Weekend Question: What should boomer shooters be called?

[Steyn]

Killer boomer

 

[Volley]

I'd call it 'Golden Era FPS' or 'Golden Era Shooter' which was the 90's and early 00's.

However, I am going through some of my 90's PC Gamer magazines and the term "Doom clones" was used by PCG a LOT to describe any FPS that wasn't Doom, yet came out after Doom, even System Shock and Descent, which were nothing like Doom other than having a first person perspective, haha.

 

[Krud]

Dang, my perspective on this went on a roller-coaster as I read the posts. First confused as to the existence of "boomer shooter" in general, then thinking it was about explosions, then the notion that it's a reference to Baby Boomers? I mean, my dad was a fairly young Baby Boomer, and he had zero interest in FPS's. Which is anecdotal, I know, but I really think 2.5D/3D gaming was primarily the purview of Gen X.

I'm just a handful of years away from being lumped into "Millennial", but I still have very clear memories of the release of Wolfenstein3D, Doom, Quake, Heretic, etc. And most of the programmers were fairly young (though older than me.) Heck, I was programming (mediocre) text adventures when I was 14-18. (By the time I was 19 the genre was seemingly dead and buried, only to resurrect several years later under the name Interactive Fiction. Or maybe it was always there and I just didn't know where to look. But I digress.)

If I were going to assign a label to any games as "Boomer," it would be the early arcade games (Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Asteroids), pinball, and text adventures. And Solitaire.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

If I were going to assign a label to any games as "Boomer," it would be the early arcade games (Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Asteroids), pinball, and text adventures. And Solitaire.

Even those early arcade games don't really fit. I'm Gen-X, and I clearly remember those coming out. I think Boomer would be stuff like pinball (like you mentioned), darts, and pool/billiards. Man, I'm not even sure if Rogue would count, since it didn't come out until 1980.

 

[Zloth]

I bet there were some late Boomers still in college that had plenty of fun in the earliest arcades, and maybe movie theaters/Pizza Huts with a Space Invaders or Missile Command for folks to play while waiting. They are really more of an X thing, though.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I bet there were some late Boomers still in college that had plenty of fun in the earliest arcades, and maybe movie theaters/Pizza Huts with a Space Invaders or Missile Command for folks to play while waiting. They are really more of an X thing, though.

My dad got into video games in the early days, and I guess he was a boomer. He was born in 1953. He got us a Magnavox Odyssey back in the day. I thought we were in heaven when we got an Intellivision.