Emob78: Agreed. Newer games, especially shooters, seem to be pushing for a combination of nostalgia and GFX parlor tricks rather do what the first generations did, which was create and innovate. That's not just shooters, but the gaming industry as a whole. Seems it's true - nothing new under the sun.
Yep, part of what you said is why it was a good time to be a gamer in the 90's, developers were really pushing limits on what they could do. This is just my opinion but I think people long for classic FPS not for the games themselves, but because of the innovations that games in that genre brought to the table. It was exciting to see how boundries were being pushed back then.
Bethesda Softworks really pushed possibilities to their limits in the 90's. Anyone else remember Terminator: Future Shock and SkyNET? It was the first FPS game I played with open maps, drivable vehicles (No, this did NOT start with Halo) with an atmosphere faithful to Kyle Reese dream sequences in the original Termintaor movie. It also was the second game I played with 3D modelled enemies (The first game was Descent).
Half-Life gets a lot of credit for story telling but I honestly think Cybermage: Darklight Awakening should have gotten a little more recognition. Just like Wolfenstien 3D wasn't the first FPS, Half-Life wasn't the first FPS to have a narritive. I'm not sure which FPS that would be though but I do know Cybermage did it before Half-Life. Cybermage was one of the earlier game that showed us FPS games didn't have to be about finding keys and hitting switches to end the level.
How about the original Quake that did away with the 2D sprites and helped pave the way for 3D graphics acceleration. Although this did get off to a bumpy start (a ton of early 3D platformers sucked), it has gone a long way since then.
Or how about Thief, the game that showed us FPP games didn't have to have things to shoot to be fun.
Don't get me wrong, the current gaming industry still has room to evolve. However, consider the development costs for AAA games today, I'm not surprised devs don't want to take risks. With modern AAA gaming, it's hard to be excited when you know devs are just going to stick with a proven formula rather than stretch posibilities.