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

[dsheinem]

shooterbook.com

[Ack]

shooterbook.com

Why, whatever do you mean, Dave?

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 53&t=48039

I really don't get your message at all.

http://www.shooterbook.com/

Whatever could you have possibly meant by this?

[Key-Glyph]

I got into a discussion about this recently when I was trying to refer to light gun games as a genre with a quick nickname. I started to say "shooter," but I tripped over it and stopped.

When people say "shooter," I think of first-person shooters, and first-person only. I'm so used to people clarifying "third-person shooter" that without that extra bit of description, I default to DOOM.

Sometimes I find myself saying "shooting game" instead of "shooter" when I'm implying broader gameplay variations, but I might be the only person in the world who does that and it's probably for nobody's benefit but mine. It's just that "shooter" is untouchable in my head.

Shoot-em-ups are just that or "shmups," and nothing else to me.

I think light gun games are technically "gallery shooters" or something like that? Except that the term makes me think exclusively of carnival games out in the open air at amusement parks.

Huh. I hadn't realized I was this specific about these categories.

[Hobie-wan]

When I was a kid, it meant a game where one was playing a 2D game where you could move a vehicle (or occasionally a person in a jettpack/space suit/winged) fairly freely around the screen and you fired projectiles or lasers at enemies.

These days, it usually means the person I'm conversing with is either only casually into games (at least ones with projectile weapons of some form), willfully ignorant, or has a lack of gaming history knowledge because they didn't say shmup, FPS, or TPS in order to be clear.

*edit*

I know I'm lacking in knowledge of genres I don't play too, so I'm probably guilty of using wrong descriptors as well. Don't ask me to correctly describe metal or rap genres either.

[Blu]

+1 to irixith.

My head hurts though. Why are we having this conversation?

[Fragems]

When I was a kid, it meant a game where one was playing a 2D game where you could move a vehicle (or occasionally a person in a jettpack/space suit/winged) fairly freely around the screen and you fired projectiles or lasers at enemies.

These days, it usually means the person I'm conversing with is either only casually into games (at least ones with projectile weapons of some form), willfully ignorant, or has a lack of gaming history knowledge because they didn't say shmup, FPS, or TPS in order to be clear.

*edit*

I know I'm lacking in knowledge of genres I don't play too, so I'm probably guilty of using wrong descriptors as well. Don't ask me to correctly describe metal or rap genres either.

Yeah shooter is a pretty lazy description of a game since there are so many different sub genres that are pretty different. It's kind of like RPGs there are Turn Based, Action, Grid-based, etc. and a boat load of other genres with "light" RPG elements.

[MrPopo]

+1 to irixith.

My head hurts though. Why are we having this conversation?

Because Exhumator said shooter, intending to mean FPS/TPS, and someone else read that as shmup, which led to an interesting discussion about what it means to legitimately beat a shmup, and Exhumator got upset that people took what he said to be "shmup", even though he clarified and we still had an interesting discussion off of the misunderstanding.

[Exhuminator]

It is worth noting that Racketboy the site differentiates the term itself. Hence the official "Shmups" forum being called "Shmups" and not "Shooters".

All the same I agree we have had some really interesting conversations out of this misunderstanding.

[MrPopo]

It is worth noting that Racketboy the site differentiates the term itself. Hence the official "Shmups" forum being called "Shmups" and not "Shooters".

I see that as an attempt to remove potential ambiguity. I think it's fair to say that while you can certainly be a fan of both shmups and FPS's, there's not a lot of common discussion between the two. When you go into something called "General gaming" or "Other genres" most people expect to see all kinds of random threads. Conversely, going into a forum called Shooters is probably going to make a person expect either Shmups or FPS/TPS, and in the latter case they might further subdivide the two in their mind.

[Gunstar Green]

I think all of the consternation involving the word "shooter" stems from people finding "shmup" a dumb word.

It's too widely spread a term to be replaced, but no matter where I am I hear people complaining that "shmup" is terrible and they refuse to use it.

So the confusion continues until a savior comes with new vocabulary to lift us from this dark age.