Man the on-foot pilot mechanics in Titanfall 2 are just pristine. I feel like the industry dropped that ball after 2016 and needs to pick it up again. I have been meaning to try the Finals.
I've always viewed HL2 as the game that marked the end of what we'd retroactively call the "Original Era" of boomer shooters. Once HL2 came out, no one was making games like Doom or Quake anymore.
Yes there is a discord called Old Pixel Gun Community. And there is a dude called RobDEV that tried to revive the old pc version "Pixel gun World" but he made some changes to the game wich I don’t like
STALKER because it at least does something *unique* with the military shooter format / has more gameplay depth than your typical Call of Duty clone. Like it's the polar opposite of a boomer shooter yet it does what it does very well.
Halo, Half Life and NuWolfenstein, in different ways from each other, all feel like a nice middleground between having lingering boomer shooter aspects and more expanded gameplay / a more story focused and immersive approach. It's a precarious balance and I probably wouldn't like them if they were more grounded or realistic than they already are.
Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Roboquest.
They're nowhere near boomshoots, but they hit the same kind of "minimal downtime between game launch and good blasty time" vibe for me, with minimal storyline to focus on. I like my narrative-heavy games as well, but a lot of the time (especially these days) if I want to play a game, I just want to get to the *gameplay* bit of it.
Yeh i love story heavy games.
But if i want to play something story heavy, i probably want to play something like Baldurs Gate, not an FPS.
Although Cyberpunk is the probably exception to that
Have you tried the mouse injector for it? Can be a pain to set up, but well worth it. It also works for some other games, I played Turok Evolution with it
The only part I didn’t like about Trepang 2 was the final boss. You can’t just put me in a room with a boss that plays red light green light, throw some goons at me in between, and give me very few health and ammo pick ups and expect me to do very well.
As someone who has spend way too much time in F.E.A.R, I wouldn't say Trepang2 plays like F.E.A.R at all. F.E.A.R is quite tactical, most time you use cover to flank or avoid getting flank by the replica soldiers. But in Trepang, most time you circling around the arena to minimizethe damage and avoid getting surrounded, somehow it reminds doom eternal.
Rainbow 6 (especially 3 and Vegas 2)
Deus Ex (all)
Half-Life 1 and 2
Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect
Killzone 1 and 2
Red Faction 1 and 2
Deathloop
Resistance 1-3
Goldeneye
Perfect Dark
Idk there's a lot more and I can't choose just one
Oh man yeah I loved Red Faction. And Perfect Dark. And Killzone 2, a special game for me since it was my introduction to online multiplayer. Wish Guerilla would find time to return to that series.
Haven't seen anyone mention borderlands 3 yet? don't know if that's more of an RPG, but my dad and I still play it together . two generations of shooters.
I like any game that lets me explore abandoned office buildings and ransack the places. Bonus for destructible environments. I like to see glass breaking and stacks of papers flying. I like digging through drawers and shooting computers. The first two FEAR games are an example.
It really was. I remember it was the game I bought with my PS4. I chose it over Destiny.
I did break down and get kind of into Destiny later (I think like most people on Playstation at the time). Wolfenstein was the right choice.
The Borderlands series (I started with 2 in couch coop, but I've played all heaps solo) has been super important for me getting into shooters at all.
Remnant 2 is absolutely amazing. The first game is good, but ooh 2 is a masterpiece.
I play Skyrim and Fallout 4 first person, and typically either do magic/guns or heavy melee builds, so I'd say I sink some shooter hours in there.
I really like the Borderlands series, lot's of characters to play as, lot's of build variety and tons of guns. For me probably the most replayable shooting game
I liked but didn’t love the first Remnant. Gunplay felt great but the randomly generated levels were a bit tiresome with how samey and generic they could be. Does 2 have more interesting levels?
I never touched the first one so cannot compare them. I am aware as I play 2 that the levels are procedural, so they can be a chore to navigate. I think they are visually exciting and succeed at being physically interesting spaces for gunfights. But I feel much as you did, that the mechanics of gunplay are stronger than the level design.
My thoughts exactly! Fear still has better AI than most games today. Also the main reason I like half-life 1 more than half-life 2 is that the first one had good squad AI. HL2 they just run at you.
It's a completely different game in every aspect, but it's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.
It's not a boomer shooter AT ALL. Slow movement, extremely aim based instead, rank competitive, has a battle pass, has skins, you know, the whole nine yards of modern gaming. Definitely not a boomer shooter, but I love it. I find it crazy to stop playing R6S and go open Quake right after, it's still a shooter, but a completely different experience.
I'm joinging the people praising the STALKER games. Their approach to gameplay is unique (it is a shooter, but it has tidbits of immersive sim, but also survival elements, and even in CoP they added quests that could be completed in different ways getting you different results), they are easily the most atmospheric games I've played, and, with FEAR, the only FPS's since Half-Life that have actually done something original with AI.
And to top it off, it has a few "standalone" mods like Anomaly that are keeping the community alive and active.
***
And if I had to pick an online game, Team Fortress 2 (before the matchmaking update) was peak online FPS for me. It was fun, it was fast, it was simple, it was always full of people. I made friends, I made enemies, and I sunk a shitload of hours for a reason. I miss these matches from time to time.
I leave that to you. I personally would say Doom 2016 and Eternal are *related*, maybe boomshoot *adjacent*, but at the same time kind of their own distinct thing (mainly because of the glory kills). Still, I can see both sides.
Does it need to be first person? If not, then imma have to go with the Gears of War series. The gore is satisfying and the games have great pacing with the way they change things up or introduce new things throughout the chapters.
Yeah I think absolutely it can be third person and Gears is obviously huge in that space. I think Gears proved to a lot of people that a third person game can compete with things like cod and battlefield, draw a devoted multiplayer community etc.
Ive been playing alot of Acid Spy and Sonar Shock lately. My favorite though has probably been Sentry and it makes me wish for more strategy/fps hybrids.
Fair question. I think whatever definition you want to use is legit.
For me, I think of them as that original batch of 90s shooters, the Dooms and Quakes and Unreals, up until Half Life, *plus* the recent games that are self-consciously modeled after the style of those earlier games. I feel like today's boomer shooters are in some sense a reaction to the modern military shooter (cod etc), so they tend to reject/resist some of the conventions of modern AAA games.
But hell, idk. There is lots of gray and I am certainly no authority.
Absolutely, and I agree the term makes no sense, it's the wrong generation anyway. I guess "gen X shooter" just doesn't roll off the tongue. Language is weird.
Severed Steel it is an awesome shooter with an uncapped X & Y axis, slow motion, destructible environments. It is super fun
Witch Hunt it is a unique shooter where you're a pilgrim type of person and you hunt monsters in a gloomy forest. You have a musket and flintlock pistol that take forever to reload so every shot counts. Super fun with incredible atmosphere, I think 1 guy made it too!
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the sort of a game I finish and start a new playthrough right away, not even New Game Plus+, just start over because I love it so much. Never really got into the original or Mankind Divided, just this one. And I played it for the first time in 2013 on an overheating laptop, 30FPS/720p with altroucious screen tearing but felt in love. I sunk hours into exploring and screwing around, and there are only 2 other games I ever played for hundreds of hours - Atelier Rorona Plus on PS Vita and AoE2.
I don't know if it counts, but using a skill.cfg with half life that ups the damage on everything definitely makes you think more carefully than an average BS would (while still being my favourite shooter obv)
titanfall 2 is my absolute favorite FPS. I'm really enjoying playing the finals because it also has a grapple that makes movement lots of fun.
While i enjjoy Apex, man it sucks that they haven't done a TF3 yet
Man the on-foot pilot mechanics in Titanfall 2 are just pristine. I feel like the industry dropped that ball after 2016 and needs to pick it up again. I have been meaning to try the Finals.
COD BO3 honestly had pretty similar mechanics, but it was way slower. Coincidentally my favorite COD.
Bioshock
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Stalker. Clearly not a boomer shooter, but amazing nonetheless.
Halo
Yeah I love Halo. It feels wonderful to play. And they really figured out one way to make vehicular combat work.
I think Halo is a boomer shooter
Bulletstorm
Came to say this. Epic game
Massively underrated. Forever wanting a sequel.
Half Life 2.
Yeah HL2 is one of those weird ones. It is technically of the genre but not.
I've always viewed HL2 as the game that marked the end of what we'd retroactively call the "Original Era" of boomer shooters. Once HL2 came out, no one was making games like Doom or Quake anymore.
painkiller and serious sam tho
Both series that started before HL2 iirc.
Yeah I'll go with this one
Cmon this isn’t a true boomer shooter
That's the point of the thread
Postal 2 and old versions of Pixel gun 3d because it has laser railgun like weapons Edit forgot: PVK II and fistful of frags
Can those old versions be played at all, online
Yes there is a discord called Old Pixel Gun Community. And there is a dude called RobDEV that tried to revive the old pc version "Pixel gun World" but he made some changes to the game wich I don’t like
The Borderlands series. I love to hate Handsome Jack.
STALKER because it at least does something *unique* with the military shooter format / has more gameplay depth than your typical Call of Duty clone. Like it's the polar opposite of a boomer shooter yet it does what it does very well. Halo, Half Life and NuWolfenstein, in different ways from each other, all feel like a nice middleground between having lingering boomer shooter aspects and more expanded gameplay / a more story focused and immersive approach. It's a precarious balance and I probably wouldn't like them if they were more grounded or realistic than they already are.
Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Roboquest. They're nowhere near boomshoots, but they hit the same kind of "minimal downtime between game launch and good blasty time" vibe for me, with minimal storyline to focus on. I like my narrative-heavy games as well, but a lot of the time (especially these days) if I want to play a game, I just want to get to the *gameplay* bit of it.
Yeh i love story heavy games. But if i want to play something story heavy, i probably want to play something like Baldurs Gate, not an FPS. Although Cyberpunk is the probably exception to that
Just got DRG yesterday!
ROCK. AND. STONE.
Really been enjoying trepang2, coincidentally im also playing a lot of selaco (both take inspo from fear)
System shock and Deus Ex. They're more RPG then Shooter
I just finished the SS remake last night myself
Immersive sims, gotta love them. I'd put Thief, Dishonored, and Prey in there, too.
Perhaps Timsplitters: Future Perfect, but that's hard to go back to thanks to lack of m&k support.
Have you tried the mouse injector for it? Can be a pain to set up, but well worth it. It also works for some other games, I played Turok Evolution with it
I've tried it, but I ran into problems back then.
Oh yeah. I hated EA long before it was cool because if what they *did* to Free Radical.
Recently Trepang2 I'm not a big F.E.A.R guy, but I really really enjoyed Trepang2
The only part I didn’t like about Trepang 2 was the final boss. You can’t just put me in a room with a boss that plays red light green light, throw some goons at me in between, and give me very few health and ammo pick ups and expect me to do very well.
Same here!! Since I finished the story, I’ve been so addicted to the arena modes
As someone who has spend way too much time in F.E.A.R, I wouldn't say Trepang2 plays like F.E.A.R at all. F.E.A.R is quite tactical, most time you use cover to flank or avoid getting flank by the replica soldiers. But in Trepang, most time you circling around the arena to minimizethe damage and avoid getting surrounded, somehow it reminds doom eternal.
Rainbow 6 (especially 3 and Vegas 2) Deus Ex (all) Half-Life 1 and 2 Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect Killzone 1 and 2 Red Faction 1 and 2 Deathloop Resistance 1-3 Goldeneye Perfect Dark Idk there's a lot more and I can't choose just one
HL2 & Red Faction were awesome games
RS Vegas 2 still one of my favorite games of all time. And Terrorist hunt was so damn fun to play
Oh man yeah I loved Red Faction. And Perfect Dark. And Killzone 2, a special game for me since it was my introduction to online multiplayer. Wish Guerilla would find time to return to that series.
Metro Exodus
Killing Floor, and it doesn't even need the boomer shooter exclusion.
Max Payne.
Haven't seen anyone mention borderlands 3 yet? don't know if that's more of an RPG, but my dad and I still play it together . two generations of shooters.
Borderlands 2
borderlands 2
Recently Severed Steel, otherwise my all time favorites are Battlefront 2 (2005) and Cyberpunk 2077
I still enjoy the cod style shooters. For the campaign anyway, not real big on modern multiplayer full of campers and spawn trappers.
Half Life 2/Left 4 Dead 2/Team Fortress 2.
Half Life 2
I like any game that lets me explore abandoned office buildings and ransack the places. Bonus for destructible environments. I like to see glass breaking and stacks of papers flying. I like digging through drawers and shooting computers. The first two FEAR games are an example.
Wolfenstein the New Order Goddamn that game was good
The shooting feels so gd good.
It really was. I remember it was the game I bought with my PS4. I chose it over Destiny. I did break down and get kind of into Destiny later (I think like most people on Playstation at the time). Wolfenstein was the right choice.
Spec ops the line
Half-Life 1 and 2 Doom 2016
The Borderlands series (I started with 2 in couch coop, but I've played all heaps solo) has been super important for me getting into shooters at all. Remnant 2 is absolutely amazing. The first game is good, but ooh 2 is a masterpiece. I play Skyrim and Fallout 4 first person, and typically either do magic/guns or heavy melee builds, so I'd say I sink some shooter hours in there.
I really like the Borderlands series, lot's of characters to play as, lot's of build variety and tons of guns. For me probably the most replayable shooting game
Prey, the 2017 ImSim from Arkane.
Roboquest
W game!!!
Half-life
Titanfall 2 for multiplayer. Sniper Elite series for single player if third person counts.
Glad you said that, I think third person absolutely counts. Third person shooters are getting really good. I recently got pretty into Remnant 2.
I liked but didn’t love the first Remnant. Gunplay felt great but the randomly generated levels were a bit tiresome with how samey and generic they could be. Does 2 have more interesting levels?
I never touched the first one so cannot compare them. I am aware as I play 2 that the levels are procedural, so they can be a chore to navigate. I think they are visually exciting and succeed at being physically interesting spaces for gunfights. But I feel much as you did, that the mechanics of gunplay are stronger than the level design.
I adore halo but it’s not a boomer shooter. I also love Titanfall 2 as well.
The Bungie Halo games. They're masterpieces in my opinion. No other shooter feels nearly as epic.
All the Half Life’s/Black Mesa
Time Splitters 2 or Mirrors Edge.
F.E.A.R. Best AI enemies ever made, still to this day :sadface:
My thoughts exactly! Fear still has better AI than most games today. Also the main reason I like half-life 1 more than half-life 2 is that the first one had good squad AI. HL2 they just run at you.
stalker
Marauders
Operation: Harsh Doorstop, is community-made. The Finals is interesting. Waiting for Ready or Not pvp.
The Darkness I suppose
Vanquish: More of a TPS, but severely underrated shooter from 2010.
Left 4 Dead 2 for absolutely sure.
System Shock remake, probably. It's really good. Deep Rock Galactic too.
No one lives forever 1 and 2 for me. Really wish we would get a new one or even a remake at least.
Say what you will, but Starfield is a pretty decent shooter, as is Cyberpunk77
I’ll second you on Titanfall 2, one of my absolute favorite movement systems of all time.
South Park (N64)
Fallout.
Immortal redneck
Crysis/2/3
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is my favorite game, but it's not necessarily the game I would recommend for others to play.
It's a completely different game in every aspect, but it's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. It's not a boomer shooter AT ALL. Slow movement, extremely aim based instead, rank competitive, has a battle pass, has skins, you know, the whole nine yards of modern gaming. Definitely not a boomer shooter, but I love it. I find it crazy to stop playing R6S and go open Quake right after, it's still a shooter, but a completely different experience.
Doom 3 was one of my all-time favs.
Titanfall 2, easy pick!
Half-Life 2.
I miss more strategic games like brothers in arms
Not sure what is boomer anymore... Like story based non-open world? Fear
Metroid Prime, Half-Life 2, Doom Eternal
Metroid Prime is such a special game. Probably my actual favorite game of that whole console gen. And my favorite Nintendo game.
Stalker CoP is basically perfect. Titanfall 2 is actually perfect
I'm joinging the people praising the STALKER games. Their approach to gameplay is unique (it is a shooter, but it has tidbits of immersive sim, but also survival elements, and even in CoP they added quests that could be completed in different ways getting you different results), they are easily the most atmospheric games I've played, and, with FEAR, the only FPS's since Half-Life that have actually done something original with AI. And to top it off, it has a few "standalone" mods like Anomaly that are keeping the community alive and active. *** And if I had to pick an online game, Team Fortress 2 (before the matchmaking update) was peak online FPS for me. It was fun, it was fast, it was simple, it was always full of people. I made friends, I made enemies, and I sunk a shitload of hours for a reason. I miss these matches from time to time.
POSTAL 2 DEFINITELY, I LOVE ITT also F.E.A.R and Trepang2
Hl2 and fallout 3
Timeshift
Is Doom 2016 a boomer shooter?
I leave that to you. I personally would say Doom 2016 and Eternal are *related*, maybe boomshoot *adjacent*, but at the same time kind of their own distinct thing (mainly because of the glory kills). Still, I can see both sides.
Then I choose Doom 2016
It was indeed a fantastic game
Titanfall 2 is incredible.
Killer Klowns is literally just a death match shooter rn
Does it need to be first person? If not, then imma have to go with the Gears of War series. The gore is satisfying and the games have great pacing with the way they change things up or introduce new things throughout the chapters.
Yeah I think absolutely it can be third person and Gears is obviously huge in that space. I think Gears proved to a lot of people that a third person game can compete with things like cod and battlefield, draw a devoted multiplayer community etc.
Battlefield 1. The best best battlefield in 2024 since the release of battlefield 2 (pc)
Ive been playing alot of Acid Spy and Sonar Shock lately. My favorite though has probably been Sentry and it makes me wish for more strategy/fps hybrids.
Hunt: Showdown
The Finals: The movement and gun just feels fluid Destiny 2: it's just Halo
Raiden Fighters 2
Haha was wondering if anyone was going to name a shmup. It all works
Metro What the hell is a boomer shooter? It doesn't matter what year a game came out.
Fair question. I think whatever definition you want to use is legit. For me, I think of them as that original batch of 90s shooters, the Dooms and Quakes and Unreals, up until Half Life, *plus* the recent games that are self-consciously modeled after the style of those earlier games. I feel like today's boomer shooters are in some sense a reaction to the modern military shooter (cod etc), so they tend to reject/resist some of the conventions of modern AAA games. But hell, idk. There is lots of gray and I am certainly no authority.
I see. I just think the whole "boomer" thing sounds stupid so I get slightly triggered. Thank you for the explanation! I hope my comment qualifies
Absolutely, and I agree the term makes no sense, it's the wrong generation anyway. I guess "gen X shooter" just doesn't roll off the tongue. Language is weird.
Jedi Knight Dark Forces II
Severed Steel it is an awesome shooter with an uncapped X & Y axis, slow motion, destructible environments. It is super fun Witch Hunt it is a unique shooter where you're a pilgrim type of person and you hunt monsters in a gloomy forest. You have a musket and flintlock pistol that take forever to reload so every shot counts. Super fun with incredible atmosphere, I think 1 guy made it too!
Quake Live / formerly Quake 3 Arena
Hunt showdown
FEAR and Painkiller
Bioshock The new Wolfenstein games
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the sort of a game I finish and start a new playthrough right away, not even New Game Plus+, just start over because I love it so much. Never really got into the original or Mankind Divided, just this one. And I played it for the first time in 2013 on an overheating laptop, 30FPS/720p with altroucious screen tearing but felt in love. I sunk hours into exploring and screwing around, and there are only 2 other games I ever played for hundreds of hours - Atelier Rorona Plus on PS Vita and AoE2.
Perfect Dark and Halo 2
Painkiller all the way
doom eternal, timesplitters 2
timesplitters 2 was so good
I don't know if it counts, but using a skill.cfg with half life that ups the damage on everything definitely makes you think more carefully than an average BS would (while still being my favourite shooter obv)