We all know that Boomer Shooters are stylized FPS games that’s taking inspiration from Doom. But what about stylized TPS games? And what games would you recommend
I’ve heard that called “run 'n gun” or “robotron clome” if one is old-school enough.
For a recommendation, today I choose pure chaos, and so recommend “Heavy Burger”.
As a snobby old gamer I would say there aren’t any, because third person shooters are boring clunky casual shit not worth anybody’s time. But also Max Payne.
Max payne
I had to scroll too far for this.
As a side question, I am a late GenX-er, essentially a Xennial, and I was a teenager when Doom was released in 1993, so surely young GenX was the target market, and the games themselves were probably written by older GenX-ers.
Why then, are these FPS games referred to as Boomer Shooters?
Marketing.
I’m not a fan of the terminology myself, but I get it that when someone says Boomer Shooter, they don’t mean “Shooter that plays like DOOM/90s shooters which would have been played by someone born between 1946–1964.” (which they largely weren’t)
They simply mean “Boomer = old” as in “old and/or inspired by old 90s shooters i.e. DOOM and the subsequent DOOM clones.”
It helps that it sort of rhymes / rolls of the tongue.
Also helps that gun go boom. Genre nicknames that stick tend to be snappy rather than descriptive. “Immersive sim”, “character action”, etc are terrible at describing what the game actually is. Regardless of whether or not the shooter is “for boomers”, a game calling itself a boomer shooter means, quickly, that it’s a fast movement shooter without “realism” mechanics like long reload times, usually with you using a vast arsenal of guns instead of only carrying a couple at a time and swapping them. Health kits or health-on-kill typically replace “take cover to regenerate HP/shields”.
Without using a -like suffix, there’s not really a snappy word that fully communicates that stuff, and as you say boomer=old. And -likes drift really far nowadays. Anything with parrying or drop loot on death is a soulslike. Anything with a run based structure and any procgen is a roguelike (even if the runs actually exist in a framework of permanent progression).
Because Gen X get forgotten about
Gun go boom
Yeah I wondered that, but they do that in all FPS games.
True enough, although I feel the direction towards gunplay is still boomier.
Like, when I think of a modern FPS I think of having a limited weapon loadout with realistic handling and ADS mechanics, being able to sprint for short periods from cover to cover before getting winded, and if you get hurt you just have to wait it out for a few seconds
When I think Boomer Shooter I think of explosions and screen shake, guns are probably cartoonishly ridiculous, red barrels are everywhere, moving fast all the time while blasting heavy metal. Things like chainsaw limbs, dual-wield rocket launchers, or a Super Shotgun that’s also a grenade launcher are all things I wouldn’t bat an eye at except to say “That’s fuckin’ awesome”
Realistically though, the origin of the term is probably generational. It appears around the same time people started saying “ok boomer” as an insult, and anybody who has used the phrase knows that it’s way funnier if you hit a gen-x or millenial with it - especially if they get offended. So then using Boomer Shooter to describe the shooters of Generation X still applies when you look at it that way: it’s not accurate to the etymology of the name, but it is accurate to its common parlance
I feel like about the time of doom2 is where they really took off.
I only learned of the phrase “Boomer Shooter” the other day. I feel old because my old bread and butter is considered Boomer material…
don’t worry, it’s boomer as in lots of big explodey boom-booms not boomer as in old and out of touch 😁
Really? Good grief. Really poor choice of wording, then. Thanks for confirming!
Nah, I think in reality it really was meant to mean “shooter old people used to play”. But personally I also prefer the “shooters with more boom” interpretation, because of course action games back then had more action and were better, now get off my lawn!
I went and played Destiny 1 last night. That game has such amazing artwork, it’s really stunning, especially compared to Destiny 2. With the excellent Halo style gunfeel but faster and more boom.
Made me feel old, playing at nasty 30fps.
I blame the success of Halo for dragging FPS into almost 2 decades of slow af protagonists with shield mechanics who could only carry 2 guns. Then id broke the cycle with Doom 2016 and made shooters fun again.
Are, are you me? I basically stopped playing FPS when Halo and CoD made them slow and boring.
I just wish I’d known about the Doom community sooner. I played it when it first came out but had no idea that people have basically been making (free) maps for just about the past 35 years. I’ve gotten into it a bit recently but I could’ve just been playing doom during the long boring drought of Halo
- Playstation 1: Syphon Filter
- Nintendo 64: Jet Force Gemini
Those are third person shooters. But it depends on what you mean by “Boomer” and “stylized”. The way you frame it, its more like a clone of DOOM. I am not aware of a one or two most influential third person shooters that defined all other, and created a clone that played very similar to it. So I don’t think there is anything like that for third person shooters.
Fast paced, 3rd person, not a lot of depth but a lot of fun and action.
Tomb Raider would be my guess. Wasn’t the first, but was the first one that was wildly successful. Or maybe MDK, which is more of what a TPS generally is, but wasn’t quite as popular or well known.
I wouldn’t call Tomb Raider a shooter.
Not only was it a shooter, it had some of the coolest dual wielding gun mechanics for a game even comparing it to games in modern times. The newest Tomb Raider games don’t even have shooting mechanics that were as cool as the OG.
I don’t consider Tomb Raider to be a shooter. To me this is an Action Adventure with exploration and solving puzzle and platforming as the main focus. There is a game mechanic of a shooter involved, but that doesn’t classify it as a shooter game to me. It only looks like a shooter on the surface level at first glance.
It’s like saying GTA 5 is a racing game, because it has cars in it. And there are even racing events. But that is not the genre. This is what I’m considering of why the original Tomb Raider series isn’t a shooter.
Considering most TPS games are action adventure games at their core, like The Last of Us, Uncharted, and modern Tomb Raider, I’d say that’s a pretty arbitray and weird way to think of it. They don’t all have to be Gears of War.
I’d say that’s a pretty arbitray and weird way to think of it.
I’d say considering Tomb Raider, Uncharted and The Last of Us to be a shooter is a weird thing. Especially so when we talk about a thread where we compare it to Boomer Shooters, where the shooting element is the main genre. Otherwise with your weird of thinking GTA 5 is a racing game and Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an action game, not an RPG. Edit: And its like saying Resident Evil is a shooter.
Honestly, I don’t really think the original FF7 (or any FF for that matter) is much of an RPG in the first place. The only thing it actually shares in common with the genre is turn based battles and leveling up to get stronger. They’re closer to a visual novel than a true role-playing game.
But that’s what they are called by their developers.
And you call me arbitrary and weird way of thinking.
Millennial online battle arena.
Tomb Raider
Dang. I thought it’d be a game about class warfare.
GenX-ers of War?
Cover shooters was the genre I thought of as being the equivalent of boomer shooters.
You’ve got Gears, Uncharted, etc. that all are from a similar era and have a lot of similar elements. However I don’t know if they’re as homogenous as boomer shooters.
Vanquish? It’s a fast paced cover shooter from Platinum. It’s closer to a CAG, kinda like Ultrakill.
If you want to
ruin your life andsink a couple thousand hours into something, Warframe is free, has a decent backstory and a few bangers on the soundtrack.The regular gameplay loop boils down to “Be a ninja with space magic, build weapons and biomechanical suits of armour out of blueprints that RNG drop from different enemies to customise powers/damage types, level up weapons to rank up so you can get bigger and better weapons, save the solar system with the power of friendship and this gun I found.”
Would you consider Ratchet and Clank more of a platformer with gunplay or a TPS with jumping puzzles?
Surely by the time you get to Gladiator it would fit the category
