... maybe two. I really think it's time we started moving past the whole "one man army" thing in games. Don't you ever get tired of an absurdly powerful evil force that has taken the world and suppressed all its people.... and then some random guy comes along with 800x the health of a normal human and destorys them all ~_~ . I really think it's time we start coming up with better ways to do this if we ever hope to create realistic games. Now that physics have become a part of everyday games, I think this may be one possible way to solve it along with combinations of stealth and creative problem solving. Idk, I'm just getting a little tired of this --> "GENERAL! They've taken out our tanks, planes, and the entire infantry division is dead sir!" "My god... I didn't want to have to resort to this but... send in Bill."

To a point, I agree. However, I think that the one-man-army is a common fantasy that people love to play out.

I think there have been a good number of more realistic games out there, particularly the rainbow six and ghost recon series. There are also plenty of games where the player does have to use his brains to solve various problems, albeit often very abstract ones (I'm looking at you, resident evil). Even action-centric games like Gears of War move towards that when you get into the higher difficulties, as the enemies seem to be nearly as powerful as you are.

Even in the games requiring stealth and tactics (such as Splinter Cell), the player is still, in a sense, an army of one. That is, they are still the hero.. the only person who is capable of saving the world from X. That, I think, is something we will never move away from.

Really, I think it will only get better as technology allows for the expansion of gameplay mechanics and AI. However, I think there will always be a market for army-of-one games.. because it's rather fun to go around and kill everything.

I will say that, yes, the one man army thing is going to be around forever. However, see that there's a differance between spinter cell and serious sam. Spinter cell is actually possible in real life (to an extent) but serious sam wouldn't make it past the first level machine gun lol. I'm not implying that we move toward stealth games, just give the hero something that is a defining factor between him and the enemies. And NO, that doesn't mean an ultra-uber bullet proof hazard suit.

I prefer squad-based games myself, where I feel like part of the action rather than the guy who instigates all of it. The thing I liked about the Call of Duty series is that you're almost always fighting with a team of guys (with one or two exceptions, which did spoil the game for me while they lasted) and being given specific orders, which you'd expect in a WWII shooter. Granted, my squad mates were almost completely ineffectual, and I do wish they'd done a better job at hitting the broad sides of barns, let alone German solders, but at least the feel was there.

Quake 4 I liked a little better because, even though the game did have its share of one-man-army portions, most of the time you had one, two, or even three marines helping you out, and they were really good. You could walk into a room full of enemies, walk back out, wait about ten seconds, and walk back in to find that the rest of your squad had cleaned house. I really like not having to do all the work myself, but I also like being given specific instructions that only I can do, even if the reason is simply because everyone else is busy.

I notice you're addressing mostly single-player games, where the one-man-army design philosophy reigns. Most team-based multi-player games divide functions and objectives fairly cleanly, so you do feel like part of a team because . . . well, you are, and the rest of your team is counting on you to do your job. This is why team-based competitive games have really taken off, while those of us who prefer modest coop campaigns are left to dry, despite being given the perfect example of what a coop game should be: Halo, plain and simple. The single- and multi-player campaigns were exactly the same thing and revolved around the one-man-army principle, but it worked, and no one bothered pointing out that there were two Master Chiefs in place of one. It was the best shooter I've ever played.

Designers have completely lost sight of the value of coop, even if it's slapped on, as was the case with System Shock 2, probably the best coop game ever made. It was released as a single-player game and they patched in the coop. If we can't have coop, at the very least I'd like some bots to take the heat off me and make it feel like I'm not masturbating through a keyboard and mouse. I miss the old days, when games involved more than one person. I'd better stop there.