Boomer Shooters

[Wiper]

1 hour ago, MK-1601 said:

I don't mind the term boomer shooter. The people who made the old ones (Sandy Petersen, John Romero, Tim Sweeney etc.) are definitely boomers. It's like... what was that 80s term for Golf GTi type cars? Obviously piss-takey.

 

They're Gen Xers, surely? It'd be a less funny genre name if it were actually accurate. 

[Benny]

A Public Service announcement:

 

Play Turbo Overkill

 

It's stupendous fun.

[Benny]

To elaborate on that:

 

It's fast, it's fluid, it's CHUNKY.

 

It has that 90s shooter way in which enemies have distinctive little sounds, and the way gibs splatter.

 

You can charge up your magnum and fire it with a lock on and it sounds like fireworks going off before you blow on the barrel. You can chainsaw enemies while riding around like Tony Hawk.

 

There is a demo on Steam. Try it!

[CarloOos]

I’ve been following one of these on Twitter called Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer where the whole project appears to be an elaborate shit-post piss-take of adolescent late 90s internet culture.

 

Does it actually look good? Not really, but the commitment to the bit is strong. 

 

 

[imp]

I played Ultrakill for the first time earlier this year, and despite it only being half finished I think it actually trumps Doom 2016 for my fave shooter now. I played it absolutely obsessively for about a month earlier this year in a post Elden Ring comedown and S ranking every level on normal difficulty and repeating most of that on hard. For a game that can seem so hard at first once it clicks, it CLICKS!

 

I started a thread on it which I didn’t really do enough to stop dying on its arse, but will maybe attempt the next time the game gets a big update. But anyway, I’m really glad more people are playing the game. It has some of the most innovative weapon design I’ve seen in an FPS—the alt pistol that flicks coins for you to shoot which ricochet to headshot enemies round corners in particular is ludicrously cool. You can even use it to hurl out multiple coins and nail them with a rail gun beam to do multi-hit mega damaging giant laserbeam combos on big enemies to obliterate them in nanoseconds. Also, it’s a game that is very rich in secrets. Other than hidden weapon/enemy interaction mechanics it’s full of hidden things to find, secret levels with weird mechanics shifts and secret-secret levels where the game actually shifts genres completely. Like…

 

Spoiler

A visual novel or a 

Spoiler

tribute to crash bandicoot!?

 

Anyway, it’s utterly brilliant!

 

I picked up Dusk in the last steam sale and I was hoping for a similarly breathless and relentless experience, which it isn’t, but I’m enjoying nevertheless. 
 

From this thread it sounds like I’ll be playing Prodeus after I finish Dusk. 

 

 

[imp]

Aaargh, I just remembered if you shoot the coins from the pistol with perfect timing, depending on the variant of the gun used, the shots split into two, targeting two enemies at once!

 

And if there are multiple coins in the air they ricochet off each other!

 

Multi-multi headshots!

 

Phew. I need a lie down. 

[Benny]

Definitely play Prodeus, then Turbo Overkill after.

[womblingfree]

I don’t know why they’re not all the same length, but my Wikipedia research has thrown up:
 

Boomers - 1946 to 1964

 

Generation X - 1965 to 1980

 

Millennial - 1981 to 1996

Generation Z - 1997 to 2015

 

Generation Alpha - 2016 to now.

So while these games were played by Gen X or Millennials, you could probably make a case they were made by borderline Boomers.

 

Anyway, Boomer-Shooter sounds fucking ace. Because BOOM.  

[PK]

On 16/07/2022 at 11:43, CarloOos said:

I’ve been following one of these on Twitter called Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer where the whole project appears to be an elaborate shit-post piss-take of adolescent late 90s internet culture.

 

Does it actually look good? Not really, but the commitment to the bit is strong. 

 

 

 

That looks like it belongs on a 2,000 Shareware Games CD-ROM you'd pick up at a computer fair

 

Absolutely hideous, I love it

[bumgut]

ok i love the idea of boomer shooters, but only have a playstation

 

Can anyone suggest a list of good ones on there?

 

I have quake, ion fury and enjoyed them both. I have all the old dooms. Not really interested in duke3d as its not modernised like ion fury.

 

Dusk was meant be out on ps but its stuck in conversion hell and theres no info about  a release date.

 

Any others?

[PikaStu]

I think Metal Hellsinger is coming to PS4/PS5

 

I’m sure Prodeus and Project Warlock are as well?

Edited July 17, 2022 by PikaStu

[bumgut]

thanks for above. 

 

prodeus is not on there but warlock is

[Benny]

I've gotten quite addicted to that Civvie11 channel now, as it scratches a very specific itch and they're all very well made. I just hope they don't turn out to be a dickhead like nearly every other gaming YouTuber.

[Benny]

I feel personally attacked by this video.

 

 

[El Stevo]

This one seems to be under the radar to an extent that's going to get the marketing team fired, but 3D Realms seems to have announced a sequel to Bombshell that's basically SiN:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Gwc1P4CkU

[Benny]

I now really want to play F.E.A.R again:

 

 

 

 

That FPS combat was some of the most fun ever and I can just tell by the clips in that video that it still is.

 

The sheer amount of environment destruction that accompanies all that mayhem is just severely lacking in basically everything you play these days. Shooting games used to have so much more going on in terms of interactivity even with such simple things and it's sorely missed.

 

A lot I see these days just look like a glorified shooting gallery pasted over a background painting or something in comparison.

[BoggyB]

The illusion of the AI working together in FEAR was amazing. It managed the make the generic clone soldiers seem like characters actively working against you rather than a sequence of pop up targets.

 

I played through the demo so many times because the firefights would play out in different ways and I don't think that aspect of it has ever been matched, let alone bettered.

 

 

[PK]

I never played FEAR, I think I was under the impression that it was a straight horror game rather than a Chow Yun Fat simulator. Looks like I missed a fantastic game because of that misconception!  

 

Although 2005 would've been approaching the peak of my Counter Strike obsession so it might not have got a look in anyway

[drkbfhmmr]

It's never too late to play FEAR.

 

I didn't play through the full game until a couple years ago and thought it was brilliant. Much like Halo it's aged like fine wine while other FPS games since then have failed to match the advances these two games  made in combat mechanics and AI.

[PikaStu]

The thing about FEAR, is although the gunplay is amazing, the level designs are bizarre… you’re in a basement of an office block, so there’s store rooms and then the odd random office chucked randomly in there next to a toilet. I kept expecting to bump into Milton with his red stapler! 

[K]

I replayed FEAR last year and while it's aged really well (much better than the sequel), you spend a LONG time in that office. In some ways it works really well, as the intestinal layout of this impossible building starts to feel quite nightmarish, but it does go on a bit. I think there are three separate bits where you're about to escape but you fall through a floor or a helicopter crashes and you fall off a ledge, and you have to make your way back up to the roof again.

 

I'm surprised they haven't been tempted to remaster it, I'm sure it would look spectacular with super high-res textures and modern lighting.

[K]

3 hours ago, PikaStu said:

The thing about FEAR, is although the gunplay is amazing, the level designs are bizarre… you’re in a basement of an office block, so there’s store rooms and then the odd random office chucked randomly in there next to a toilet. I kept expecting to bump into Milton with his red stapler! 

 

I think the red stapler is actually in the office somewhere.

[Lying Cat]

It's also worth noting that FEAR has probably the best shotgun in any game ever and is absolutely amazing to use. It just looks, feels and sounds superb, especially when you're in Point Man Slow Mo Mode.

[Qazimod]

25 minutes ago, K said:

I replayed FEAR last year and while it's aged really well (much better than the sequel), you spend a LONG time in that office.

 

I've played the first two and I prefer Project Origin. The original just had a few too many grey boxy environments, but I can play the sequel today and it isn't as immediately offputting, although the horror aspect is perhaps a bit more clichéd.

 

Anyway, does Hyperviolent count? "Coming soon" at the moment.

 

 

[Benny]

There was a shot of a small spaceship in that that looked very similar to the one in Descent 1 & 2.

 

Probably an intentional reference, usually is with these games.

[PikaStu]

Hyperviolent looks promising, but the music sounds amazing. Really liked that track in the trailer.

[shirubagan]

All this talk of FEAR made me buy it. Are you happy? I spent almost £2 on it so it had better be good. 

[PikaStu]

So you could always play Quake on your Spectrum instead…

 

https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/10/quake-engine-running-on-zx-spectrum.html?fbclid=IwAR29-zn6b7YkbFa0E0Bv4PohoeoNGFSc1ql4duUlqI6Y-g5QEFikDinpey8&m=1
 

 

[Davros sock drawer]

I haven't really enjoyed an FPS since Halo 3, and honestly I'm most fond of the earliest classics, Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem etc. I've recently been playing them all again, and they're still so enjoyable in a way that scratches all sort of itches. So I've been making a note of the recommendations in this thread so I can dive into some new but not new stuff. 

 

Anyway, this just came out:

 

 

 

 

[Benny]

If I had one criticism: that intentionally low colour depth and banding on all the textures is really ugly. It's as though DOS EGA colours were slapped onto textures in a VGA FPS game. I don't think there ever was anything quite like that kind visual from the era, so it does seem kind of weird to make it look like that on purpose. It does make it feel very grotty though I guess.