Why do they never have an open ended campaign anymore, where you support what you like, pitch in where you want to and generally, realistically support the allies, instead of, mission directives like watch these bombers, which are promptly gang raped by fighters (who are usually much smarter than yours). And then when they go down, mission failed. Why cant we have a game where the enemy and allies fight each other on a huge campaign and you are dropped in to support where you feel it's needed. and the battle will continue regardless of losses. Id kill to see a mech game like that. Especially on X-Box with yummy graphics.

This kind of pitch in where you like gameplay, coupled with a squad of men under your command, who CAN do things for themselves when you send them off to defend/attack something would make for a classic game. Maybe games companies nowadays think we're all too stupid to actually control realistic war games. This, youre all stupid mentality is present in so many games these days. Maybe they think that the people who buy the games have only a ten second attention span, but most serious gamers are adults, kids only rent games, and most adults have a reasonable attention span IMO.

And while im on the subject. All FPS games are downright stale now too. Endless copies of the same old shite. Why do these games NEVER have squad support, where you go in as a unit, not as a lone gunman who spends most of the game on his todd, shooting the same old half assed halfwitts again and again.

Make a modern version of X-Com is what I say. The best damn squad game EVER since forever.

I'm not that much into RTS myself tho, but I played "Shogun Total War" by a friend and it definitv has nice features.
While your units controlling wise are packed in groups every single soldier is displayed. the Limit is at 1500 troops as far as I remember.
So the battles are pretty cool when you have 3000 moving units on screen.

As for the FPS genre, well I agree companys seem to play save and only try to top each other with good grafix.
But thats also the fault of the players, they dont go "uh look the game is supposed to have AI that not only attacks, but surrenders aswell", no they go "Hey seen the video of doom 3 real shadows and everything looks so real that game will rock".

But for good gameplay I give you a tip check out some mods, especial halflife mods there a very good games out there (and I dont mean Counterstrike).

And from your rambling I think you will like Natural Selection(its abit like aliens or starshiptroopers setting wise).
While the mission objectivs are pretty simple (kill the enemy), the idea is great.

The marines are forced to work as a team (one marine doesnt stand a chance against a alien).
One player actually acts as a commander and plays the game like a RTS.
He manages resources builds sentry guns and gives ammunition and weapons to the squad.

and there are other cool mods aswell.

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Wer nicht vom Meister lernt, lernt nie etwas.

Well good gameplay takes alot of work and thought.

I think the main problem is the rapid hardware advancement.

Take consoles for example the first games that come out for a console dont use all the hardware of the machine.
Because it takes time for the programmers to learn all the little tweaks tricks and workarounds to use the full potential.

Thats why later games can still make you say "wau!"

On PCs on the other hand, hardware is allways in the move.
So programmers have a hard time to keep up.

And to close all this.
The cool thing about Halflife and its mods is, that it generated a stillstanding environment, where creators have the time to push the engine limits in all aspects.

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Wer nicht vom Meister lernt, lernt nie etwas.

Plus it takes a hefty system, which most ppl havn't got (like for UT2003) to run most of these new games. I'd spend the money instead on more manga comics instead.

I for one have gone retro because of all this nonsense, and as a result, Mr.Do, Pacman and Nebulous Bee now have me in their clutches! Beep! boop!