I HATE “boomer shooter”

cross-posted from: lemmy.ninja/post/22114

https://lemmy.ninja/pictrs/image/4cb2edaa-fdf2-4d0d-a799-b16bb07238f3.jpeg

I get it. You hate “boomer shooter.” Why have people spent years using the term without checking with you, the consumer? Maybe you just hate the idea of remakes. Maybe you prefer to play the standards that boomer shooters are built on. Buying old hardware can get expensive so I offer a way to go retro without breaking the bank.

PCem, a vintage PC emulator, while no longer maintained by its original creator, remains highly usable. As the author is open to delegating maintenance to a new individual, it’s possible that updates may occur in the future. For Windows users, backwards compatibility support is robust, suggesting that existing Windows versions of PCem should operate smoothly for the foreseeable future. Despite a lack of recent enhancements, PCem’s existing binaries are reliable and accessible, offering an excellent option for those interested in PC emulation.

UniPCemu, another full PC emulator, originally developed for PSP but now available on multiple platforms including Windows, is also an active project. It provides near cycle-accurate emulation of 8086/8088 chips, with only a 4% discrepancy, according to the UniPCemu wiki. This makes it a promising choice for those seeking an accurate emulation experience.

DOSBox, another popular emulator focused on DOS-based games, is still actively maintained, with a significant number of changes accumulating in its development repository. However, new releases have been sparse, as the development team emphasizes ensuring minimal regressions before rolling out new versions. The existing releases, referred to as 0.74-x, are primarily focused on bug fixes and don’t incorporate any new features from the development branch. Nonetheless, the developers have plans for a new release in the future.

Contrastingly, DOSBox-X has a distinct focus and is subject to frequent updates. Originally aimed at enhancing fidelity for running demoscene productions, DOSBox-X has now expanded its focus to improving fidelity in general. This active maintenance and the unique value proposition makes DOSBox-X a worthy emulator for those interested in high fidelity PC emulation.

Moreover, MAME is worth exploring for PC emulation. Its developers prioritize accuracy in their emulation, making it another strong choice for enthusiasts. Other options such as WeeCee, an actual miniature PC, could provide an authentic experience within a modern PC environment. Despite its size, WeeCee is capable of running a wide array of speed-sensitive games proficiently, making it another viable option for those interested in vintage PC gaming.

smart_boy,

Rookie Level 1 Gamer: "They're called boomer shooters because they're old like baby boomers" Veteran Level 20 Gamer: "Baby boomers thought Doom was satanic, that's a stupid term" Enlightened Level 60 Gamer: "They're called boomer shooters because of the huge debt they owe to the original Doom modding scene and therefore "Boom", one of the first limit-removing source ports"

MrEUser,

I’m STEALING this and pretending I wrote it. You are a jeeneus and get all the interwebz points for the day!

Nihilore,
Nihilore avatar

who writes like this?

Damage,

The guy he copied this other comment from

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

You have redeemed the term.

JDPoZ,
JDPoZ avatar

133+.pk3@geocities.ytmnd.com Level 80 gamer... :
"Who cares. My ego isn't so delicate as to have my sensibilities offended by whatever the fuck you want to call it. If you think something like 'MyHouse.wad' is something that is for "bOoMeRs" (a.k.a. anyone old enough to know that it's called a "VCR," not a "VHS player") then you're the one missing out... not me."

Vordus,

Galaxy brain: "hehe boomstick go boom"

Kichae,

NGL, when I first saw the term, I assumed it was a reference to "boom sticks".

donio,

What irks me is that it associates the genre with the wrong generation for the sake of being catchy. Should be "Gen-X shooter" if anything but I guess that doesn't roll off the tongue.

Limeade,

One of my earliest memories is spontaneously picking up the phone to call a friend, hearing a bunch of modem screeching, then hearing my boomer dad cursing up a storm in the other room because I had probably just killed his Doom session. Some of the boomers were Dooming just fine! The younger boomers were only in their early 30s when it came out, it's not like they were too old to adopt new tech at the time.

MrEUser,
  • Rookie Level 1 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because they’re old like baby boomers”
  • Veteran Level 20 Gamer: “Baby boomers thought Doom was satanic, that’s a stupid term”
  • Enlightened Level 60 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because of the huge debt they owe to the original Doom modding scene and therefore “Boom”, one of the first limit-removing source ports” Credit to @smart_boy
Vordus,

Galaxy Brain: hehehe, boomstick go boom.

sheepyowl,

You said you were going to steal it and claim credit you liar!

MrEUser, (edited )

I know, I thought I’d make sure credit landed where credit was due… Still stole it though.

EremesZorn,

I would think that more older millenials were playing these games as kids than Gen-Xers were playing them as young adults.

CarlsIII,

@MrEUser

Look, I understand words meaning can change over time, but it’s one thing to observe this after the fact, and another to look at it while it’s happening and just say “I am fine with us changing the meaning of this word without offering a replacement term”. If “boomer” just means “old” now, what word do you use for actual boomers?

And of course, others have pointed out all the other reasons it doesn’t make sense to use this term. I feel like the only reason the term is catching non is because it kinda rhymes but not really. We might as well call them “greatest generation racing”. What’s that? It doesn’t make sense to refer to a shooting game as a racing game? I shouldn’t just arbitrarily use a term that means something else when we already have existing accurate terms we could be using? Interesting thought.

MrEUser,

Yes alliteration is one reason. Boomer has meanings outside of “baby boomer.” Context matters.

aebrer,
aebrer avatar

Hmm, I guess I'm wrong but I always felt they were called boomer shooters because they're always full of over the top explosions and everything is always going "boom"

You boom and you shoot it's right in the name

MrEUser,
  • Rookie Level 1 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because they’re old like baby boomers”
  • Veteran Level 20 Gamer: “Baby boomers thought Doom was satanic, that’s a stupid term”
  • Enlightened Level 60 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because of the huge debt they owe to the original Doom modding scene and therefore “Boom”, one of the first limit-removing source ports”
  • GigaChad Level 80 gamer: “Who cares. My ego isn’t so delicate as to have my sensibilities offended by whatever the fuck you want to call it. If you think something like ‘MyHouse.wad’ is something that is for “bOoMeRs” (a.k.a. anyone old enough to know that it’s called a “VCR,” not a “VHS player”) then you’re the one missing out… not me.” Credit to @smart_boy and @133@geocities.ytmnd.com
GraceGH,

You're the man now dog!

Varyag,
Varyag avatar

Honestly I never even knew people didn't like this term, wtf. It properly conveys the idea of an old-fashioned FPS game, with basic 3D graphics, many times based on 2D sprites. Me and all my friends play them, and we love them, and we all call it "Boomer Shooter".

MrEUser,

I spent 5 paragraphs (an entire article lemmy.ninja/post/19617) pointing out how ridiculous it is to complain about a name that has been used for years. I’d like people to focus on the titles, not the name of the genre… But, there are people that hold such strong opinions… I think the term is, “can’t see the forest for the trees.”

CIWS-30,

Aren't "Boomer Shooters" actually Millenial Shooters? That's who played them when they came out.

st3ph3n,
st3ph3n avatar

Elder millenial here. Grew up on Doom and Quake.

MrEUser,

This is addressed in the comments:

  • Rookie Level 1 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because they’re old like baby boomers”
  • Veteran Level 20 Gamer: “Baby boomers thought Doom was satanic, that’s a stupid term”
  • Enlightened Level 60 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because of the huge debt they owe to the original Doom modding scene and therefore “Boom”, one of the first limit-removing source ports” Credit to @smart_boy
that_one_guy,

Looks like boomer is experiencing some semantic drift to mean 'old.'

Mikelius,

I won't lie, I had to look at the comments and do a real quick search engine check to find out that the kids these days call the old FPS games "boomer shooter". One hell of a way to remind me about my age by calling me a boomer for liking my childhood FPS games :(

Limeade,

I hadn't heard of the term until now either, but I quit playing shooters nearly 20 years ago so it's also not a genre I've really kept on top of.

HER0,
@HER0@beehaw.org avatar

I am 90% certain it was never meant to refer to the generation that played it, but to the over the top action.

Mikelius,

Lol yeah I figured, but the very first thing that came to my mind was the generation slang so I felt the unnecessary need to comment on it xD

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

I think maybe the irksome thing is this is a retroactive label for older games. It's not how we got to know those games, and it sounds pretty dismissive of something we enjoyed and loved. smart_boy below has the right idea, reclaim the term, realign the meaning.

MrEUser,

If you look at the comment where I highlight the fact it IS NOT that… Doom (1993) is NOT a Boomer Shooter. Quake (1996) is NOT a Boomer Shooter. Boltgun (2023) IS a Boomer Shooter. A CURRENT game based off of an OG FPS CAN be a Boomer Shooter. The OG game itself can not.

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

It would be nice if language worked like that, where the term remains precise as it propagates. But that's not the case. Boomer Shooter is being used to refer to the old games, and that is how many of us were introduced to the term, as a reference to the OG games.

MrEUser,

No, it’s not. For the third time: Doom (1993) is NOT a boomer shooter Quake (1996) is NOT a boomer shooter BoltGun (2023) IS a boomer shooter:

  • Rookie Level 1 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because they’re old like baby boomers”
  • Veteran Level 20 Gamer: “Baby boomers thought Doom was satanic, that’s a stupid term”
  • Enlightened Level 60 Gamer: “They’re called boomer shooters because of the huge debt they owe to the original Doom modding scene and therefore “Boom”, one of the first limit-removing source ports” Credit to @smart_boy
TimeSquirrel,
TimeSquirrel avatar

Why are they being called "boomer shooters"? My boomer parents didn't want anything to do with them. The older millenials were the ones playing them. Most boomers don't even like video games.

MrEUser,

This is answered in the comments.

TimeSquirrel,
TimeSquirrel avatar

Ah thanks.

Not_Leader,

wait what's stopping "arena shooter" from being used

angstylittlecatboy,

Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 are arena shooters. Unreal (1998) and Quake 1 are not; Unreal and Quake 1 aren’t multiplayer focused.

One might say “arena shooter” has retroactively become a subgenre of “boomer shooter.”

MrEUser,

The fact that we’re not talking about arena shooters would be a big reason.

CarlsIII,

@MrEUser I just hate the term “boomer shooter.” Can we do away with that please?

FnordX,
FnordX avatar

Back in the day we used to just call them "Doom Clones". If it wasn't for Doom (2016) we could have gone back to that.

MrEUser,

Considering it’s been in use for years, and I wrote an article on it, I don’t see it going away…

CarlsIII,

@MrEUser Well why’d you have to go and do that then? I’m blaming you for all of this.

MrEUser,

It’s ALL my damned fault… Wait til you see this weeks articles. I’ll probably be thrown off the innertoobz.

ShadowRam,

it’s been in use for years

No it hasn't.

MrEUser, (edited )

Here’s another from February of 2021, so yes, used for years.

MrEUser,

Inverse used it at least two years ago. We done here?

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

IDK why the OG FPS are now a considered subgenre

Modern shooters should be called "dumber shooters" or something like that instead, I mean, you are constantly told where to go, and what to do, level desings are extremely linear so you don't get lost, puzzles are gone so you don't have to use your braincells, there are no traps nor secrets, the actions is incredibly "childlish" (when your screen is filled with ketchup it means is time to stop playing the FPS and start playing hide and seek until the ketchup is gone) everything screams "our playerbase is too dumb to play videogames, so we have to handhold them like babies" it's really hard to consider them even shooters

Primarily0617,

Honestly maybe responses like this are why they're called boomer shooters.

What modern fps single-player-focused game are you thinking of?

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

What modern fps single-player-focused game are you thinking of?

The single player modes of Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, etc. We can add some older games like Singularity and Titanfall to the list

There are not a lot of single player focused FPS, anyways, most of them are multiplayer games with a campaign almost nobody play anyways (since they can monetize the multiplayer modes). The genre itself started sucking when it became mainstream on consoles, they started being multiplatform titles so they had to be programmed with the limitations of the controllers, and those limitations affect the level and enemy design

MrEUser,

“IDK why the OG FPS are now a considered subgenre”

I don’t know why people keep thinking, saying, and implying this. The OG shooters are not being called “boomer shooters.” Modern games based on them are. I don’t know why the confusion.

Doom (1993) NOT a boomer shooter. Quake (1996) NOT a boomer shooter. Boltgun (2023) IS a boomer shooter.

psudo,

Because that doesn't let them shake their fist and tell the youths to get off their lawn.

Froyn,

I hate the "battle royale" shooters of today. My lawn is either always shrinking or moving. Terrible games.

psudo,

Then don't play them and let the people that enjoy them enjoy them?

MrEUser,

You missed the obvious joke in what was said, didn’t you… Do peoples lawns REALLY shrink and move?

Lowbird,

That was a "get off my lawn, kids!" joke, not serious.

MrEUser,

Also: You obviously haven’t played BoltGun. It is the opposite of all of your complaints… and that’s just ONE that is.

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

I’m not critizising boomer shooters, I'm just saying games copying old shooters (Quake, Unreal, etc.) Should not be considered a subgenre, since they are copying the original formula

I’m critizising non-boomer shooters (think Halo, CoD, etc...) since they do lack everything I say

MrEUser, (edited )

I have a problem with that reasoning. Quake copied Doom and Doom copied Castle Wolfenstein using your logic. They aren’t “copying” them. They’re paying homage to the graphical style and/or combat style they created. Your approach also seems to ignore the fact many have entirely new mechanics. Colas are a “sub genre” of sodas even though they copied Cokes formula… I think you’re being a bit absolutist without a reason.

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