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.
You seem like an intelligent and discerning person, so I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the only possible response to this is “ok boomer”
Dammit! Upvoted with great begrudgement.
Boomer is a state of mind, love, and this post is a shining example of boomerism.
I’d say closer to the xennial “forgotten generation” type. The playtesters of all of your favorite franchises didn’t fall behind as far as you think.
Hey, at least it’s shining.
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”
Worth noting that the boomer wojak meme started as “That 30 year old boomer”. It was never about actual Baby Boomers.
Boomer Shooter = Shooter that goes boom
Okay, then riddle me this: which shooter DOESN’T go boom?
Splatoon?
That’s a good one. True enough, Splatoon doesn’t go boom, it goes splat.
Fortnite
Nope, that goes boom, too.
Rare boom isn’t boomer.
It would be like putting Fallout in First person mode and calling it a FPS shooter game since it does have guns.
Dusk is a boomer shooter. Same group who I quoted the first time.
I call them id-style shooters myself, but there is a bit of word play I like in the term ‘boomer shooter’. On top of referencing the age of the audience when they first arrived (albeit incorrectly), it is also a reference to the fact that the optimal strategy for these games is simply to blow things the fuck up. There is very little tactical play beyond what weapons to use for a given situation, and these games really love their explosive barrels and rocket launchers.
I never even considered that the name referred to baby boomers I thought it just meant they went “boom”
Ok.
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.
Yeah, it drives me nuts as well! Boomers hated video games. They still hate video games. They had congressional hearings about the evils of video games. Stupid name.
My dad helped me install the original Wolfenstein 3D on DOS when I was a kid. And he’s 100% a boomer (b.1947). So for that reason it always feels accurate to me.
Oldskool FPS. There. That’s the correct term. Now, who’s up for some DM-Morpheus with instagib mutator?🤘
…and volatile ammo. I’m in.
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.
I always assumed that the Boom in Boomer Shooter was more “Gun go Boom”, which seemed to fit the genre quite well.
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.
