I recently picked up Rainbow Six: Vegas again so as to get more familiar with the game style before Vegas 2 came around. I jumped into the single player campaign as I recalled enjoying it the first time through. I did the whole duck and cover, pop and shot routine necessary to get you through the various levels. That was a safe strategy until one of my intelligent team members decided to fight bullets with his face. Naturally I run over and administer the magical shot of life to bring my buddy back into the action. I love the mechanic of being able to pick up your team members, it gives you the reassurance that if you fellow man should wonder aimlessly and meet his maker then it isn't game over for you. However after dying numerous times myself I realized that this is fundamentally flawed on the very basic level. Why is my team incapable of resurrecting me when I'm the one bleeding on the floor? There have been a lot of high caliber and successful games that have for some bizarre reason followed this route recently. Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter, Gears Of War, Rainbow Six and most recently Mass Effect. A key feature for all the above mentioned games has been using your squad to help you and to give the feeling that you are more than a one man army.

I'd like to know if there is any specific reason behind this gameplay mechanic. In fact I can only recall one game where me being incapacitated didn't result in my instant death, Star Wars Republic Commando was that game. If you went down then it was possible to beckon your squad members to try and come to your aid if they could. This was a brilliant mechanic and made your squad all the more useful for things other than diversions. It made the game a little easier in some cases but at least it made sense for the type of game you were playing. All people in combat situations tend to have some medical training even if it is limited, so they should be able to use it. I never got round to playing GRAW 2 so I don't know if it was present there. but feel free to correct me. I just feel that it is a small issue in squad games that appears to get no attention for some reason. With the upcoming Vegas sequel and the yet to be official announced Gears of War 2 (we all know it's happening) I wonder if this will be implemented in the squad revival system.

That's pretty much it for the post today, no epic rant but just a quick notation on my recent realization of squad mechanics. Does anyone else know of any other games where you could get help from your team members after being downed? or is it an obvious feature that is very sparse in squad based games?