Not to say I hate the genre, I actually love me some Dusk or Turbo Overkill, but why, oh why are they called Boomer Shooters?
These games clearly took inspiration from 90s FPS games, which 👌, but they were played mostly by Gen Xers and Millenials, not Boomers. When games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake were out, Boomers were what? 30 to 50 years old? I’m sure some of them played FPS games, but there is no way they were the majority.
Whenever I see the term Boomer Shooter, my mind goes to games like Shootout! for Magnavox Odyssey. Can’t we call them something else, like Retro FPSes or something?
Anyway, rant over. Thank you for your time.
I always assumed that the Boom in Boomer Shooter was more “Gun go Boom”, which seemed to fit the genre quite well.
Guys, IT ISN’T A REFERENCE TO THE BOOMER GENERATION. It’s boomer as in shotgun-go-BOOM.
This is worse tho. You can’t just erase the bfg like this
Boomer cope
Because Wolfenstein-like is a mouthful.
e: How about Catacomb-like?
When games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake were out, Boomers were what? 30 to 50 years old?
You mean, like most of us Millennial gamers are now (30+)? The youngest Millennials, born in 1996, will be 30 in 2 years.
These games clearly took inspiration from 90s FPS games, which 👌, but they were played mostly by Gen Xers and Millenials, not Boomers.
I’m a middle-Millennial (1988), and Doom was well before my time as a gamer. I was 5 years old in 1993. Halo (2001) was more my generation, just barely. The oldest Millennials in 1993 were 12 years old, which was not the target age group for Doom. Most of my cohort were playing Doom 3 on Xbox360, not Doom on DOS.
GenX? Sure, they played Doom, but Boomers were by far the larger age group playing “Mature” games at that time. Video games have never been just for children.
If it helps, this is the first time I hear it 🤷♂️
Boomer basically means 20+ years old nowadays as far as I can tell. Or older than zoomers.
I just think of it like boom as in explosions. Boom-boom shooty-shoot; or boomer shooter if you prefer brevity.
I love the term. For me it’s not just a shooter in an older style but also a shooter that goes BOOM. Much better than boring cover shooters.
Oh, they’re definitely better, no question. But by that definition, wouldn’t that make them Boom Shooters?
Na, because the newer shooters still go boom. But boomer shooters are just boomer. And everybody’s waiting for the coming of the boomest shooter.
I kind of enjoy this take lol
I would love to see that take place, so sign me up for the Church of the Boomest Shooter. My only real concern is where do we go from boomest?
Boomestest, obviously.
Helldivers 2 wins. You get to drop orbital strikes, launch ICBM nukes, call in cluster munitions, etc.
That’s the neat part, we don’t. Can’t have the messiah coming for real. Otherwise you get splinter religions.
Now I feel like playing Messiah.
We’ve already seen the boomest shooter. Our savior hath already come and gone and left us behind to witness his passing. His name was Ultrakill.
I’ve been saying this forever too! Boomers were the ones complaining about thier kids playing them back in the day because of the violence and demonic imagery.
In the 90s people called them "Doom-like"s. I usually just say “90s FPS games”. Which I guess could be confusing and make people think I’m talking about framerate, but eh.
Boomer today is used for anything that’s old, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you get Gen Xers that get called boomers. Since boomer shooters are a homage to old shooters, we call them boomer shooter. The ultimate problem is that it’s just catchy, so unless you find a more catchy term, you’re shit outta luck.
Who says boomer shooter?
It feels like everybody, here are just a few examples. And if that doesn’t cut it for you, Steam has a whole-ass tag for boomer shooters.
Man, this is the first time I’ve heard that term. But then, I don’t play anything in this genre anymore, so maybe it’s just by virtue of the fact that I’m out of that space almost entirely.
There’s been a big revival of that genre over the last 10 years or so and I think Boomer Shooter was adopted as a way to differentiate it from your standard FPS. Turbo Overkill is very different from Borderlands which is very different from COD. You’ll need a way to communicate that difference if you want fans to buy your game.
That’s cool. Always neat to see things come back but with the modern understanding of game theory.
I mean it became a tag on steam it’s so common. “Retro-style FPS” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily. Boomer = Baby Boomer generation (or close to it) where the engineers making the things; so while it’s not entirely accurate of the dev demographic of the day, “the things people who are now old used to make” is the meaning. Boomer is also like “boom” because there big loud guns, big loud sfx, ridiculous explosions, etc.
Why does this have to be a point of contention? No fun allowed? What is this, Nintendo?
As for why it might be a point of contention with many millennials.
My best guess is we’ve spent years being accused of doing things by boomers who didn’t know that Gen Z was a thing and now it feels like we are being lumped in with Boomers because Gen Z can’t be bothered to learn that more than one generation camr before them.
For Gen X it may just be that they constantly feel forgotten and want to be known.
Lol try being a Roguelike fan.
You correctly tell people that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a Roguelike and they look at you like you’ve grown a second head.
Sometimes this stuff happens, and there’s basically nothing you can do about it.
Major part of it is that some people differentiate hard between rogue-likes and lites, and others simply do not, and the two will never get along with each other. The thing being that if there are any type of permanent upgrade/unlock systems that makes the game easier the more you play, it is not like rogue, where instead of grinding for more max hp or dodge percentage, you “grind” knowledge and experience as a player.
Which means that there are very, very few actual roguelikes because upgrade systems are just so cool ™ and every game obviously needs one. Or three.
Does that make pixel dungeon an actual roguelike? Never played the original rogue.
I believe it is a roguelike, yeah. Probably my favorite one too.
I hate how difficult it is to find games I like when it used to be so trivial.
2010: “I want to play another game like rogue”
“Ok try these 10 games which are all excellent, and then there’s these 50 which stretch the definition but rhyme with it if you like”
2020: “I want to play a game like rogue”
“Here’s a 3d looter shooter with multiplayer and 9 currencies for upgrades between short runs”
Boomer Shooter = Shooter that goes boom
Okay, then riddle me this: which shooter DOESN’T go boom?
Splatoon?
Fortnite
Nope, that goes boom, too.
Oh come on. It’s funny. Boomer is more of a state of mind descriptor at this point. Don’t be such a boomer bro.
Get off my lawn and leave me to my prune juice.
Millennials are going to be in absolute shambles if they ever find out “Okay boomer” wasn’t directly targeted at boomers.
It wasn’t? This is what Wikipedia says:
“OK boomer” or “okay boomer” is a catchphrase and internet meme that has been used by members of the Millennial generation and Generation Z (born between the early 1980s and the early 2010s) to dismiss or mock attitudes typically associated with baby boomers – people born in the two decades following World War II.
Who was it targeted at then?
It was targeted at everyone older than the younger people saying it.
It’s used as a catch all, with the intention of getting everyone riled up. Because regardless of if you’re an actual boomer or not, now you’re getting bundled together with them.
Young people saying things old people told them.
People who were usually younger than millennials.
