No. Every single example of a game within the genre is horribly derivative and not worth playing.

Portal ain't a FPS. It's a puzzle game in first person. I'd say Metroid Prime, although more of a FPA, brought some innovations to the genre, in terms on non-linearity and such. I wish some more traditional FPS series would take a look at what the Prime games do and rethink their approach.

You don't pay for innovation, you pay for the same Shooter over and over, just with slightly differing stories.

Innovation costs money and offers huge risk to most developers, and investors demand a game that is guaranteed to sell, lest funding be pulled/stock be sold/etc. Creating an FPS is all about establishing a cool looking brand name, making one game that's very average, and once the name is out there, branch it out into, not only a sequel that's just like the first, but other games that use the title and are loosely tied to the first. You'd also be a great developer if you take a pre-existing feature in another game, like the ability to rewind and fast-forward time, create your own name for said system, and add maybe a few new visual effects or differing options and make it a recycled "innovation."

Oh, and multiplayer, clearly every Shooter needs this, even if it is thrown-together and lackluster.

Ura-

Wow...

***Far Cry 2?***

Portal.

What about L4D? It's still point and shoot, the The Director Mechanic is pretty damn interesting. Of course, it's solely a way for the AI to kick your ass and pile shit on you then take it away just so it can scare you again later, but since Half Life 2 came out with the gravity gun and made physics and integral part of the FPS genre, there hasn't been much change.

Just wait for Valve to do something new.

Saying that portal isn't a FPS is just splitting hairs. It was done in first person perspective and you used a hand held item to shoot at points on screen. It was a first person shooter in the very essence of the phrase. The fact that there were no guns with actual projectiles to kill mutant aliens is a moot point.

Whether or not FC2 will be good is still in question, I have my hopes, but whether or not it will amount to more than "travel here and shoot", "travel here and obtain item", "now travel here and shoot" remains to be seen.

Mirrors Edge seems to be a shining example of taking FPS's in the right direction. Letting the player interact with their environment seems to be the next logical step. Graphics have been mastered enough to be able to maturely display and relate the content directors want and voice acting and story telling can now be told in-game a lot easier and more entertainingly that just intravenously injecting users with cut-scenes every 30 minutes.

I think finally making invisible walls and unconventional obstructions a thing of the past is the next big thing, in relation to environmental interaction, you know?

For example: imagine playing through Resistance and being able to blow open ANY door on the street and run inside the building to take cover. Then climbing some stairs and blowing a hole in the wall and jumping across to the neighboring building.

Or being able to pick up a car door off the ground and use it as a shield. Tripping over in mud, ditches, wet weather. When you go up against a wall and want to peak around a corner, show the characters hand on the wall or something.

I just think the next innovation should focus on drawing the player more in to the world created in the game, rather than getting the game to look better or give the game more weapons.

But now I'm just rambling.

"Speaking of innovation I really like how Uncharted mixed in the shooting with tomb raider game play,"

Isn't that what Tomb Raider is? You shoot people in Tomb Raider, you know?

Uncharted was a good game, but there was absolutely nothing innovative about it. It was fun and that's what games should be. I could care less if it's innovative. As long as I'm interested in what I'm doing, I'm good.

Wolfenstein 3D was innovative. So were the old first person RPGs.

I still say Battlefield.

Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Those were the innovators of the genre, and they are the cause of it's upbringing.

Trespasser.

I think they had a game for ps2 called Area 51 where you could turn into an alien lol it was cool I guess but mehhhh... Im mostly talking about campagin features you online guys scare companies into changin anything lol