Links To Great Articles RE: Combat

This is a list of the highly influential articles on game combat that I've collected and sat upon over the years. I should not have been sitting on these for so long! Please dive in and enjoy. If you have anything that you feel should be in this list, please let me know and I'll add it. :)

• Very in-depth article about enemy behavior by Tom Smith, a creative director at THQ.
• Incredible overview of the animation principles at work in Capcom's Darkstalkers.
• Really fun behind-the-scenes vignette on God Of War 3 from some of its key design guys.
• Video interview about combat intent in God Of War 3's development with combat lead Adam Puhl. I've had some email exchanges with Adam and he's a rad dude who knows his stuff.
• Higher level discussion about combat from Jason McDonald, combat designer on God Of War: Ascension.
• Interesting animation-centric discussion on proper sword movement.

Mike Birkhead is a designer at Insomniac games and he loves talking about combat design! His key articles:

• An article on what he believes makes combat fun and successful.
• An article about depth and breadth in combat design.
• Amazing three part series on enemy design! Covers the utilization of established ideas, good mechanic animation, and high level enemy types.