when commanded.

In past interviews, Ueda has said that the creature in The Last Guardian actually won't strictly follow the player nor do exactly what it's told. Players might have to do certain things to get the creature's attention or attract it towards them. In a sense, it'll be like looking after a giant dog.

In Game Informer's cover story for the original Army of Two, EA Montreal expressed a desire to incorporate that kind of behavior into the buddy character when he was AI-controlled. Supposedly, when you stopped in an empty kitchen, he might raid the fridge, look at a magazine on the counter, or use the phone to make a call to his wife. It's unfortunate that was one of the many things that had to be cut off from the final game, and what we got instead was your everyday robotic AI.

The ultimate flaw that tends to break the illusion of NPCs is the fact that they will inevitably repeat whatever they say. That's something expected and even joked about now. In fact, it's probably the most annoying thing about escort missions in games.

Some of my worst moments in gaming have involved being repeatedly yelled at to "save me" or "protect this." Whenever that happens, the whole thing falls apart and that character essentially turns into a voice box or a broken record. Lines that are supposed to sound meaningful are instead quoted as unintentional comedy.

The biggest part of what makes Yorda, Agro, and the Locos work as characters is the fact that none of them say anything intelligible. Almost all of their communication to the player is nonverbal. That seems to reach people on some deeper level, since players can make their own inferences about the characters as opposed to being bashed on the side of the head with what their personalities are supposed to be.

The examples of AI characters that don't come off as stupid or annoying but still speak and act "human" are few, and even those merely skate around the problems. Alyx Vance works in the Half-Life 2 episodes because most of her dialogue doesn't repeat and she moves under her own power. Valve has essentially made her a part of the scripted experience, maybe even the lynchpin of it.

Avoiding repetition of NPC dialogue is probably why your characters in The Sims games randomly mumble, or why units in a lot of strategy games speak in short, unintelligible syllables. A big part of LocoRoco is just understanding what the Locos are telling you.

In Colossus, your companion is a horse. Right from the beginning there is no expectation for Agro to act like a real person. That and the aforementioned qualities is why I actually gave a damn when Agro fell off that cliff. Simulating an animal's behavior isn't as hard, and players won't notice the artificiality as much unless they spend a lot of time around real horses.

But if Ueda decided to stop just short of the uncanny valley for Ico and Colossus, he is trying to completely sidestep it for The Last Guardian.

The reason Ueda gave for making the beast a cat/dog/bird thing is to get around any preconceived notions carried by people who spend time around real animals. He is trying to create a character that is believable because it doesn't emulate anything of our world.

In addition, if you look at the enemies that have briefly appeared in trailers for The Last Guardian, they all appear to take a humanlike shape, but look like they are probably inhuman and not fully "alive." My speculation from the trailers is that some gameplay might involve avoiding or sneaking around what look like semi-robotic (and possibly invincible) guards. These details show knowledge of a creator's limits and a willingness to work within those limits instead of simulating a way out of them.

So many games strive to become as realistic as possible, pushing absolutely as far as the hardware will take them but doing little about the shortcomings left afterwards. Developers are learning to deal with the visual uncanny valley created, but a behavioral uncanny valley still remains in regards to characterization.

What Fumito Ueda and a few others are doing is taking a step back and asking not "How can I do this on the current hardware?" but "What can I do on the current hardware?"