Not to say I hate the genre, I actually love me some Dusk or Turbo Overkill, but why, oh why are they called Boomer Shooters?

These games clearly took inspiration from 90s FPS games, which 👌, but they were played mostly by Gen Xers and Millenials, not Boomers. When games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake were out, Boomers were what? 30 to 50 years old? I’m sure some of them played FPS games, but there is no way they were the majority.

Whenever I see the term Boomer Shooter, my mind goes to games like Shootout! for Magnavox Odyssey. Can’t we call them something else, like Retro FPSes or something?

Anyway, rant over. Thank you for your time.

  • Hubi@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    It’s not meant to be taken literally. Language evolves and boomer no longer exclusively refers to baby boomers, it’s just a general Gen-Z term for older people.

    • Tiltinyall@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      I’d say closer to the xennial “forgotten generation” type. The playtesters of all of your favorite franchises didn’t fall behind as far as you think.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    8 months ago

    You seem like an intelligent and discerning person, so I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the only possible response to this is “ok boomer”

  • BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    Lol try being a Roguelike fan.

    You correctly tell people that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a Roguelike and they look at you like you’ve grown a second head.

    Sometimes this stuff happens, and there’s basically nothing you can do about it.

    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      Major part of it is that some people differentiate hard between rogue-likes and lites, and others simply do not, and the two will never get along with each other. The thing being that if there are any type of permanent upgrade/unlock systems that makes the game easier the more you play, it is not like rogue, where instead of grinding for more max hp or dodge percentage, you “grind” knowledge and experience as a player.

      Which means that there are very, very few actual roguelikes because upgrade systems are just so cool ™ and every game obviously needs one. Or three.

    • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      I hate how difficult it is to find games I like when it used to be so trivial.

      2010: “I want to play another game like rogue”

      “Ok try these 10 games which are all excellent, and then there’s these 50 which stretch the definition but rhyme with it if you like”

      2020: “I want to play a game like rogue”

      “Here’s a 3d looter shooter with multiplayer and 9 currencies for upgrades between short runs”

    • Instigate@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      I feel like a lot of people haven’t ever played Rogue and so struggle understand what Roguelike actually means. Fair call, it’s a very old game with essentially no graphics, but to understand the genre properly everyone needs to give it a go at least once in my opinion.

      Side note; love me the whole Mystery Dungeon franchise. I still need to pick up the Shiren the Wanderer series.

  • pelotron
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    8 months ago

    Guys, IT ISN’T A REFERENCE TO THE BOOMER GENERATION. It’s boomer as in shotgun-go-BOOM.

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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    8 months ago

    I love the term. For me it’s not just a shooter in an older style but also a shooter that goes BOOM. Much better than boring cover shooters.

  • 520@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    I call them id-style shooters myself, but there is a bit of word play I like in the term ‘boomer shooter’. On top of referencing the age of the audience when they first arrived (albeit incorrectly), it is also a reference to the fact that the optimal strategy for these games is simply to blow things the fuck up. There is very little tactical play beyond what weapons to use for a given situation, and these games really love their explosive barrels and rocket launchers.

  • Amphobet@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I never even considered that the name referred to baby boomers I thought it just meant they went “boom”

  • Phroon@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    I always assumed that the Boom in Boomer Shooter was more “Gun go Boom”, which seemed to fit the genre quite well.

  • shea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    Old=boomer sorry. That’s just the way it turned out, nothing we can do about it. Raging against new slang is just gonna make us more out of touch, and intensify the feeling of being old, so I just accept it and try to keep up. Boomer is old now, not just the Baby Boomers.

    • Aasikki@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      I’m 26 and I’ve already been called a boomer by younger people. I don’t really see the problem as to me it’s just funny and reminds me to try my best not to eventually become a boomer that hates everything that isn’t how it used to be.

    • onlooker@lemmy.mlOP
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      8 months ago

      Raging against new slang is just gonna make us more out of touch, and intensify the feeling of being old, so I just accept it and try to keep up.

      NEVER! I choose to embrace my inner geriatric and complain about kids these days and their hippy-hop music.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        NEVER! I choose to embrace my inner geriatric and complain about kids these days and their hippy-hop music.

        Can recommend, but only when you’re subverting expectations. Young student is unloading a bunch of empty beverage crates from the elevator on the ground floor, making you wait, already looking quite self-conscious about it? Bellow, loud but not shouty, “Unbelievable, the students of today”. See them flinch and cower, “oh fuck this again”. Continue, with flawless timing, “why isn’t that beer?”.