Boomer Shooters

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Megaton Punch

Megaton Punch

Samurai Kirby
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Feb 18, 2022
What is a boomer shooter?

An old FPS with a specific design philosophy. The cutoff is often considered to be a release date before Half Life, but it's really more about the spirit of the game. If there's tons of dialogue and slow, atmospheric parts, it's arguably not a boomer shooter. If you run at 500 miles per hour and your primary method of surviving is picking up health packs in between taking bullets to the face, it probably is.

Why are they called "boomer shooters"?

Because boomers are old, and boomer shooters are old. It's not any deeper than that. Contrary to popular belief, most boomer shooters were made by Gen X, not Baby Boomers.

Examples, please.
  • Doom
  • Hexen
  • Quake
  • Dark Forces
  • Duke Nukem 3D
  • Shadow Warrior
  • Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Do new games that play the same as old games count?

No. Those are Neo Boomer Shooters, and we already have a thread for those.

What is there to discuss about games that came out 30 years ago?

People get introduced to these games all the time. I myself never really played them until recently despite being in the age bracket to have grown up with them. So I guess this thread is a combination of nostalgia and video game archaeology.
 
What would you say is the most underrated boomer shooter you've ever played? Not underrated as in good, underrated as in nobody talks about it despite it being good.

My personal pick is probably Turok. It suffered from being an N64 exclusive that was not designed well for the system. The fog plane was insanely short and the controls were awful. But then it got ported to PC and we got to see the game how it was intended to be played and it's good shit. The weapons are all super satisfying and a lot of them are really unique.
 
You missed the part where boomer shooters have long hallways or mazes as levels.
 
The Last Stand said:
You missed the part where boomer shooters have long hallways or mazes as levels.
Click to expand...
Usually, but it's debatable. Hexen doesn't really have that kind of level design, at least not nearly to the degree of your standard boomer shooter, but most would say it qualifies as one. I'd say 90% of boomer shooter levels are mazelike by convention, but it's not mandatory.
 
Those are all good shooters. You forgot Heretic. Amid Evil is like a modern version of Hexen and Heretic.

Another good modern boomer shooter I can recommend is Bolt Gun. It was pretty fun.
 
Doom's first 2 episodes were good everything past that is a slog to get through, which is common with these older build/doom games.
 
Last edited:
BradeRunna said:
Those are all good shooters. You forgot Heretic. Amid Evil is like a modern version of Hexen and Heretic.

Another good modern boomer shooter I can recommend is Bolt Gun. It was pretty fun.
Click to expand...
My list wasn't intended to be comprehensive, just a selection of the most famous ones.

Nobody played Heretic, unfortunately. More people probably played Hexen and wondered what "beyond heretic" meant. If I had known it existed when I was a kid I would have shit myself. In a good way.
 
Schwarzwald said:
Sick of people saying there aren't any good male role models in fiction for young men when Duke Nukem is right there.
Click to expand...
Doom guy is 100% of good male role model he's a Catholic crusader knight who fights demons and puts them to the sword in the name of the Super earth government or whatever the earth government always forget what the earth government is and doom it exists
 
Megaton Punch said:
What would you say is the most underrated boomer shooter you've ever played? Not underrated as in good, underrated as in nobody talks about it despite it being good.

My personal pick is probably Turok. It suffered from being an N64 exclusive that was not designed well for the system. The fog plane was insanely short and the controls were awful. But then it got ported to PC and we got to see the game how it was intended to be played and it's good shit. The weapons are all super satisfying and a lot of them are really unique.
Click to expand...
Dark Forces 1, 2 and mysteries of the sith (these are ok but compared to jedi outcast and academy they are shit), jedi outcast , jedi academy, serious sam, hexen 2.
Cant think of any else off the top of my head at the moment, but these are the games that I grew up with and see no one talk about at all really, if you were asking me to pick my favourite its difficult because both outcast and academy hold a huge place in my heart not only being the first fps games I played but also being cool as shit.
 
Play marathon I promise its not that confusing, well the first 2 arnt, well the main stories are at least straight forward... well as long as you read the manual for the first one.
 
does the OG Perfect Dark count? Loved that game's levels, guns and soundtrack.
Better than Goldeneye TBH. Also helps Joanna is a badass woman done right.
Another OG shooter I love is Delta Force 2. Unfair as fuck but rewarding when you complete a mission.
 
I guess "arena shooter" wasn't working out because it doesn't reference a fucking wojak variant.
 
Quake had this really cool mod called Prydon's Gate. It essentially turned Quake into a Diablo clone. The mod is over 20+ years old, but it was never finished. I don't think anyone has ever made such an ambitious Quake mod either.
 
COME ON OUT YOU RAPIST said:
I guess "arena shooter" wasn't working out because it doesn't reference a fucking wojak variant.
Click to expand...
Arena shooter is just to nebulous of a term. When I hear the term the only games I really only think of are quake and unreal tournament. Sure basically all classic fps' multiplayer basically plays the same but with all those deathmatch player bases disappearing with the march of time the focus has almost entirely shifted to campaigns of those games. Nowadays the big distinction seems to be level design so while halflife is kinda considered the brake away point with its more linear levels it's multiplayer with its fast bhopping and taucannon jump nonsense would absolutely count it as an arena shooter. Hell lots of people would even consider all the halo games arena shooter for just having muliplayer arenas even with its slow speed, weapon limits and regenerating health that are seen as the antithesis of "boomer shooters".
Still boomer shooter is absolutely an awful embarrassing name that disgusts me everytime I use it but at least I know what people are talking about.
 
Cat tit bingo said:
Arena shooter is just to nebulous of a term. When I hear the term the only games I really only think of are quake and unreal tournament. Sure basically all classic fps' multiplayer basically plays the same but with all those deathmatch player bases disappearing with the march of time the focus has almost entirely shifted to campaigns of those games. Nowadays the big distinction seems to be level design so while halflife is kinda considered the brake away point with its more linear levels it's multiplayer with its fast bhopping and taucannon jump nonsense would absolutely count it as an arena shooter. Hell lots of people would even consider all the halo games arena shooter for just having muliplayer arenas even with its slow speed, weapon limits and regenerating health that are seen as the antithesis of "boomer shooters".
Still boomer shooter is absolutely an awful embarrassing name that disgusts me everytime I use it but at least I know what people are talking about.
Click to expand...
Arena shooter is fine. Boomer shooter doesn't even make sense, as mentioned in the OP, since baby boomers don't know how to use computers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom