Turn Boomer Shooters up to 11 in 2023

MrEUser@lemmy.ninja to Gaming@beehaw.org – 14 points –
lemmy.ninja

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/14972

Yesterday I got lots of questions asking “I used to play (X) are there any current generation Boomer Shooters like it?” I wrote this article to answer many of those questions.

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I love single player FPS games, I'll definitely try a few from this list. The term "boomer shooter" is terrible though.

The term "boomer shooter" is terrible though.

idk... That seems very descriptive and has memorable assonance. I immediately knew the type of games that implies, even moreso than retroFPS since "retro" is such a moving target, it could mean things like Half-Life, which is about as far from boomer shooters as you can get.

I like the name and it's memorable but I dont believe FPS were intended for "boomers", weren't they aimed at Gen X/maybe early millennials who were the young adults/children in these timeframes? Games weren't an adulting pastime back then, it was child's play.

I bet there were a few boomers playing but Gen X would have been the dominant gaming generation.

I can't believe Gen X have been forgotten again.

@Treevan @blindsight Boomer has now been expanded to be synonymous with "old," it barely even means "the baby boomer generation" anymore in modern Internet parlance.

While I don't disagree with your statement, this is what I was referencing:

The term “boomer shooter” is a playful reference to the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation who were the initial audience for these games.

I don't think there is any doubt there.

I agree. If everyone knows what type of game we're talking about, the term is appropriate. Hard agree on retro-FPS.

I saw Fortune's Run referred to as a boomer shooter, which looks like Doom and a lot of games immediately inspired by it but plays much more like Quake, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Max Payne, and Metal Gear Solid in a blender.

Yeah. I approve of the idea of shooters where the intended audience is my 78 year old mum though

For those that prefer another term I recommend “retroFPS”

This is awesome, thank you for taking the time to write this!

Glad to be of service. Feel free to read the article it references from yesterday. I put about twice as much effort in to it ;)

They're generally called Arena Shooters, this new term is annoying

No.

An arena shooter occurs in… an arena. Arena shooters are multiplayer.

Quake was single player and not in an arena. Quake II was single player and not in an arena. Same with Heretic, Helen, Duke Nukem, Serious Sam…. And modern games like Boltgun, Forgive me Father, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, Deadlink, Trepang^2… No, not one of these is an Arena Shooter.