FPS, same old ideas, my attempt at new uses.

Now, most FPS games have the same key elements in them. How many times do we see slow motion as a special ability? Even in games where they dont explain why the character has some special talent to slow down time and act faster then everyone around him, it still seems to make its way into the game.

Now, while it is unlikely that any truly new ideas for FPS are going to surface and be implemented (everyone knows the industry thrives on repetition, even the gamers buying the games are often too scared to try something new), I have had an idea kickign around in my head that I have always wanted to try. For the most part, it uses all the same old tricks that other FPS games use, but I have been trying to find new ways for them to be used.

Enough rambling, on to my idea. Couple of years ago, I had an idea for a FPS, based on the generic "Mercenary sent in to fix a government facility's screw up". The twist (because there is always a twist) was that when sent in, the soldier would find that an odd infection had begun to creep about the facility. Nothing new so far. Within the first 30 mins to an hour of playing this basic shooter, your character becomes infected (now I know it is similar to Dark Sector, lord knows I was pissed when I saw the game come out, but luckily they have so little in common in the long run). The character is saved by a scientist, who administers a vaccine, downside is it only slows the corruption, it cant cure it, yet. This adds a new danger to the game. As you play through, enemy attacks have a side affect of when they hit you, they will increase a corruption %, and if it ever hits 100%, you become fully infected and lose. Now you will have syriinges that can be used to carry or make vaccines to help control the infection, but here is the catch (always a catch). As the infection grows inside you, your character takes on new and powerful abilities. Depending on what the % of corruption, your character will have a permanent speed boost, making the game seem in slow motion (except versus enemies with speed equal to or better then yours. Thus creating a slow motion game around you, where only you and your enemy are moving at what seems normal speed to you. (idea comes from the last fight in Jet Li's The One)). You would be able to toggle it off outside of combat situations if you wished, but there would be no bar that controls it, you have it as long as enough corruption has altered you to have acces to it.

Now, there are various other ideas that can be used with this. Such as high levels of corruption would allow you to use melee attacks to damage environments (I loved the first Red Faction game, being able to blow your way through a wall to get past a locked door was fun, or blowing either end of a natural stone bridge to take out a tank.) I am sure vaious other ideas could be implemented with the system, and it would create, hopefully with otu being annoying to the player, a need to balance corruption with power, too high may make you god like, but the fact that you could hit 100% and lose control makes it risky. Too low and you are safe from corruption, but you would find your enemies difficult to battle.

Just some random thoughts, and a very basic idea for a game I have been mulling over for a while. Curious what thoughts or ideas others would have. Both good and bad.