Now we just need to see more indie first-person shooters coming out!

I was saying to Dev yesterday when he brought your article up, there is no incentive for a gamer to pay attention in a modern game. No reason to keep your eyes out for oddly shaded ledges, glints of light off a wall as you run past, or air vents that may be accessible. Quake, Doom, Half Life, even comparatively recent releases like the KOTOR series, all gave you opportunities to sidestep a room full of enemy, saving ammo and completing the level with more HP intact. Hell, KOTOR would often give you the opportunity to to blow a power conduit or repair a droid so you could still reap the kill XP plus some computer or repair skill points, a far better outcome than simply lobbing 3 grenades and running like a bastard.

Having had a chance to play some recent titles on Dev’s Xbox the laughably obvious linearity of games has really turned me off them. There is no need for me to keep on my toes, I know there will be an invisible wall on that alley, that the exquisitely detailed shopfronts serve no purpose apart from eye candy, and all I need to do is plug along to the next checkpoint, as was demonstrated by in a fairly decent article and video about CoD becoming nothing more than an interactive film (http://tinyurl.com/22mueym / news.com.au). It’s kinda sucky. Game and console dev’s seem to be pushing to attract the “have coin, will drop for good games” 25-40 bracket, but as you say, nothing compares to the FPS’s of old, and no one seems to be picking up on it yet.