159-578: Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent character in the Halo video game series . Voiced by Jen Taylor , she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 , Halo 3 , Halo 4 , Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite . She also briefly appears in the prequel Halo: Reach , as well as in several of the franchise's novels, comics, and merchandise. During gameplay, Cortana provides backstory and tactical information to
318-581: A loss function . Variants of gradient descent are commonly used to train neural networks. Another type of local search is evolutionary computation , which aims to iteratively improve a set of candidate solutions by "mutating" and "recombining" them, selecting only the fittest to survive each generation. Distributed search processes can coordinate via swarm intelligence algorithms. Two popular swarm algorithms used in search are particle swarm optimization (inspired by bird flocking ) and ant colony optimization (inspired by ant trails ). Formal logic
477-475: A "degree of truth" between 0 and 1. It can therefore handle propositions that are vague and partially true. Non-monotonic logics , including logic programming with negation as failure , are designed to handle default reasoning . Other specialized versions of logic have been developed to describe many complex domains. Many problems in AI (including in reasoning, planning, learning, perception, and robotics) require
636-421: A "polish" period near the end of the development cycle was the main reason for Halo 2 ' s shortcomings. Butcher retrospectively described Halo 2 ' s multiplayer mode as "a pale shadow of what it could and should have been" due to the tight schedule. About 70 people worked on the game. Halo 2 ' s soundtrack was composed primarily by Martin O'Donnell and his musical partner Michael Salvatori ,
795-564: A Covenant attack. Cortana, Chief and human forces travel to another Halo ring, Delta Halo, where Master Chief and Cortana encounter the Flood intelligence Gravemind . The Gravemind sends Chief and Cortana to the Covenant city-ship of High Charity to stop the Covenant from activating Halo; Cortana ultimately stays behind on High Charity to destroy the city and Halo should Master Chief fail in his mission. High Charity and Cortana are captured by
954-559: A collective of alien races known as the Covenant . Declaring humanity an affront to their gods, the Forerunners , the Covenant begin to obliterate the humans with their superior numbers and technology. After the human planet Reach is destroyed, a single ship, The Pillar of Autumn , follows protocol and initiates a random slipspace jump to lead the Covenant away from Earth. The crew discovers a Forerunner ringworld called Halo . Though
1113-460: A contradiction from premises that include the negation of the problem to be solved. Inference in both Horn clause logic and first-order logic is undecidable , and therefore intractable . However, backward reasoning with Horn clauses, which underpins computation in the logic programming language Prolog , is Turing complete . Moreover, its efficiency is competitive with computation in other symbolic programming languages. Fuzzy logic assigns
1272-432: A core part of Halo 4 , part of a desire to feature a more human story. Creative director Josh Holmes noted that Cortana was in ways more human than Master Chief, and the idea that Chief would grapple with his humanity at the same time he was losing Cortana spoke to him. Holmes' mother was diagnosed with dementia during development, and his real-life struggles informed the characterization of Cortana's descent into rampancy and
1431-481: A cultural event. Part of its widespread appeal would come from the social nature of the game's multiplayer, but Microsoft also heavily promoted and marketed the game. A trailer for the game was shown in movie theaters, making Halo 2 the first video game so advertised. Hype for the title was fueled by the press, with Microsoft telling one journalist that their Halo 2 review would be the most consequential of their career. The marketing heavily focused on Master Chief and
1590-490: A giant sandwich, took a bite but didn't realize exactly how big it was before we started in. And we did that across the board, technically, artistically, and story wise. But of course, we didn't figure that out until way too late. Griesemer put it more bluntly: "What's the phrase? Putting ten pounds of crap into a five-pound bag? We really tried to cram it too full, and we paid the price." Lack of communication led to some team members spending time developing assets or content that
1749-411: A high-definition remake as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in 2014. Halo 2 is a shooter game . Players primarily experience gameplay from a first-person perspective, with the viewpoint shifting to third-person for vehicle segments. Players use a combination of human and Covenant weaponry and vehicles to progress through the game's levels. Certain weapons can be dual-wielded , allowing
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#17327722761961908-534: A limited-edition silver-plated statue by Weta Workshop . IGN noted in 2016 that Cortana toys were lacking among Halo ' s merchandising. Microsoft developed its virtual assistant for the Windows Phone operating system under the codename "Cortana" in reference to the Halo character. Though other final gender-neutral names for the final product were considered, positive developer and fan response to
2067-587: A line that stretched two blocks in Times Square , New York City . The French version of the game leaked on the internet in October, and circulated widely. In addition to more traditional forms of promotion, Halo 2 was also part of an elaborate Alternate Reality Game project titled I Love Bees . Microsoft approached 42 Entertainment's Elan Lee, who had helped launch the Xbox with Microsoft, on producing
2226-475: A lot of our younger players are going to struggle with that subtlety, that nuance, because they’re expecting Darth Vader ." Stephen Wilds of Polygon said that that "there aren’t notable antagonists, but that they tend to disappear after a couple games", and wondered if Cortana could have been a "full-fledged villain at the end of Halo 5 " and would be praised by fans. Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence ( AI ), in its broadest sense,
2385-425: A message about Islam. In February 2003, Bungie began developing a gameplay demonstration for E3 2003. The demo, which was the first gameplay seen by the public, showcased new enemies and abilities. Many elements of the trailer, however, were not game-ready; the entire graphics engine used in the footage had to be discarded, and the trailer's environment never appeared in the final game due to limitations on how big
2544-512: A month after the service was officially terminated. Multiplayer for the PC version of the game used Games for Windows – Live . PC multiplayer servers were taken offline in June 2013. Instead of implementing multiplayer by having players manually join lobbies, as was common in games at the time, Halo 2 used matchmaking . Players chose the general type of match they want to play, and the game selected
2703-405: A more ambitious follow-up. The added publisher support for a sequel allowed greater leeway and the ability to return to more ambitious ideas lost during Combat Evolved ' s development. Not satisfied with merely adding back cut content to the sequel, designer Jaime Griesemer recalled that the team "tripled everything," rebuilding the game engine , changing the physics engine , and prototyping
2862-492: A more ambitious multiplayer mode, and necessitated a cliffhanger ending to the game's campaign mode. Among Halo 2 ' s marketing was an early alternate reality game called " I Love Bees " that involved players solving real-world puzzles. Bungie supported the game after release with new multiplayer maps and updates to address cheating and glitches. The game was followed by a sequel, Halo 3 , in September 2007. Halo 2
3021-429: A path to a target goal, a process called means-ends analysis . Simple exhaustive searches are rarely sufficient for most real-world problems: the search space (the number of places to search) quickly grows to astronomical numbers . The result is a search that is too slow or never completes. " Heuristics " or "rules of thumb" can help prioritize choices that are more likely to reach a goal. Adversarial search
3180-512: A rather difficult breakup at the time and I think that had something to do with it," he said. Staten and Griesemer discussed seeing the war from the Covenant perspective, forming the idea to have part of the game told from the perspective of a Covenant warrior known as the Dervish. Late in development, the Dervish became the Arbiter, after legal teams at Microsoft were afraid the game was sending
3339-496: A relationship that was under-appreciated in much of the franchise. Professor Monica Evans called Cortana the most human character in the original game, and one of the most developed. Cortana has also been recognized for her sex appeal ; the character has been included on multiple lists of attractive video game characters. Feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian argues that Cortana had gotten increasingly sexualized in subsequent appearances; 1UP.com noted that as Cortana's sanity waned in
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#17327722761963498-407: A scripted cutscene. After delays, the game was shifted to a first-quarter 2004 release, then to Holiday 2004. The final November 9 release date was confirmed at E3 2004, where the game's multiplayer was playable on the show floor. Microsoft executive Peter Moore rolled up his sleeve to reveal the date tattooed on his bicep. Microsoft intended to market Halo 2 not just as a video game, but as
3657-402: A smooth female voice, and projects a holographic image of herself as a woman. Cortana is said to resemble Halsey, with a similar attitude "unchecked by military and social protocol". In Halo: The Fall of Reach , Cortana is described as slender, with close-cropped hair and a skin hue that varies from navy blue to lavender, depending on her mood. Numbers and symbols flash across her form when she
3816-578: A system for stencil shadow volumes . The game's development would suffer from a lack of clear leadership. Early development discussions happened in small, unconnected teams that did not talk with each other. Bungie cofounder and project lead Jason Jones , who had been exhausted shipping Combat Evolved , similarly burned out during Halo 2 ' s production. Jones left the project to work on another Bungie game, Phoenix , leaving fewer people to work on Halo 2 . The departure of Bungie's cofounder Alex Seropian in 2002 caused additional friction and politics in
3975-402: A tie-in game. I Love Bees cost an estimated one million dollars. The game centered on a hacked website , supposedly a site about beekeeping , where an AI from the future was residing. The project garnered significant attention, drawing attention away from the ongoing 2004 U.S. Presidential Election . The game won an award for creativity at the 5th annual Game Developers Choice Awards and
4134-726: A tool that can be used for reasoning (using the Bayesian inference algorithm), learning (using the expectation–maximization algorithm ), planning (using decision networks ) and perception (using dynamic Bayesian networks ). Probabilistic algorithms can also be used for filtering, prediction, smoothing, and finding explanations for streams of data, thus helping perception systems analyze processes that occur over time (e.g., hidden Markov models or Kalman filters ). The simplest AI applications can be divided into two types: classifiers (e.g., "if shiny then diamond"), on one hand, and controllers (e.g., "if diamond then pick up"), on
4293-400: A trilogy, but the critical and commercial success of Combat Evolved —selling more than five million copies in three years —made a sequel expected. Xbox general manager J Allard confirmed Halo 2 was in production at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2002, with a planned release in time for Holiday 2003. Many at Bungie wanted to make a sequel, building on cut ideas from Combat Evolved with
4452-435: A way of guiding players while keeping missions open-ended, and avoiding players from feeling they were being herded through the game. Said story writer Joseph Staten , "we needed a character who could consistently guide the player through the game, and an onboard AI was something that could always credibly accompany [them]." Cortana's role grew from pure gameplay considerations to serving as a way of characterizing and humanizing
4611-525: A well-known role. The change in appearances was left unexplained in the show. Bungie introduced the Halo series publicly in 1999 by sending the Cortana Letters, a series of cryptic email messages, to the maintainer of marathon.bungie.org, a fan site for one of Bungie's other game series . The strategic use of cryptic messages in a publicity campaign was repeated in I Love Bees , a promotion for Halo 2 . Although Bungie does not consider most of
4770-528: A whole, Cortana and her story was often considered a strong point of the game. IGN called Halo 4 "really Cortana's story", as saving the galaxy is of lesser importance to the Master Chief than saving Cortana, and Cortana's humanity is ultimately the game's focus. The Daily Telegraph ' s Tom Hoggins agreed, calling Cortana "the flickering blue heart of the game's plot", and Hoggins and reviewers for The Globe and Mail and Eurogamer singled out
4929-669: A wide range of techniques, including search and mathematical optimization , formal logic , artificial neural networks , and methods based on statistics , operations research , and economics . AI also draws upon psychology , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , and other fields. Artificial intelligence was founded as an academic discipline in 1956, and the field went through multiple cycles of optimism, followed by periods of disappointment and loss of funding, known as AI winter . Funding and interest vastly increased after 2012 when deep learning outperformed previous AI techniques. This growth accelerated further after 2017 with
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5088-490: A wide variety of techniques to accomplish the goals above. AI can solve many problems by intelligently searching through many possible solutions. There are two very different kinds of search used in AI: state space search and local search . State space search searches through a tree of possible states to try to find a goal state. For example, planning algorithms search through trees of goals and subgoals, attempting to find
5247-1139: Is intelligence exhibited by machines , particularly computer systems . It is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals. Such machines may be called AIs. Some high-profile applications of AI include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google Search ); recommendation systems (used by YouTube , Amazon , and Netflix ); interacting via human speech (e.g., Google Assistant , Siri , and Alexa ); autonomous vehicles (e.g., Waymo ); generative and creative tools (e.g., ChatGPT , and AI art ); and superhuman play and analysis in strategy games (e.g., chess and Go ). However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labeled AI anymore ." The various subfields of AI research are centered around particular goals and
5406-641: Is a body of knowledge represented in a form that can be used by a program. An ontology is the set of objects, relations, concepts, and properties used by a particular domain of knowledge. Knowledge bases need to represent things such as objects, properties, categories, and relations between objects; situations, events, states, and time; causes and effects; knowledge about knowledge (what we know about what other people know); default reasoning (things that humans assume are true until they are told differently and will remain true even when other facts are changing); and many other aspects and domains of knowledge. Among
5565-459: Is an input, at least one hidden layer of nodes and an output. Each node applies a function and once the weight crosses its specified threshold, the data is transmitted to the next layer. A network is typically called a deep neural network if it has at least 2 hidden layers. Learning algorithms for neural networks use local search to choose the weights that will get the right output for each input during training. The most common training technique
5724-462: Is an interdisciplinary umbrella that comprises systems that recognize, interpret, process, or simulate human feeling, emotion, and mood . For example, some virtual assistants are programmed to speak conversationally or even to banter humorously; it makes them appear more sensitive to the emotional dynamics of human interaction, or to otherwise facilitate human–computer interaction . However, this tends to give naïve users an unrealistic conception of
5883-444: Is an unsolved problem. Knowledge representation and knowledge engineering allow AI programs to answer questions intelligently and make deductions about real-world facts. Formal knowledge representations are used in content-based indexing and retrieval, scene interpretation, clinical decision support, knowledge discovery (mining "interesting" and actionable inferences from large databases ), and other areas. A knowledge base
6042-422: Is anything that perceives and takes actions in the world. A rational agent has goals or preferences and takes actions to make them happen. In automated planning , the agent has a specific goal. In automated decision-making , the agent has preferences—there are some situations it would prefer to be in, and some situations it is trying to avoid. The decision-making agent assigns a number to each situation (called
6201-413: Is classified based on previous experience. There are many kinds of classifiers in use. The decision tree is the simplest and most widely used symbolic machine learning algorithm. K-nearest neighbor algorithm was the most widely used analogical AI until the mid-1990s, and Kernel methods such as the support vector machine (SVM) displaced k-nearest neighbor in the 1990s. The naive Bayes classifier
6360-472: Is equipped with a damage-absorbing shield that regenerates when not taking fire; their health bar is not visible. The game's "Campaign" mode offers options for both single-player and cooperative multiplayer participation. In campaign mode, the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Halo 2 's storyline. These levels alternate between the Master Chief and a Covenant Elite called
6519-413: Is labelled by a solution of the problem and whose leaf nodes are labelled by premises or axioms . In the case of Horn clauses , problem-solving search can be performed by reasoning forwards from the premises or backwards from the problem. In the more general case of the clausal form of first-order logic , resolution is a single, axiom-free rule of inference, in which a problem is solved by proving
Cortana (Halo) - Misplaced Pages Continue
6678-591: Is named after the legendary sword Durendal . Curtana's inscription reveals that the sword has the same "temper as Joyeuse and Durendal". After assuming development duties from Bungie, 343 Industries decided to explain Cortana's established appearance as a reflection of her personality. "So one of the reasons she [appears as she does] is to attract and demand attention," Franchise development coordinator Frank O'Connor explained. "And she does it to put people off so that they're on their guard when talking to her and she has
6837-400: Is reportedly the "most widely used learner" at Google, due in part to its scalability. Neural networks are also used as classifiers. An artificial neural network is based on a collection of nodes also known as artificial neurons , which loosely model the neurons in a biological brain. It is trained to recognise patterns; once trained, it can recognise those patterns in fresh data. There
6996-408: Is spooky, but add a creaking floorboard and rats skittering in the walls and it becomes really creepy." Halo 2 , unlike its predecessor, was mixed to take full advantage of Dolby 5.1 Digital surround sound . In the summer of 2004, producer Nile Rodgers and O'Donnell decided to release the music from Halo 2 on two separate CDs ; the first (Volume One) would contain all the themes present in
7155-468: Is the backpropagation algorithm. Neural networks learn to model complex relationships between inputs and outputs and find patterns in data. In theory, a neural network can learn any function. Halo 2 Halo 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox console. Halo 2 is the second installment in the Halo franchise and
7314-474: Is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game with at least 6.3 million copies sold in the United States and 8.46 million copies in total. Halo 2 received critical acclaim upon release. On review aggregate site Metacritic , the Xbox version has an overall score of 95 out of 100. Critics judged it a worthy successor to the acclaimed Combat Evolved . GameSpot ' s Greg Kasavin wrote that
7473-404: Is the process of proving a new statement ( conclusion ) from other statements that are given and assumed to be true (the premises ). Proofs can be structured as proof trees , in which nodes are labelled by sentences, and children nodes are connected to parent nodes by inference rules . Given a problem and a set of premises, problem-solving reduces to searching for a proof tree whose root node
7632-410: Is thinking. Halsey sees Cortana as a teenage version of herself: smarter than her parents, always "talking, learning, and eager to share her knowledge". Cortana is described as having a sardonic sense of humor and often cracks jokes or wryly comments, even during combat. Cortana's first game appearance is in the 2001 first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved . Humanity is locked in a losing war with
7791-440: Is used for game-playing programs, such as chess or Go. It searches through a tree of possible moves and counter-moves, looking for a winning position. Local search uses mathematical optimization to find a solution to a problem. It begins with some form of guess and refines it incrementally. Gradient descent is a type of local search that optimizes a set of numerical parameters by incrementally adjusting them to minimize
7950-455: Is used for reasoning and knowledge representation . Formal logic comes in two main forms: propositional logic (which operates on statements that are true or false and uses logical connectives such as "and", "or", "not" and "implies") and predicate logic (which also operates on objects, predicates and relations and uses quantifiers such as " Every X is a Y " and "There are some X s that are Y s"). Deductive reasoning in logic
8109-436: Is used in AI programs that make decisions that involve other agents. Machine learning is the study of programs that can improve their performance on a given task automatically. It has been a part of AI from the beginning. There are several kinds of machine learning. Unsupervised learning analyzes a stream of data and finds patterns and makes predictions without any other guidance. Supervised learning requires labeling
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#17327722761968268-905: Is when the knowledge gained from one problem is applied to a new problem. Deep learning is a type of machine learning that runs inputs through biologically inspired artificial neural networks for all of these types of learning. Computational learning theory can assess learners by computational complexity , by sample complexity (how much data is required), or by other notions of optimization . Natural language processing (NLP) allows programs to read, write and communicate in human languages such as English . Specific problems include speech recognition , speech synthesis , machine translation , information extraction , information retrieval and question answering . Early work, based on Noam Chomsky 's generative grammar and semantic networks , had difficulty with word-sense disambiguation unless restricted to small domains called " micro-worlds " (due to
8427-467: The Halo franchise is in the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach , a prequel to Combat Evolved . Dr. Halsey allows Cortana to choose which SPARTAN-II soldier to accompany on an upcoming mission; Cortana picks the Master Chief, whom she believes is her best match. Cortana helps the Master Chief to survive the near-lethal exercises designed to test the Chief's armor. Afterward, she plants incriminating evidence in
8586-488: The Halo television series' first season, Cortana was created digitally. Initially the character was to be portrayed by Natascha McElhone , who also plays Halsey in the series, but scheduling difficulties resulted in Jen Taylor taking on the voice acting and motion capture duties. The character's more human and less blue appearance met with backlash after the series trailer released. Producer Kiki Wolfkill explained that
8745-469: The Halo universe's futuristic setting still grapples with systemic sexism. Mike Rougeau of Complex noted that Halo 3 balanced a large conflict with a more personal one—that while the galaxy was imperiled by aliens, "more important to fans was the rescue of Cortana." While Cortana's role was greatly expanded in the game, Stuff.co.nz noted that the character "has inexplicably had a sexy makeover". Despite mixed opinions of Halo 4 ' s campaign as
8904-673: The United Kingdom in its first week, making it the third fastest-selling title in that territory. It ultimately received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. It was the second best-selling game of 2004 in the United States (after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ), where it sold 4.2 million copies that year. On release, Halo 2
9063-520: The bar exam , SAT test, GRE test, and many other real-world applications. Machine perception is the ability to use input from sensors (such as cameras, microphones, wireless signals, active lidar , sonar, radar, and tactile sensors ) to deduce aspects of the world. Computer vision is the ability to analyze visual input. The field includes speech recognition , image classification , facial recognition , object recognition , object tracking , and robotic perception . Affective computing
9222-416: The transformer architecture , and by the early 2020s hundreds of billions of dollars were being invested in AI (known as the " AI boom "). The widespread use of AI in the 21st century exposed several unintended consequences and harms in the present and raised concerns about its risks and long-term effects in the future, prompting discussions about regulatory policies to ensure the safety and benefits of
9381-436: The " utility ") that measures how much the agent prefers it. For each possible action, it can calculate the " expected utility ": the utility of all possible outcomes of the action, weighted by the probability that the outcome will occur. It can then choose the action with the maximum expected utility. In classical planning , the agent knows exactly what the effect of any action will be. In most real-world problems, however,
9540-433: The "mother of all crunches " in order to finish the game. "A lot of people sacrificed themselves in ways that you should never have to for your job," design lead Paul Bertone recalled. He kenneled his dog for nearly two months and slept in the office for the final days of development, while artist Lorraine McLees took her baby to the office after day care ended as she worked the longer hours. Griesemer said that this lack of
9699-485: The Arbiter , who occupy diametrically opposed roles in the story's conflict. Aside from variations in storyline, the Arbiter differs from Master Chief only in that his armor lacks a flashlight; instead, it is equipped with a short duration rechargeable form of active camouflage that disappears when the player attacks or takes damage. There are four difficulty levels in campaign mode: Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. An increase in difficulty will result in an increase in
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#17327722761969858-532: The Banished leader Atriox, and destroyed his homeworld when he did not submit. Atriox uses the Weapon to capture Cortana and tries to force her to surrender Zeta Halo to him. Realizing her mistakes, Cortana destroys herself to damage the ring and stopped the Banished from using it. In a final message, Cortana apologizes to Chief for her actions and encourages him to work with the Weapon. Cortana's first appearance in
10017-586: The Chief and stop the Didact's plan. Cortana's survival is revealed in Halo 5 , when she calls Master Chief to the Forerunner world Genesis. Cortana explains she survived the destruction of the Didact's ship and her own rampancy by entering the Domain, an ancient repository of knowledge. Granted an infinite life span by the Domain, Cortana believes that she and other AI (the "Created") should enforce peace through
10176-520: The Chief-Cortana relationship. Holmes and the team drew inspiration from the relationship in the game Ico , where the main characters share a strong bond, as well as the many layers to the two characters' relationship; "In some ways they’re friends, in some ways she’s almost like a mother, in others they’re skirting that line of lovers, and so all these different elements come into the relationship, making it complex and interesting to explore." For
10335-418: The Cortana Letters, emails sent during Combat Evolved ' s production in 1999. The relationship between Cortana and Master Chief has been highlighted by reviewers as one of the most important parts of the Halo games' story. Cortana has been recognized for her believability and character depth, as well as her sex appeal . The character was the inspiration for Microsoft's intelligent personal assistant of
10494-587: The Covenant believe Halo's activation will lead to divine salvation, the humans discover that the rings are actually weapons of last resort, built by the Forerunners to contain a terrifying parasite called the Flood . The human supersoldier Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and his AI companion Cortana learn from Halo's AI monitor, 343 Guilty Spark , that activation of the Halos will destroy all sentient life in
10653-520: The Covenant falls into civil war. The Flood-infested In Amber Clad crashes into the city, and Cortana realizes that the Gravemind used them as a distraction. As the parasite overruns the city, the Prophet of Mercy is consumed. As for Tartarus, the Prophet of Truth consigns him to Halo with Keyes, Johnson, and Guilty Spark to activate the ring. Master Chief follows Truth aboard a Forerunner ship leaving
10812-677: The Covenant fleet arrive at the Halo. After Master Chief kills Regret, the Covenant bombard his location; he falls into a lake, where he is dragged away by tentacles. Regret's death triggers discord among the races of the Covenant, as the Prophets give the Brutes the Elites' traditional role as their honor guard. The Arbiter subdues Johnson and Keyes and retrieves the Index. Tartarus appears and reveals that
10971-639: The Covenant point of view rather than from the UNSC point of view used in the regular edition. Halo 2 first released on November 9, 2004, in Australia , Canada , New Zealand , and the United States . Anticipation for the game was high; a record 1.5 million copies were pre-ordered three weeks before release. Massive lines formed at midnight releases of the game at more than 7000 stores across North America and attracted significant media attention. This
11130-676: The Elite is stripped of his rank, branded a heretic, and tortured by Tartarus , the Chieftain of the Covenant Brutes. Spared execution, the Covenant leadership—the High Prophets Truth, Regret, and Mercy —give the Elite the chance to become an Arbiter , a rank given to Elites in times of great crisis or turmoil. As the Arbiter, the Elite quells a rebellion and recovers 343 Guilty Spark. On Earth, Fleet Admiral Hood commends
11289-499: The Flood. In Halo 3 , Cortana appears to the player in broken transmissions. On the Forerunner installation known as the Ark, the Master Chief travels through the ruins of High Charity to rescue Cortana. Chief and Cortana are successful at stopping the Flood, but become stranded in deep space aboard the human ship Forward Unto Dawn . Cortana activates a distress beacon, while Master Chief goes into cryonic sleep to await rescue. At
11448-437: The Index; the unexpected deactivation sets Halo and all the other rings on standby for remote activation from a place 343 Guilty Spark calls "the Ark." Meanwhile, Truth's ship arrives at Earth, and Master Chief informs Admiral Hood that he is "finishing this fight." In a post-credits scene , Gravemind assumes control of High Charity . Cortana agrees to answer the Flood intelligence's questions. Halo had never been planned as
11607-529: The Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson for their actions at the first Halo , with Commander Miranda Keyes accepting a medal on behalf of her deceased father, Captain Jacob Keyes . A Covenant fleet suddenly appears near Earth. In the ensuing battle, a single ship carrying the Prophet of Regret slips through Earth's defenses and besieges the African city of New Mombasa. Master Chief assists in repelling
11766-481: The Master Chief, and in subsequent games the Chief-Cortana relationship became a focus of characterization. The character was designed and modeled by Bungie artist Chris Hughes, with the model's face based on a sculpture of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti . Cortana's name is a variant of Curtana , the sword used by the legendary Ogier the Dane , just as the titular AI character of Bungie's previous game Marathon 2: Durandal
11925-546: The Prophets have ordered the annihilation of the Elites, and sends the Arbiter falling down a deep chasm. The Arbiter meets the Master Chief in the bowels of the Halo, brought together by a Flood creature called the Gravemind . The Gravemind reveals to the Arbiter that the Great Journey is a lie, and sends the two soldiers to different places to stop Halo's activation. The Master Chief is teleported to High Charity as
12084-513: The Spartans and Forerunners on top of her previous look, including a Forerunner glyph. "Having her wear [the Mantle] was a nice way of having her own it too, from a symbolic standpoint," Reed said. The character was modeled and animated using motion capture and talent at 343 Industries and Axis Animation. 343 Industries intended the character's normal role in gameplay to be filled by Blue Team. For
12243-496: The Xbox version of Halo 2 features a multiplayer system that allows players to compete with each other in split-screen and system link modes; in addition, it added support for online multiplayer via Xbox Live . The Xbox Live multiplayer and downloadable content features of the Xbox version of Halo 2 were supported until the discontinuation of the service in April 2010, with the final multiplayer session concluding May 10, almost
12402-711: The Year ", " Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay " and " Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design ", as well as nominations for "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming", and " Game of the Year ". The game received more than 38 individual awards. It received runner-up placements in GameSpot's 2004 "Best Shooter", "Best Sound Effects" and "Best Original Music" categories across all platforms. The game
12561-421: The agent can seek information to improve its preferences. Information value theory can be used to weigh the value of exploratory or experimental actions. The space of possible future actions and situations is typically intractably large, so the agents must take actions and evaluate situations while being uncertain of what the outcome will be. A Markov decision process has a transition model that describes
12720-510: The agent may not be certain about the situation they are in (it is "unknown" or "unobservable") and it may not know for certain what will happen after each possible action (it is not "deterministic"). It must choose an action by making a probabilistic guess and then reassess the situation to see if the action worked. In some problems, the agent's preferences may be uncertain, especially if there are other agents or humans involved. These can be learned (e.g., with inverse reinforcement learning ), or
12879-529: The agent to operate with incomplete or uncertain information. AI researchers have devised a number of tools to solve these problems using methods from probability theory and economics. Precise mathematical tools have been developed that analyze how an agent can make choices and plan, using decision theory , decision analysis , and information value theory . These tools include models such as Markov decision processes , dynamic decision networks , game theory and mechanism design . Bayesian networks are
13038-422: The alien Covenant. Cortana plots a course for the human ship Pillar of Autumn to escape the Covenant. This heading leads to the discovery of a massive ringworld, Halo, built by a mysterious race known as the Forerunners . Cortana defends the ship from the Covenant until she is given to the supersoldier Master Chief to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. Cortana helps direct human survivors scattered across
13197-430: The beginning of Halo 4 Cortana wakes the Chief as Forward Unto Dawn drifts towards a Forerunner installation called Requiem. Cortana begins displaying aberrant glitches and behavior, and reveals that she is suffering from rampancy as she has already exceeded her seven-year "natural" lifespan. She assists in the battle against the Didact, a rogue Forerunner who hates humans. At the end, Cortana sacrifices herself to save
13356-456: The character's writing and performance as high points of the game's campaign. Justin Clouse wrote that the interactions between Chief and Cortana as the latter loses her hold on sanity were "perhaps the best it's ever been". Complex ' s review praised the use of motion capture for Cortana, as they were given "new life" and new depth from the technology and performance. David Their wrote that
13515-419: The character, Bungie originally wanted Cortana to have a British accent . O'Donnell recalled that Taylor's British accent was good, but felt it was too similar to her work for No One Lives Forever . The accent was dropped, but British colloquialisms remained in the character's dialogue. Taylor recalled that a key directive from Bungie about the character was that she not come off as nagging, despite her role as
13674-450: The choice for Cortana to return in Halo 5 and turn her into an antagonist provided the game "with a well earned sense of drive" and that her appearance in Halo 5 gave players another side of the character to see. "There's something unknowable about Cortana in her new role as AI God, but we've spent enough time with her throughout the series that we stick with her through the reinvention." Similarly, Patrick Dane of Bleeding Cool defended
13833-421: The city; Cortana remains behind to destroy High Charity and Halo if Tartarus succeeds in activating the ring. On the surface of Halo, the Arbiter joins forces with Johnson and confronts Tartarus in Halo's control room. When the Arbiter tries to convince Tartarus that the Prophets have betrayed them, Tartarus instead activates the ring, and a battle ensues. The Arbiter and Johnson kill Tartarus while Keyes removes
13992-420: The clutches of the Gravemind. She also appears in the Halo television series , created by Dr. Halsey as a means of keeping Master Chief and other Spartans in line. By cloning herself and then copying her clone's brain patterns (which also kills her), Halsey is able to bring Cortana to life and then implant her directly into Master Chief's neural pathways. Cortana was developed to provide Combat Evolved with
14151-648: The common sense knowledge problem ). Margaret Masterman believed that it was meaning and not grammar that was the key to understanding languages, and that thesauri and not dictionaries should be the basis of computational language structure. Modern deep learning techniques for NLP include word embedding (representing words, typically as vectors encoding their meaning), transformers (a deep learning architecture using an attention mechanism), and others. In 2019, generative pre-trained transformer (or "GPT") language models began to generate coherent text, and by 2023, these models were able to get human-level scores on
14310-486: The decision was influenced by the need to adapt the character to a live-action environment, and for her to feel real. For the second season, Cortana was portrayed by a live-action actress, Christina Bennington, as the producers felt they were missing on the subtle acting nuances with a digital character. Taylor still voiced the role, and she and Bennington collaborated on set to make sure the performances were in sync. Bennington credited Taylor for making her feel welcome in such
14469-430: The defense of earth, leaving the reveal of the Arbiter as a playable character a surprise. Halo 2 ' s release was preceded with promotions and product tie-ins. There was a Halo 2 Celebrity Pre-Release Party at E3 2004, in which a private home was transformed to replicate the world of Halo , complete with camouflaged Marines and roaming Cortanas. Launch events were held worldwide, with players waiting for hours in
14628-473: The elements that were not seen in Combat Evolved . Jason Jones organized his core ideas for the sequel's story and approached Staten for input. According to Staten, among the elements that did not make it to the finished game was a "horrible scene of betrayal" where Miranda Keyes straps a bomb to the Master Chief's back and throws him into a hole in revenge for her father's death; "Jason was going through
14787-440: The files of Colonel Ackerson , the operative who nearly killed both of them, as revenge. Cortana makes a small appearance in 2010's Halo: Reach , set shortly before the events of Combat Evolved . A fragment of Cortana carrying information gleaned from a Forerunner artifact combines with Cortana's main self on Pillar of Autumn before the ship escapes the planet, leading to the events of Combat Evolved . Cortana also appears in
14946-415: The first action figure was supposed to convey an older appearance than was depicted in the games. This was accomplished by making the figure more buxom; despite McLees' request to revert the change, the sculptor was unwilling and time constraints left the design intact. The character is also featured in the first series of Halo 3 action figures, distributed by McFarlane Toys , Funko vinyl figurines, and in
15105-554: The first game would have been removed. Designer Max Hoberman successfully argued against wholesale removal of a successful component from the previous game. He was put in charge of a small team to further develop the small-scale arena multiplayer, while the rest of the team developed a larger "Warfare" mode. Bungie promised in previews that the core of this multiplayer would be squad-based online battles between human Spartans and Covenant Elites, with players able to call in airstrikes. Hoberman's pitch for Halo 2 ' s arena multiplayer
15264-476: The first time in the series, Taylor performed her lines in the same room as Steve Downes , the voice of Master Chief. She credited the change for making the dialogue feel more authentic and real. Cortana's new appearance for Halo 4 was one of the game's most dramatic changes. Early in production, concept artists created a variety of "crazy ideas" and explorations for how Cortana might look. Promising 2D designs were turned into simple 3D maquettes to prototype them in
15423-401: The formula that made its predecessor successful, and was alternatively praised and faulted for this decision. Edge 's review concluded that Halo 2 could be summed up with a line from its script: "It's not a new plan. But we know it'll work." The game's campaign mode received some criticism for being too short, and for featuring an abrupt cliffhanger ending. GameSpot noted that although
15582-530: The galaxy to prevent the Flood's spread. Instead of activating the ring, Master Chief and Cortana detonate the Pillar of Autumn ' s engines, destroying the installation and preventing the escape of the Flood. Master Chief and Cortana race back to Earth to warn of an impending invasion by Covenant forces. Halo 2 opens with the trial of a Covenant Elite commander aboard the Covenant's capital city-ship of High Charity . For his failure to stop Halo's destruction,
15741-576: The galaxy. Cortana begins using ancient Forerunner constructs known as Guardians to enforce the Created's will throughout the galaxy. In Halo Infinite , Master Chief travels to the Zeta Halo and recovers the Weapon, a copy of Cortana designed to trap her for deletion. Traveling across a damaged Halo's surface and fighting the Banished, the pair recover data fragments left behind by Cortana that fill in what occurred six months earlier; Cortana threatened
15900-476: The game as well as music "inspired" by the game; the second would contain the rest of the music from the game, much of which was incomplete, as the first CD was shipped before the game was released. The first CD was released on November 9, 2004, and featured guitar backing by Steve Vai . Additional tracks included various outside musicians, including Steve Vai, Incubus , Breaking Benjamin , and Hoobastank . The Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume Two CD, containing
16059-414: The game engine. Character artist Matt Aldridge recalled that Cortana was one of the hardest characters to envision in the game because of how beloved the character is by players; one of Aldridge's goals was to create a character where scrolling lines of code would flow uninterrupted from her feet to her head. Art director Kenneth Scott was responsible for Cortana's final design. The character's motion capture
16218-479: The game environments could be. Elements like vehicle hijacking were entirely scripted, and in order to keep performance at an acceptable level, a Bungie staff member deleted objects from the game as the player passed through. The restructuring of the engine meant that there was no playable build of Halo 2 for nearly a year, and assets and environments produced by art and design teams could not be prototyped, bottlenecking development. Griesemer recalled that development
16377-510: The game music organized in suite form, was released on April 25, 2006. Halo 2 was officially announced in September 2002 with a cinematic trailer, scheduled for a Holiday 2003 release. The first major look at the game came with the E3 2003 demo in May; Halo 2 was Microsoft's strongest showing at the event, and some journalists believed the game looked too good to be live gameplay and must have been
16536-470: The game runs at high-definition 720p with scene-wide anti-aliasing . The online services of the Halo 2 were discontinued alongside other original Xbox console games in 2010. In February 2006, Microsoft announced a PC port of Halo 2 , exclusively for the Windows Vista operating system. Like the Xbox version, the release of Halo 2 Vista was repeatedly delayed. The May 22, 2007, release date
16695-498: The game successfully built on its predecessor's foundation, and despite shortcomings, the game's breadth of content made it one of the best action games available. The game's audiovisual presentation was praised. Multiplayer especially was noted in being the best on Xbox Live at the time. Game Informer , along with numerous other publications, rated it higher than Halo: Combat Evolved , citing enhanced multiplayer and less repetitive gameplay. Most critics noted that Halo 2 stuck with
16854-456: The game would be received. Feedback of the game's matchmaking system was very unfavorable, with the testers preferring the control offered by traditional servers. Researcher John Hopson recalled that while they suggested to Bungie they should change the matchmaking system, the developers remained steadfast their new approach would be better in the real world; Hopson later agreed with their choice, saying that his team had only narrowly avoided ruining
17013-599: The game's divisive campaign and Cortana's turn to antagonist as an "inspired choice", driving a wedge between the most important character relationship in the games. Conversely, Matt Peckham felt that the plot twist of Cortana's actions "feels strangely underwhelming", while Ars Technica and Kotaku considered Cortana's return, and her plans to use alien technology to remake the galaxy, unbelievable and unearned. Responding to criticism that 343 had turned Cortana "evil", franchise director Frank O'Connor said, "my question back to them is, 'What makes you say they’re evil?' Certainly
17172-527: The game's software update, nine new multiplayer maps, a making-of documentary, and a bonus cinematic called "Another Day on the Beach", among other features. The Blastacular Map Pack contained two additional maps and released April 2007. On July 7 Bungie made the Blastacular Map Pack free. Halo 2 was one of the Xbox games that was backwards-compatible on the Xbox 360. On the newer console,
17331-509: The game. To test real-world network conditions, Bungie ran a closed alpha of the multiplayer with 1000 Microsoft employees for five weeks. Outside of Bungie, Combat Evolved ' s success had become a problem for Halo 2 ' s development, as the success of the Xbox platform was riding on Halo . Microsoft originally pressured Bungie to have the game ready as a launch title for Xbox Live in November 2002, which Bungie employees told them
17490-405: The genocidal Covenant , and later, the parasitic Flood . After the success of Halo: Combat Evolved , a sequel was expected and highly anticipated. Bungie found inspiration in plot points and gameplay elements that had been left out of their first game, including online multiplayer. A troubled development and time constraints forced cuts to the scope of the game, including the wholesale removal of
17649-400: The greatest female characters for the character's determination and fearlessness, which meshed perfectly with the game's protagonist, while Glixel staff described Cortana as one of the most iconic video game characters of the 21st century. Den of Geek ' s Megan Crouse called Cortana one of the Halo series' most important characters, and her relationship with her mother figure Halsey
17808-440: The intelligence of existing computer agents. Moderate successes related to affective computing include textual sentiment analysis and, more recently, multimodal sentiment analysis , wherein AI classifies the affects displayed by a videotaped subject. A machine with artificial general intelligence should be able to solve a wide variety of problems with breadth and versatility similar to human intelligence . AI research uses
17967-423: The invasion. With his fleet destroyed, Regret makes a hasty slipspace jump, and Keyes, Johnson, Cortana, and the Master Chief follow aboard the UNSC ship In Amber Clad . The crew discovers another Halo installation; realizing the danger the ring presents, Keyes sends Master Chief to kill Regret while she and Johnson search for the Index, Halo's activation key. Responding to Regret's distress call, High Charity and
18126-537: The late 1980s and 1990s, methods were developed for dealing with uncertain or incomplete information, employing concepts from probability and economics . Many of these algorithms are insufficient for solving large reasoning problems because they experience a "combinatorial explosion": They become exponentially slower as the problems grow. Even humans rarely use the step-by-step deduction that early AI research could model. They solve most of their problems using fast, intuitive judgments. Accurate and efficient reasoning
18285-498: The leaked codename led to it becoming permanent. Deborah Harrison, one of Cortana's 'personality designers', met with 343 Industries and added more confidence to the personality. "As a result of the meetings we ended up coming back and baking this into the DNA of the digital assistant speech pattern, her approach to jokes and her approach to chit chat, and we decided to dial up her sense of self possession," Harrison recalled. Jen Taylor voiced
18444-501: The letters to be canon , Cortana speaks many of the same lines in Halo 3 . According to C. J. Cowan, Bungie's director of cinematics, the studio used the character here to give story clues without actually revealing the story. Cortana is featured in a variety of Halo merchandise. The character's first action figure was a miniature released as part of the Halo: Combat Evolved series of action figures. McLees noted that
18603-546: The map and gametype and automatically found other players. This " playlist " system automated the process of finding matches to keep a steady flow of games available at all times, and combined a skill-ranking system on top. Halo 2 takes place in the 26th century. Humanity, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC, have developed faster-than-light slipspace travel and colonized numerous worlds. Human worlds come under attack by
18762-457: The most difficult problems in knowledge representation are the breadth of commonsense knowledge (the set of atomic facts that the average person knows is enormous); and the sub-symbolic form of most commonsense knowledge (much of what people know is not represented as "facts" or "statements" that they could express verbally). There is also the difficulty of knowledge acquisition , the problem of obtaining knowledge for AI applications. An "agent"
18921-428: The multiplayer lauded; in comparison, the campaign and its cliffhanger ending was divisive. The game's online component was highly influential and cemented many features as standard in future games and online services, including matchmaking, lobbies, and clans . Halo 2 ' s marketing heralded the beginnings of video games as blockbuster media. A port of the game for Windows Vista was released in 2007, followed by
19080-472: The novelization of Combat Evolved , Halo: The Flood , and the following novels Halo: First Strike and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx , as well as the animated series Halo Legends and live-action television series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn . She is also a main character in "Human Weakness", a short story written by Karen Traviss for the Halo Evolutions anthology that details Cortana's time in
19239-404: The number, rank, health, damage, and accuracy of enemies; a reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage; a decrease in the player's health and shields; and occasional changes in dialogue. Enemy and friendly artificial intelligence is dynamic, and replaying the same encounters repeatedly will demonstrate different behavior. Like Halo: Combat Evolved ,
19398-405: The other hand. Classifiers are functions that use pattern matching to determine the closest match. They can be fine-tuned based on chosen examples using supervised learning . Each pattern (also called an " observation ") is labeled with a certain predefined class. All the observations combined with their class labels are known as a data set . When a new observation is received, that observation
19557-671: The player to trade accuracy, the use of grenades , and melee attacks for raw firepower. The player can carry two weapons at a time (or three if dual-wielding, with one weapon remaining holstered), with each weapon having strengths in different combat situations. Most Covenant weapons, for example, eschew disposable ammo magazines for a contained battery, which cannot be replaced once depleted. However, these weapons overheat if fired continuously. Human weapons are less effective at penetrating shields and require reloading ammunition, but cannot overheat due to prolonged fire. Players can hijack enemy vehicles and quickly assume control of them. The player
19716-453: The player's guide and aid. "They wanted her to be like the girl next door, your best friend that you want to hang out with," she said. For years after the first game was released Taylor remained distanced from the character. She attended only one fan convention in six years after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved , and never saw many of the finished cutscenes with the character until a Halo 3 launch party. Starting with Halo 3 , Taylor felt
19875-511: The player, who often assumes the role of Master Chief Petty Officer John-117. In the story, she is instrumental in preventing the activation of the Halo installations, which would have destroyed all sentient life in the galaxy. Cortana's original design was based on the Egyptian queen Nefertiti ; the character's holographic representation always takes the form of a woman. Game developer Bungie first introduced Cortana—and Halo —through
20034-532: The player. According to her backstory, Cortana was derived from the cloned brain of Dr. Catherine Halsey , the creator of the SPARTAN-II supersoldier project ; Halsey's synapses became the basis for Cortana's processors. Cortana and other AIs are subject to a seven-year lifespan, after which they begin to dissemble and think themselves to death in a process known as rampancy. As an artificial construct, Cortana has no physical form or being. Cortana speaks with
20193-411: The probability that a particular action will change the state in a particular way and a reward function that supplies the utility of each state and the cost of each action. A policy associates a decision with each possible state. The policy could be calculated (e.g., by iteration ), be heuristic , or it can be learned. Game theory describes the rational behavior of multiple interacting agents and
20352-405: The ring and assists the Master Chief in his missions. Inserted into Halo's Control Room, Cortana realizes that the ring serves as a prison for the parasitic Flood ; activating Halo would mean destroying all sentient life in the galaxy to prevent the Flood's spread. Cortana assists Master Chief in destroying the ring and escaping. In Halo 2 , Cortana assists in the defense of Earth in the wake of
20511-401: The role involved more drama and less jargon , and over time, her relationship with the character changed. "At first I was just excited to have a job and then I became more and more familiar, comfortable with and interested in her as she was developed," she recalled. "And I've sort of fallen for Cortana as far as characters go. She's remarkable." Cortana and the Master Chief's relationship was
20670-432: The same name . Cortana is an artificial intelligence (AI) found in the Halo science fiction franchise . In the video games, Cortana often serves as an advisor and assistant to the player character, hacking alien computer systems and decoding transmissions. She speaks most of the first game's dialogue, and serves as a talkative foil for the quieter Master Chief , as well as a way of relaying information and objectives to
20829-400: The sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved . The game features new weapons, enemies, and vehicles, another player character, and shipped with online multiplayer via Microsoft's Xbox Live service. In Halo 2 ' s story mode, the player assumes the roles of the human Master Chief and alien Arbiter in a 26th-century conflict between the United Nations Space Command ,
20988-401: The single-player mode in trouble, very little had been done with the large Warfare multiplayer mode. Eventually, the entire warfare mode was cut, and Hoberman's small team project became the shipping multiplayer suite. Engineer Chris Butcher commented, "For Halo 2 we had our sights set very high on networking. Going from having no internet multiplayer to developing a completely new online model
21147-510: The small set of fans who were able to do this," said engineering lead Chris Butcher, "and just how much they were enjoying themselves, and asked ourselves if we could bring that to everybody. That would be something really special, really unique." Initially, Combat Evolved ' s multiplayer was supposed to involve larger maps and player counts than what shipped, and members of the team wanted to resurrect those plans for Halo 2 . The smaller multiplayer modes and local split-screen capabilities of
21306-447: The story's switching between the Covenant and human factions made the plot more intricate, it distracted the player from Earth's survival and the main point of the game; while Edge labeled the plot "a confusing mess of fan-fiction sci-fi and bemusing Episode-II -style politics." Halo 2 won multiple awards at the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , including "Console Game of the Year", " Console First-Person Action Game of
21465-441: The team that had composed the critically acclaimed music of Halo . O'Donnell noted in composing the music for Halo 2 that "making a sequel is never a simple proposition. You want to make everything that was cool even better, and leave out all the stuff that was weak." O'Donnell made sure that no part of the game would be completely silent, noting " Ambient sound is one of the main ways to immerse people psychologically. A dark room
21624-471: The technology . The general problem of simulating (or creating) intelligence has been broken into subproblems. These consist of particular traits or capabilities that researchers expect an intelligent system to display. The traits described below have received the most attention and cover the scope of AI research. Early researchers developed algorithms that imitated step-by-step reasoning that humans use when they solve puzzles or make logical deductions . By
21783-451: The training data with the expected answers, and comes in two main varieties: classification (where the program must learn to predict what category the input belongs in) and regression (where the program must deduce a numeric function based on numeric input). In reinforcement learning , the agent is rewarded for good responses and punished for bad ones. The agent learns to choose responses that are classified as "good". Transfer learning
21942-413: The upper hand in those conversations." Voice actress Jen Taylor voices Cortana in the majority of the character's appearances. Despite her role in voicing other video game characters, including Princess Peach , she is not a gamer. Taylor was a college acquaintance of Joseph Staten, and he recommended her as a possible voice for Cortana to audio director Martin O'Donnell . When choosing a voice actor for
22101-420: The use of particular tools. The traditional goals of AI research include reasoning , knowledge representation , planning , learning , natural language processing , perception, and support for robotics . General intelligence —the ability to complete any task performable by a human on an at least equal level—is among the field's long-term goals. To reach these goals, AI researchers have adapted and integrated
22260-446: The video game as we know it today: a mass shared experience," and credited it with birthing modern multiplayer infrastructure and popularizing American esports . Halo 2 ' s matchmaking technology was one of the turning points in the gaming industry during the 2000s, setting a new standard for other games. G4 's Sterling McGarvey wrote that "Bungie's sequel was a shot in the arm for Xbox Live subscriptions and previewed many of
22419-472: The video game industry was estimated to gross $ 7.76 billion in the United States, behind the $ 9.4 billion gross of the domestic box office. Halo 2 ' s success was seen by the press as evidence of a generational shift in entertainment. The CBC's Greg Bolton remarked that prior to Halo 2 ' s splashy release, "the video-game industry hadn’t yet found a recognizable public face, a universally acclaimed megastar." The Ringer called Halo 2 "the birth of
22578-479: The video games, her clothing appeared to decrease as well. Time ' s Matt Peckham described Cortana's character as a controversial figure, with a tension between being well-rounded character and being trapped as "[an] adolescent male's fantasy notion of a Campbellian hero figure ," and that this tension had increased commensurately with the game series' graphical fidelity. Media critic Maddy Myers suggested that O'Connor's explanation for Cortana's look implies that
22737-466: The virtual assistant. Microsoft released a beta for Cortana in April 2014 with the developer release of Windows Phone 8.1. Microsoft also released Cortana virtual assistant on the Xbox One , Windows 10 , iOS , and Android platforms. Cortana is one of Halo ' s most beloved characters, and has appeared in numerous lists of video game's best sidekicks. Tom's Hardware named the character one of
22896-507: The workplace where Seropian had once mediated tensions. Artist Robert McLees recalled that Bungie had never had good managers, with creatives simultaneously juggling managerial roles. "This kinda worked when there were 12 of us. It worked less well when there were 30 of us. It collapsed when there were 60 of us," he said later. Writer Joseph Staten described the team's ambitions thusly: Then we just plowed ahead, much like we'd done with Halo , with one notable exception. We ordered ourselves
23055-405: Was "moving backwards", and after E3 the team realized that much of what the team had worked on for the past two years would have to be scrapped. In order to ship the game, Bungie began paring back their ambitions for the single- and multiplayer parts of the game. All other Bungie projects, including Phoenix , were cancelled, with their teams folded into Halo 2 to complete the game. The campaign
23214-424: Was a big challenge to tackle all at once, and as a result we had to leave a lot of things undone in order to meet the ship date commitment that we made to our fans." As one of Microsoft's tentpole games, the publisher had two full-time user experience researchers managing a team of game testers working on the title. The researchers used playtests, surveys, and usability testing to provide Bungie with input on how
23373-406: Was a commercial and critical success and is often listed as one of the greatest video games of all time . The game became the most popular title on Xbox Live, holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later. Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game, with more than 8 million copies sold worldwide. The game received critical acclaim, with
23532-506: Was completely rethought and remained unplayable for more than a year while the multiplayer was being developed. Ultimately, a third act of the game where Master Chief and Arbiter came together on Earth to defeat the Prophets was cut entirely. Staten hoped the resulting cliffhanger would be treated like the end of The Empire Strikes Back . Planned vehicles, such as variants of the Warthog and an all terrain vehicle , were scrapped. With
23691-503: Was duplicative or wasted. McLees recalled he spent two weeks developing a new weapon that was ultimately cut from the game. An important feature for Halo 2 was multiplayer using Xbox Live. Multiplayer in Combat Evolved was accomplished via System Link and had nearly been scrapped altogether in the rush to complete the game. Most players never played large maps, while a subset greatly enjoyed 16-player action, connecting consoles together with network cables for group play. "We looked at
23850-633: Was followed by releases on November 10, 2004, in France and parts of Europe, and November 11 in the UK, Japan, and elsewhere; the game released in eight languages and a total of 27 countries. The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to US$ 125 million in its first 24 hours on store shelves, outgrossing the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as the highest-grossing release in entertainment history. The game sold 260,000 units in
24009-458: Was impossible. At one point, Microsoft executives had a vote over whether to force Bungie to ship the incomplete game, or give them another year of development time. Microsoft Studios head Ed Fries walked out of the vote and threatened to resign to get Bungie the extra time. Missing the Xbox's last holiday season before its successor console, the Xbox 360 , shipped was not an option. To hit its new November 9, 2004, release date, Bungie went into
24168-1059: Was listed in Electronic Gaming Monthly 's "The Greatest 200 Video Games of Their Time" in 2006. Halo 2 ' s multiplayer suffered from widespread cheating on release. Some players used "standbying" or "lag killing" to cheat, where the player hosting the game intentionally pressed the standby button on his or her modem. This resulted in all other players freezing in place and allowed the cheater to kill other players or capture objectives. Another exploit called "BXR" allowed players to cancel melee animations and quickly attack for an instant kill. Rather than rely solely on user reports of misbehavior, Bungie leveraged its game statistics collection to proactively find cheating players, creating an automated banning system. Bungie released several map packs for Halo 2 , adding new environments for multiplayer matches. The Multiplayer Map Pack, released July 5, 2005, made Xbox Live content and updates available to offline players. The disc contains
24327-403: Was nominated for a Webby award. Ultimately, nearly 3 million people participated in the game. Halo 2 was sold in a standard edition and "Limited Collector's Edition". The Collector's Edition includes the game, packaged in a metal case. It also includes bonus content on an extra DVD, such as a making-of documentary, art gallery, and audio tests. The instructional booklet is also written from
24486-550: Was performed by Mackenzie Mason. For Halo 5 , Cortana's appearance changes significantly. Describing her previous appearance as soft and "deceptively vulnerable", 343 Industries took the story opportunity provided to change her look to reflect her new role as self-declared ruler of the galaxy. "In the first draft of the ending she was going to wear a flowing gown, have long hair, etc. She'd be very regal, very “powerful high queen." Very obviously different than she was," writer Brian Reed recalled. Her final design incorporated elements of
24645-515: Was ported by a small team at Microsoft Game Studios (codenamed Hired Gun) who worked closely with Bungie. As one of the launch titles of Games for Windows – Live , the game offered Live features not available in the Xbox version, such as Guide support and Achievements . The Windows port also added two exclusive multiplayer maps and a map editor. In January 2013, a blog post on Halo Waypoint indicated that online services for Halo 2 for Windows Vista would shut down on February 15, 2013. This date
24804-412: Was pushed back multiple times, and the servers finally ceased operations in 2015. A high-definition remaster of Halo 2 titled Halo 2 Anniversary was released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on November 11, 2014, for the Xbox One , later being released on PC for Steam and Windows Store . Halo 2 ' s release was part of a shift towards blockbuster gaming releases. In 2004,
24963-509: Was pushed to May 31 after the discovery of partial nudity in the game's map editor—a photograph of Charlie Gough, one of the Lead Engineers, mooning Steve Ballmer during his visit to the studio, was presented as part of the ".ass" error message. Microsoft offered patches to remove the nude content and revised the box ratings. The game could be enabled to play on Windows XP through an unauthorized third-party patch . Halo 2 Vista
25122-427: Was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later. In the first ten weeks of release, players collectively logged 91 million hours playing the game; by June 2006, more than 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played, and more than 710 million hours logged on Xbox Live. Over five million players had played by 2007. Halo 2
25281-420: Was to bring the fun of couch multiplayer online. As Hoberman was not an excellent video game player, he wanted to make sure the game remained fun for even lower-skilled players, rather than catering to the very competitive ones. The system of playlist matchmaking and allowing friends to "party up" to play games together were crucial to creating a global community of players. The story for Halo 2 grew out of all
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