Yeah, I mentioned this a while back:

Me and you have been moaning about this for what? 10? 15 years? Something nuts like that. And despite the fact that the big developers bug our houses for ideas (remember chain gun in Resident Evil..?) they have never bothered to get rid of this sack of shite idea.

Why :?
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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Well I guess they figure that we all have some sort of inbuilt protective instinct towards women or something. Which is chauvanistic to a degree.

Anyway has anyone had the misfortune of playing Medal of Honour (the first PS2 one, can't remember the subtitle) anyway there is a mission in there where you have to babysit a soldier called Barnes iirc and it's terrible.

Not for the reason you're thinking though, because Barnes is basically God... I stood there and unloaded a full clip of machine gun ammo into his head - no effect. Then I went for the pistol at close range, again back of the head - nada. Right I thought a couple of well placed grenades should fix him, but again even with him standing on top of an exploding grenade, he emerges unscathed.

Utterly pathetic.

I have the blood of Natalya on my hands, I've shot her more time than I care to admit (this was during my days of playing Perfect Dark in which I derived great pleasure from shooting fallen enemies limbs accompanied by my own Robocop "Naaaananananana" sound effects). In fact all most all babysitting missions have been terminated at some stage by me turning on the innocent I have been charged with protecting.

I have yet to play Ico (I can hear your gasp now), but the only time I've felt any sort of connection to a NPC was with the girl in Prince of Persia. Maybe its because she responds when you POV her the once over (instead of just letting you ogle like the others), or perhaps because she is actually of some use in battle. I'm sure the story has a lot to do with it too as their frosty 'Moonlighting' relationship thaws. However much I enjoyed her company though, she was still the reason that I didn't complete the game. Being stuck in a lift with her wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.

My first experience of NPC sitting was probably GoldenEye, that seemed to spawn a gazillion copies of that concept (correct me if it appeared before hand). And yes, its a freaking nuicance when the game engine obviously isn't designed to be helpful. Not a mission I replayed too many times I can assure you. I beleive that whole scenario put me off any game even proposing doing anything of that ilk. I don't recall it even tutorialising the concept at any point beforehand. I guess it's about getting your head right.

Actually I think this problem can be extended to nearly all mission critical elements in games, like wasting stuff you need later on, missing something etc. etc. I fucking hate Splinter Cell for this. It really pisses me off that you have to do some of the missions flawlessly without raising the alarm.

Back on topic...

Medal of Honour springs immediately back to mind as there is an ifuriatingly shit bit of the game where you have to guide this guy to the roof and push him off. If you don't do things in a certain sequence he simply refuses to follow you upstairs. Why I perservered with this shit game is beyond me. Yuck.

I appreciate that this dynamic has been done badly done in the past but as it gets used more it has started to get better. I had no problem with ICO and Resi 4 was actually pretty playable.

It gives you a contrast in a game in that you can no longer go gung-ho into a situation and have to think of the person you are required to protect.

Although, saying that when the Princess repeatedly fell to her death in a spiked pit in POP:SOT I was cursing with the best of them.

ICO: yes
Resi 4: no

In ICO, it was a symbiotic relationship. In Resi, it's tacked-on and done artificially to create tension. It just creates irritation at the AI's stupidity, not tension. In ICO, the whole game requires that you juggle two characters as neither can cope without the aid of the other.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

I thought that the NPCs in Beyond good and evil were pretty well done too. They even had their own action button so you could get them to attack or press buttons for you.

Does the Cube version of Four Swords count?

By giving you more control over four bods at once, that works very well indeed.

I guess it's down to control. If you have control over a character, even if it's minimal (like the "Come here" command in ICO", it's not too bad. The problems come when you have to protect a character entirely directed by the AI.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Yeah, absolutely, and I guess that comes down to how unfair it can be.

Prince of Persia is the worst offender for this, when Princess Fancypants seemingly goes out of her way to die and annoy you. I stopped playing at that point, dodgy NPCs combined with argh-some combat and I'd had enough.

What would fix this... well, even amazing AI could lead to an NPC suffering some game-halting action (like dying) beyond your control. However, if NPCs were not in any way critical to the game, then there is no point in having them there to begin with.

Get rid of em I say, except for when you have direct control. I'd say you do have direct control over Yorda, for when it matters. In fact, Pikmin of all things has a similar relationship between Olimar and his carrot prats. Control may be slight, but you never feel cheated when a Pikmin/Yorda becomes harmed.

Yeah, the idea really needs to be binned until AI is up to the job. When that day comes, we can just sit back and let the game play itself. Won't that be great!? Er....I don't think I thought that through....

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

I'd argue that giving the player limited control means that strictly speaking you can't apply the NPC definition.

Exactly because now we're moving from the realms of NPC into SPC (slightly playable characters) which is a different kettle of fish.

I couldn't stand Ashley in Resident Evil 4. It wasn't also the babysitting (which in gameplay terms wasn't at all bad), but more the fact her character is immensely irritating throughout. Whereas something like ICO developed a connection between the player and characters, she comes across as an uppity OC-brat wannabe who doesn't know when to shut up.

I agree that in general, AI partner pathfinding is mostly terrible... though it seems to be the 'in' thing over the past few months to ensure adventure-themed games include a team-up of some sort between an NPC and the player.

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Not only is it to do with the mechanics, but how much we will like the character we're being partnered with. No one wants to be under the feet of a tediously annoying helpless whinger such as Ashley.