What does the term "shooter" mean to you at first glance?

[Exhuminator]

Okay so we've had some silly drama over in the "Game collecting is not what it once was" thread. I think one issue boils down to what the term "shooter" means in accordance to the genre itself. While it is true "shooter" is a catch-all kind of term, it's also true that the term itself can represent an immediate genre association to each individual gamer. Thus I have set up a poll above for the community to vote their opinion on the matter. It is my hope this voting will show a general consensus of what the largest demographic here believes this terminology intrinsically represents to them.

[MrPopo]

My first thought is I need clarification from whoever's talking because I spend all my time on a retro gaming forum. If I was on the GameFAQs boards I'd assume they were talking about Call of Duty. Here it's not so clear cut.

[Sarge]

I have to stop myself every time. I want to call shoot-'em-ups shooters, just because it's easier to type and I don't like the "shmup" term, but I recognize that the nomenclature has changed in the gaming community, so I always call them shoot-'em-ups. I call FPS shooters, and if I'd actually done the poll right, I'd probably also consider third-person shooters "shooters" as well.

In my mind, it's much like "fighting" games. Before Street Fighter II, a fighting game could have fallen into the Double Dragon mold, or Final Fight. Now? It's generally accepted that "fighters" are tournament fighters, and I see the "fighters" of old referred to as brawlers, belt-scrollers, or beat-'em-ups.

[marurun]

I grew up knowing Twin Cobra and Raiden as shooters. FPS games didn't even exist yet, really. In fact, I hate the term shmup for these games, because that is short for "shoot 'em up", which suggests, to me, a gun game like Lethal Enforcers or House of the Dead, cause that's where you're shooting them up.

[Exhuminator]

retro gaming forum.Here it's not so clear cut.

I understand what you are saying to an extent.

But consider that the FPS and TPS genres are quite old now. Old enough to be considered retro. Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM are both over two decades old. Fade to Black is twenty years old, Tomb Raider is nearly the same at nineteen years. Because of the age of these types of genres, I don't think it's out of place even on a retro gaming forum for one to assume shooter could mean FPS or TPS rather than shmup. And in thinking that way, I don't believe someone would be out of their element even from a retro perspective.

[Ack]

retro gaming forum.Here it's not so clear cut.

I understand what you are saying to an extent.

But consider that the FPS and TPS genres are quite old now. Old enough to be considered retro. Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM are both over two decades old.

I would argue for even older FPS, back to MIDI Maze in 1987 and Catacomb 3-D in 1991. And Maze War(which some folks consider the first FPS or the progenitor of FPS) dates back to 1974.

In truth, I believe the "shooter" genre is a wide genre which contains First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters, Light Gun Shooters, Tube Shooters, and SHMUPS. When someone says "shooter," I tend to think of the whole variety.

[TSTR]

i got ur tube shooter hehehe

[isiolia]

I usually think more of something a little more particular than anything based on shooting. More towards something that's probably focused primarily on that - predominately a fast, twitch kind of design.

Being fair, there are plenty of games that are rightly placed in the FPS pile that wouldn't line up with that. The Deus Exes, Bioshocks, Dishonoreds, etc. Same as, say, Mass Effect's combat basically being a cover shooter doesn't define it as one for most people.

[Ack]

I usually think more of something a little more particular than anything based on shooting. More towards something that's probably focused primarily on that - predominately a fast, twitch kind of design.

Being fair, there are plenty of games that are rightly placed in the FPS pile that wouldn't line up with that. The Deus Exes, Bioshocks, Dishonoreds, etc. Same as, say, Mass Effect's combat basically being a cover shooter doesn't define it as one for most people.

True, there is a lot of hybrid design here, just as there is with these other subgenres. Take games like Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D, or Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon, The Death and Return of Superman, or Captain America and the Avengers, all of which have SHMUP-themed levels. Many FPS have also pulled from other genres, such as the point-and-click adventure game, like Pathways Into Darkness or Realms of the Haunting.

But the defining characteristic is how players interact with the game world, and in the shooter genre, it is through shooting, either through killing enemies or solving puzzles via the use of some kind of projectile manipulation.

[Westane]

I had to go with the catch-all option. When someone says "shooter" I immediately have about 20 different games from different genres pop into my head in rapid succession. A weird yet awesome montage of Raiden, Gradius, Contra, Goldeneye, Panzer Dragoon, Gears of War, Time Splitters, More Contra?, Mass Effect and others.