8 Things You Can No Longer Do In Video Games

Innovation and gaming are synonymous. Gamers around the world are always seeking the next big change. Whether it's improved visual fidelity in a new console or never before seen features in a new game, this is the industry of change.

While this change is certainly one of gaming's strengths, anything that is viewed as a retread is often pushed to the side, and it means many great features of the past have been left in the dust.

Many of the entries on this list are still playable, considering remasters and ports, however, we are looking at features that don't appear in the latest games releasing today. To play these features you might have to boot up an old console or dig around in your wallet and pay for a re-release. Seeing them present in a new release is uncommon.

Whether it's much-loved mechanics that are no longer present, or entire genres that seem to have gone extinct, we want to look back at them, with our nostalgia glasses firmly on, and remissness about what we can no longer do in video games.

Shooters nowadays, whether third or first person, rarely contain fully fleshed out squad-based mechanics. Halo fans might remember an attempt at these mechanics in Halo 5: Guardians (or maybe they don't want to remember), where they could be described as rudimentary at best. Instead of supplying tactical advantages, they amounted to no more than looking in a direction and telling your teammate to go there. Your squad mate then preceded to become a bullet sponge.

True, tactical squad mechanics have been sorely lacking in shooters today. Games like Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and Conflict: Desert Storm from the early 2000s had them in droves. Players were able to full coordinate their team in order to respond to different tasks. Squads were also composed of specialists (medic, demolitions etc) so the player had to use them individually in different situations.

Both Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and Conflict: Desert Storm allowed the player to swap between their squad mates during missions, along with the ability to command them to fulfill tasks. The system allowed players to not only command the team, but also be a real part of it.

Sadly, tactical shooters and fully fleshed out squad mechanics are hardly seen in the modern gaming landscape. The rise of shooters like Call of Duty, games where the spectacle became the most important aspect, have made it so military shooters that have a tactical angle are a thing of the past.