Hey guys. I was playing shogo yesterday evening and I like it a lot. At the time of it's release i must have played almost every shooter except for shogo even though friends of mine said it was very good.
I've been a "hardcore gamer" (i hate this word, souns like 14-year olds have invented it because it's sounds cool but i doensn't really have a meaning) since the NES and since doom till i guess 2000 I loved FPS. Actually on pc I didn't really play much else. I missed out on a lot of amazing games because of that but i have been playing those in the last 10 years. Pre 2000 I really thought FPS were amazing. I loved the worlds, I was thrilled when i entered a new level, I enjoyed the music and how over the top everything was. And I always wanted to play the next level "just one more level before I go to sleep".
Now it seems when i play a recent FPS it get's boring really fast. They have become much easier and strangly enough more frustrating at the same time. You would think i have outgrown them or got tired of them but that's clearly not true. Because i had the same feeling of amazement when i played Shogo yesterday evening for the first time. And I still love playing quake II and doom,...most of the shooters of the 90's.
What went wrong? Did they forget it is al about fun and not about graphics and realism? What do you guys think. You must understand what i mean otherwise you wouldn't be on this forums, am i right?

New FPS games just try too hard. And people expect far to much from them. So when these two thing meet it just isn't fun.

Well, it's just my personal experience, but I've tried Crysis and Far Cry for example, and I was happy to go back to NOLF2, Duke Nuke, Blood or Serious Sam...

I find myself just playing a few levels more often than an entire game. I have several of my old favorites installed that I prefer over the newer FPS's that are being served up nowadays.

Well some new FPSes are still cool, like above mentioned STALKER games, but I think they're... Yeah, trying too hard. Also, new FPS is all about cool looking graphics and no reasonable level-design. Just look at Blood's level design - that's just something fantastic, or Duke 3D. It's joy to look at, it's innovative, it's fun... New shooters don't have that. You have a dynamite and a lighter in blood, you have woodoo doll. Now, you have to have MP5 and RPG... Yeah. Old shooters were very simple, fun and full of ideas. New FPSes are often too complex, while ignoring that they should mainly be about shooting stuff in lots of satisfying ways.

The moment Half-Life came out every FPS needed a 'story' in my opinion for me to complete the game. The only FPS I can really finish are games like Half-Life Bioshock etc etc.
Just more to it that just plain old shooting in a first person view.

a lot of us seem to like STALKER. I also agree that a good story has become more and more important. But maybe that's because the gameplay doesn't hold up on it's own and we need the story to continue.

Brink is looking like it has the potential to be a really good fps amidst a slew of tedium, watching the gameplay videos makes me think it's going to be pretty sweet

I am sorry, but newer FPS just annihilate old FPS games.
I have played most if not all major FPS games (and FPS like, games) since the 80's (yes there were some similar game then) and the only thing that old FPS games have is the sense of awe for seeing something new in gaming. That's it.
As much as I like some of the classics, they are not better games than modern ones.
In my opinion, no FPS game of old is even approaching modern FPS games like Rainbow Six Vegas, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Borderlands, Frontlines Fuel of War (patched), SWAT 4 (and 3), even The Club (if you approach it for what it is), and 2008s Wolfenstein.
And that's just from a quick glance over my installed games.
Yes, there are exceptions where modern FPS games are even boring compared to the old, like Crysis and Far Cry and Call of Duty (at least for some of us), but in general, there is no competition.
I think it is similar to old super cars and modern ones. Sure there is this sense of awesomeness with old super cars, but take them for a test drive and 9/10 the new ones just destroy the old ones.

Serious Sam HD is waiting for you and Blondie (Duke) will come when he is done. :P

Most modern shooters are designed with console audiences and gamepads in mind. There is a definite trend towards "corridor shooter" level design (the "walls" are either literal or formed by impassable debris, fences or other arbitrary barriers). Impressive art design or a captivating story can make even a corridor shooter into an interesting experience, but many games aren't that lucky. If you feel like you're being funnelled from one scripted battle scene to the next--rather than making your own fun as you work through a level--it can make the game really start to drag out even considering the very short length of most shooters these days.
Additionally, an increasing number of games implement cover mechanics even if the game normally plays from a first-person perspective (e.g. Rainbow Six Vegas and even Crysis 2), and due to the way this works attempting to manually crouch behind ostensibly suitable cover isn't actually viable because this doesn't give you the magic protection offered by the cover system--but if you try to take cover behind an object the designers didn't plan to be used as cover the magic just won't work. A cover system slows down the whole game, and if you're looking for a fast-paced experience these games probably aren't going to provide it.
Even if a game commits neither of these sins it can still suffer from the current trend of shoving out a short, weak single player storyline that's basically included to get players familiar with the controls before funnelling them into the mandatory multiplayer component that typically comprises the bulk of the experience; several recent games have even gone the Unreal Tournament route (providing the vaguest explanation for why the factions are fighting each other while railroading the player through a sequence of offline matches).
Even when playing on the PC with a mouse and keyboard these design decisions will still affect the feel of your experience.
One thing you could try is looking to shooters that are only available on the PC (or were built for the PC first and had console ports later on), especially those that focus on the single player experience or are single player only. Crysis and Far Cry are obvious examples here, but others like Duke Nukem 3D are available right here on GOG.

Ever played Killzone 2 on the PS3? That game was pretty generic but the cover system was really well implemented and stayed in first person

If you're a fan of the classic corridor shooters, get Painkiller from this very site. It's an unapologetic throwback to the simplest of shooters, and it is awesome.