What, in you mind, is the definition of a "boomer shooter", both historically and among current releases?

[johnboy3434]

17 minutes ago, heliumlamb said:

a boomer shooter is a shooter from when boomers were young, coincides with the first 3 home console generations,

ie: space invaders, xevious, galaga, river raid, centipede, asteroids, spacewar, gradius, zanac, bosconian, gaplus and their ilk

 

That's what the name would imply, but that's not what it actually means. Usage determines definition, and while usage of the term "boomer shooter" can be inexact and vague (hence this thread), under no circumstances has it ever extended to the games you're talking about. The idea is very much centered on games that flourished primarily in the 90s.

Edited June 18, 2023 by johnboy3434

[Biodegradable]

It's kind of astonishing how many people appear to have missed the joke and take the moniker, "Boomer Shooter" so seriously when the name itself is derived from the 30 Year Old Boomer meme and how it coincides with the age of the generation who grew up playing old FPS games and now making their own. It's just a meme, kids. A joke. A silly little nickname for all these new FPS games that hearkin back to the old shooters we all grew up on.

 

I mean, for crying out loud, 3D Realms CEO Frederik Schreiber even cosplayed as the meme in Realms Deep 2021!

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Biodegradable

[Cosmic79]

I think a boomer shooter is a shooter that doesn't have modern shooter elements and plays like retro shooters for the most part. The main characteristic has to be the movement (fewer constrictions compared to modern shooters) and the focus on fast gameplay/gunplay rather than storyline or NPCs.

 

A boomer shooter doesn't restrict the player to using 1 or 2 weapons at the same time. Sprinting isn't limited to stamina. There aren't any character or armor abilities. Dialogues are either nonexistent or very limited. The story is forgettable, poorly presented and only exists to justify the fast-paced gameplay. The character can tank more damage. Health pickups instead of regenerating health. Absurd weapon designs to reinforce the game's power fantasy. No taking cover behind structures, no recoil or weapon degradation etc.

 

Graphics and release date are not relevant in my opinion.

[heliumlamb]

4 minutes ago, johnboy3434 said:

 

That's what the name would imply, but that's not what it actually means. Usage determines definition, and while usage of the term "boomer shooter" can be inexact and vague (hence this thread), under no circumstances has it ever extended to the games you're talking about. The idea is very much centered on games that flourished primarily in the 90s.

under my circumstanes, it does, and it will. need it or keep it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ absolute missed opportunity for folks to call 90's first person shooters and the stuff inspired by it "Doomer Shooters" but alas, running over the heads of ball shit snakes once again.

[Gez]

My definition of a Boomer Shooter is an SSBM sim set in WW3. Because that's the scenario when a boomer shoots.

[Noiser]

2 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

It's just a meme, kids. A joke.

The problem is when a meme turns into a serious definition. I honestly don't like it. I mean, If it's a joke it should keep it as a joke imo

[Biodegradable]

30 minutes ago, Noiser said:

The problem is when a meme turns into a serious definition. I honestly don't like it. I mean, If it's a joke it should keep it as a joke imo

 

Unfortunately, Noiser, one cannot control how the common vernacular flows. You can huff and puff and be annoyed and try to correct people at every turn, but you'll never be able to stop folks from internalising certain words, phrases or in this case a funny nickname for the Retro Shooters of today. We already have a "serious" definition anyways since it all falls under the umbrella of First Person Shooter - everything else is elementary.

[Al-Faris M]

Boomer Shooter: A genre of FPS games that imitate gameplay tropes from any FPS game released in the 90's or early 2000's, much like the term Doom clone.

[Noiser]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Unfortunately, Noiser, one cannot control how the common vernacular flows. You can huff and puff and be annoyed and try to correct people at every turn, but you'll never be able to stop folks from internalising certain words, phrases or in this case a funny nickname for the Retro Shooters of today. We already have a "serious" definition anyways since it all falls under the umbrella of First Person Shooter - everything else is elementary.

I'm not concerned. As any unsubstantial trend, it will dissapear naturally in a short amount of time. No one is trying to control anything btw, I'm just saying that the "it's a joke" argument fails flat in this case.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Noiser

[cybdmn]

11 hours ago, Xaser said:

Up until JP's article came out, though, I'm not really sure if anyone really was able to explain what it is that was missing from shooters. It was a lot of vague thoughts about "modern shooters suck" without a whole lot of real substance on why, then the article dropped and everyone was able to point at it and go "there, THAT. That's what's missing."

 

I am not even sure if today many people get the point of that article or what made fps in the 90s what they where.. You got a lot of shooters, which seems to be slaughter maps, played on brutal doom with ROTTs EKG cheat applied, called "boomer shooters".

[Gifty]

The name is derived from younger millennials and zoomers adapting the term "boomer" sort of crudely to refer to anyone older than them, instead of the specific generational cohort that "boomer" actually means. As a younger millennial myself I get it but think it's pretty annoying.

 

What's interesting to me is that with the throwback shooter genre growing, we're starting to see throwbacks to more recent eras like 2000s shooters, and callbacks to Max Payne, FEAR etc. Which means that we'll finally have to start thinking about what really defines a "boomer" shooter or 90s-style shooter from other types of shooter throwback, and maybe will develop more nuanced terminology around all these things in time.

 

(Personally I'm more partial to "movement shooter")

[Al-Faris M]

3 hours ago, cybdmn said:

You got a lot of shooters, which seems to be slaughter maps

Aren't slaughter maps a part of "boomer shooter" history?

[cybdmn]

Part of it, but not the essence. Many of the recent retro fps games pick up parts of what made the games back then, and turn them to eleven. Just take a look at Ion Furys secrets. While secrets are part of many classic games, in IF secret hunting is ridiculous. And this counts for nearly every aspect, be it speed, gore, whatever you could find in the games back then, there is a modern games that replicate that aspect tenfold.

 

What i want to say ist, that despite the overall quality of many of these games, there is a general misunderstanding of what made games like Doom, Duke3d or Quake so popular.

[roadworx]

every time someone brings this up, it always devolves into people bitching and moaning about boomer shooters being called boomer shooters lol

[THYENDISNOW]

Not sure if this would count, but I would probably say the hitman series. The franchise, in and of itself, has changed very little from its original ideas and gameplay, though with obvious changes in hardware, story plot, and culture such as it recognizing its fan base with the heat seeking briefcase. It's a cult classic, and had managed to stay polished through the years, as opposed to doom as it was taken out of box in the closet and improved to be put on display, which isn't a bad thing, just that hitman has stayed in the loop more easily. 

[TasAcri]

Right, it should be more like Gen-X shooters.

[Hebonky]

Because in the minds of the current generation older=Boomer

[johnboy3434]

So, any chance we can drop the bullshit semantics about the name?

[Major Arlene]

28 minutes ago, johnboy3434 said:

So, any chance we can drop the bullshit semantics about the name?

I mean, you brought the whole topic up?

[johnboy3434]

10 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

I mean, you brought the whole topic up?

 

I mean specifically "it's a dumb/inaccurate name, they should have called it this or that instead". Well they didn't, so there. Plus 99% of what's been repeatedly bandied back and forth about the term "boomer" was already typed out right there in my OP under the heading "pedantic bullshit", so it's even more repetitive than it seems.

Edited June 19, 2023 by johnboy3434

[D4NUK1]

Boomer Shooter still have more concrete specifications than retro fps or movement fps.

[Dreamskull]

 

On 6/16/2023 at 6:34 PM, Dreamskull said:

The question remains, when did we make resurgence or are we still stuck there? At bare minimum, it was 10 years of dogwater. Im unsure if its actually recovered. Probably not, but this sort is an extremely bleak subject to talk about because we had to dive deep back into classics and theyre trying to set hooks in us to drag us out of that deeper water. For many of you, you probably havent got the slightest clue what Im talking about, but thats fine.

 

On 6/17/2023 at 10:36 PM, Xaser said:

History Lesson Time! *audience groans*

 

In 2010, JP LeBreton wrote a short article titled Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom -- It's still just about the best summary out there for what on earth makes a "boomer shooter" what it is, even today. If you've got an account here and haven't seen it yet, drop what you're doing and read it. It's worth it. :P

 

Now, the "history" bit: folks who have gotten into Doom in recent years might not remember the "dark ages" between 2004 (when Painkiller released) and 2016 (when the Doom reboot came out) -- during that time, there were no major game releases that even came close to the gameplay formula we all fell in love with. There were a handful of ill-fated attempts at making an "oldschool shooter" that were either off-genre (e.g. Serious Sam 3 -- Sam's formula is totally its own thing) or missed the mark entirely (e.g. Hard Reset, which just tried to ape the Sam formula, or STRAFE, which sorta had the aesthetic but nothing else), but by and large the whole doom-style "movement as defense" shooter had vanished entirely outside of modding circles (Doom, Quake, etc.).

 

Up until JP's article came out, though, I'm not really sure if anyone really was able to explain what it is that was missing from shooters. It was a lot of vague thoughts about "modern shooters suck" without a whole lot of real substance on why, then the article dropped and everyone was able to point at it and go "there, THAT. That's what's missing."

 

At any rate, that's indeed ancient history now. Doom's 2016 reboot brought a little bit of the formula back into the mainstream, and then DUSK released in 2018 and blew the gates wide open. Now we've got tons of oldschool shootery goodness coming out left right and center. The drought has ended, and now we're drowning in boom. :P

 

Aaaaanyhow, I point this all out to say: each modern "boomer shooter" is going to put their own spin on the formula, but the quintessential "core elements" which make up the genre are the ones pointed out in JP's article, precisely because those were the exact ingredients that were missing from every single recipe for a decade and a half.

Oh youve got Xaser here actually answering my question. Good work and thankye much!

Edited June 20, 2023 by Dreamskull

[Mystic 256]

I'm gonna in invent the term Lenny Shooter (Mil-Lenny-al) for like 00s to early 10s shooters just to be silly

[ReaperAA]

51 minutes ago, Mystic 256 said:

I'm gonna in invent the term Lenny Shooter (Mil-Lenny-al) for like 00s to early 10s shooters just to be silly

 

Zoomer Shooter revival when

[Li'l devil]

Anything Civvie11 plays and endorses, cuz he's the definition of boomer

[SealSpace]

Just to take a stab in the dark, I'll assume that:

 

Outside of the usage of 2D sprites like 90's FPS games on the aesthetic or graphical level or an FPS game originating from the 90's (and possibly earlier) itself, any FPS game that skews as closely as possible to the traditional conventions of gameplay mechanics, weapons system, map design, etc. of Doom itself as opposed to other "modern" FPS games? 

 

Something more arcadey, fast-paced, and straightforward in progression and exploration? 

 

That's what one of my friends who's a former a dev of Samsara told me on Discord earlier this year. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by SealSpace

[SealSpace]

On 6/18/2023 at 3:56 AM, heliumlamb said:

a boomer shooter is a shooter from when boomers were young, coincides with the first 3 home console generations,

ie: space invaders, xevious, galaga, river raid, centipede, asteroids, spacewar, gradius, zanac, bosconian, gaplus and their ilk

You listed the absolute most legendary video games ever (that isn't Mario, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Sonic, or Pong at least).

[Gibbitudinous]

It's funny to think about how more than anything, the concept of the "boomer shooter" is defined by a need to escape the suffocating fart cloud that was the "cod clone" era.

 

Going from "doom clones" made by scrappy little teams of 20-something computer nerds in the 90s to "cod clones" being the backbone of the nascent AAA game industry by the mid-2000s was such a horrible fate for the genre, and it frankly seems like it took longer than it should have for FPS games to join the indie renaissance scene.

 

Genuinely, how many notable indie FPS releases were there prior to Doom 2016? I'm honestly curious about that since I can't remember shit about the state of indie FPSes circa 2015.

[johnboy3434]

3 hours ago, Gibbitudinous said:

It's funny to think about how more than anything, the concept of the "boomer shooter" is defined by a need to escape the suffocating fart cloud that was the "cod clone" era.

 

Going from "doom clones" made by scrappy little teams of 20-something computer nerds in the 90s to "cod clones" being the backbone of the nascent AAA game industry by the mid-2000s was such a horrible fate for the genre, and it frankly seems like it took longer than it should have for FPS games to join the indie renaissance scene.

 

Genuinely, how many notable indie FPS releases were there prior to Doom 2016? I'm honestly curious about that since I can't remember shit about the state of indie FPSes circa 2015.

 

Without checking, I think there were enough to count on one hand, and before 2013's Rise of the Triad remake I don't think there were any with commercial aspirations. Just well-made hobby projects and/or fan mods.

[TheHambourgeois]

wolf3d-quake2 are imo boomer shooters. Maybe include catacombs3d

 

On 6/18/2023 at 3:56 AM, heliumlamb said:

a boomer shooter is a shooter from when boomers were young, coincides with the first 3 home console generations,

ie: space invaders, xevious, galaga, river raid, centipede, asteroids, spacewar, gradius, zanac, bosconian, gaplus and their ilk

"boomer" as an insult almost always refers to gen x, in my experience.