this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 108 points 10 months ago (47 children)

So "boomer" just means anything that's older than the person viewing it now? Boy they've sure killed off any power that word ever had lol

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 93 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Its especially annoying in this case since it was the boomers who actively were trying to get DOOM/Quake/whatever banned. It is the GenX/older millennials who got off on shooters with any sense of urgency or movement.

It is on the level of deciding Taylor Swift's sub-genre of music is "Kanye-core" because Kanye was a dick to her in the past.

[–] Muehe@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is the GenX/older millennials who got off on [that].

Doomer Shooters? /s

[–] iheartneopets@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

I thought doomers were largely young millenials/Gen z?

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[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 41 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Certified zoomer here to explain. This boomer games tag is not about old games. It's about games that match what a boomer thinks of as an FPS (as viewed probably by a zoomer). The top 3 most popular games are made in 2020, 2023, and 2023.

Basically if the game play for the game was the style of a pre 2000 shooter it would qualify for the tag. But it could have come out yesterday.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Boomers didn’t and still don’t think of video games at all unless they’re trying to moralise it and outlaw it.

Jack Thompson Is the perfect example of a boomer and their relationship with video games.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

So "in the style of" ?

I do think it's interesting that the almost fundamental definition of being a boomer would be the significant dividing line of having access to video games growing up or not, but alas, culture is what culture is.

Can you give a longer form description?

Would this be like a "fixed perspective" fps ( like of doom or quake or Wolfenstein)?

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

I’m thinking more arena shooters like quake and unreal.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A strict definition is hard. The first thing that came to my mind was 'like quake'.

Fps games have come in phases. Most recently looter shooters, before that battle royals, before that hero shooters. And quite early in that chain you had boomer shooters.

Fixed pov would certainly be a step down that path but I wouldn't call it a requirement. If Quake got a faithful remake with all the advancements of 2024 and non of the industry trends that'd be a boomer shooter.

If you made a brand new arena shooter with no classes and an array of ~8 distinct weapons (think one rocketlauncher, one SMG, one pistol etc.) laid across the map focused on something like TDM or KotH, that could be a boomer shooter.

It's kind of like porn, you know it when you see it.

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[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

From my comment to the first guy:

They're just shooters that are mechanically similar to old shooters like Quake and Doom, so you're typically gonna have a mix of these traits:

  • A wide range of weapons with unique uses (think rockets, railguns, shotguns, machine guns...)
  • Chapters that you can complete in any order but the levels in them are completed linearly
  • Colored keys to open colored doors
  • A level-end screen when you reach the end of a level that tells you your completion time and what % of items/enemies are left
  • And my favorite part, a lot of them have advanced movement techniques, which are usually identical to Quake (if not Quake 2/3) like bunnyhopping and rocket-jumping
[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Would this be like a "fixed perspective" fps ( like of doom or quake or Wolfenstein)?

That's what "first person" means in the context of videogames lol. That's the FP in FPS

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[–] Catsrules@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It's about games that match what a boomer thinks of as an FPS.

Can you give me an example?

I can't think of anything in the last three years that have massively changed what an FPS looks like.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 9 points 10 months ago

I think it is more just general trends.

Assume all dates are wrong because time has no meaning and what little grasp I had was destroyed by 2020-2022.

DOOM (1994? and especially Quake) era FPSes were very much about running into a room and murdering everything. Health was a resource and it was about combining reflxes with resource management skills. Also, the average game speed was actually really fast. I think someone did rough math and DOOM Guy was sprinting at like 90 MPH? Arena Shooters like Unreal Tournament came out of this where it was about different players seeing who can react fastest while managing those resources and the item spawns. And the level design was generally "a whole level of enemies" as it were.

Then, in the early 00s we started seeing a heavy rise in third person shooters. In large part because it was a way to show off character models and minimize the fine grain details on consoles. This, combined with REALLY shitty AI in FPSes like Iron Fist or whatever the alternate reality WW1 g ame was, very much birthed the "cover shooter" gameplay. Advance to a choke point, snipe enemies and funnel them, then hide. Lather, rinse, repeat. Which, like Half-Life before it, very much turned level design into " a series of rooms".

Which... led to Call of Duty (and, to a lesser extent, Medal of Honor before it) where the gameplay was exactly what. Stop, take out every enemy you can, and advance. Which also was because of greatly shortened time to kill and an emphasis on leaning and going prone. And multiplayer followed suit with generally much slower gameplay and a focus on "pre-firing" and "camping". And level design became "a series of set pieces"

And... that more or less gets us to where we are today. Something like Infinite Warfare or even Titanfall are "fast" relative to Soap waiting in a shitter for the enemy to run past, but they are still REALLY slow relative to the "boomer shooters".

In recent years (I guess since 2016?), we have seen a rise in something "else". I like to think of them as "puzzle shooters" (and Bulletstorm was one but Bulletstorm was shit so let's ignore it) and they are a lot closer to Hotline Miami. You are still treating every room as its own encounter, but those encounters are very frantic and more about adapting your plan depending on RNG and explosions.

Whereas the modern "boomer shooter" are almost exclusively quake-likes masquerading as doom-likes. But they are w hat we remember Quake to be, as opposed to Quake itself. Movement isn't necessarily as fast as it used to be but it is still a LOT faster than a Call of Duty and is more about whole level encounters.


And as an aside, take a look at the Rise of the Triad remake like ten-ish years ago. That is the game which broke me and realized how slow CoD et al had become. That game is fast even compared to DOOM 2016 (and most DOOM Eternal encounters, but not all). Shame ROTT was always a mid game though.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

A game like Tarkov stands in drastic comparison to a game like Quake. Compare the weapon selection (many guns for one role vs distinct but limited) or gameplay loop (enter zone->loot->fight to extract vs spawn->kill->die)

Quake, Battlefield 4, Rainbow 6 Siege, PUBG, and Tarkov are all FPS games but they're drastically different in design.

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

So arena shooters Ala quake and unreal basically.

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That and older titles like doom and quake and Wolfenstein.

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[–] topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

And Doom(2016)

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[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The "boomer" in "boomer shooter" refers to the style, not the release date lol. Most games with that tag are actually pretty new. They're just shooters that are mechanically similar to old shooters like Quake and Doom, so you're typically gonna have a mix of these traits:

  • A wide range of weapons with unique uses (think rockets, railguns, shotguns, machine guns...)
  • Chapters that you can complete in any order but the levels in them are completed linearly
  • Colored keys to open colored doors
  • A level-end screen when you reach the end of a level that tells you your completion time and what % of items/enemies are left
  • And my favorite part, a lot of them have advanced movement techniques, which are usually identical to Quake (if not Quake 2/3) like bunnyhopping and rocket-jumping

I recommend Dusk or Ultrakill if you wanna try a really good (and cheap) boomer shooter that came out in the last few years.

[–] UnverifiedAPK@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It's shooters in the style that Boomers and Gen X (but no one ever addresses Gen X) played. Like Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. Sure millennials played them too, but they weren't the target age demographic.

Cultic is a good modern boomer shooter if you want to try one.

[–] dcpDarkMatter@kbin.social 9 points 10 months ago

Ain't no Boomers playing Doom, Quake, or Wolfenstein back in the 90s. These games were directly aimed at the Gen-X and early Millennial generations. And by god, did we ever play the shit out of them.

[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

Boomers did not fucking play Doom in any numbers, they were in their 50s.

They were playing minesweeper and tetris and solitaire if they played any computer games.

[–] KingBoo@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Honestly, yes.

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