FPS is not the same as "shooter."

[Nautical Honors Society]

The thing is, most people understand what is implied by "shooter".

When I say shooter, only five people on this site think of Ikaruga.

You said shooter! I love Halo.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

I think you'd be taken more seriously if your name wasn't 'Halo Fanboy'.

He could at least be more precise and tell us if by writing "halo" he means religious iconography ,a natural phenomenom or a succesful series of *hehe* shooters

 

[Substance-E]

Are we really discussing this? ~.~ This is as stupid as demanding people on the internet use proper grammar. You can't make someone do what you want, just because it's 'incorect'.

But don't you understand? Halo invented proper grammar.

Keep contributing nothing to anything.

As opposed to this oh so enlightening PSA?

 

[Dublin Solo]

unnecessary distinctions...

I seriously cannot fathom how you can think we don't need to sort Time Crisis and Contra into different genres. Quit talking about games if you can't understand something so obvious.

You have such a nice way of being arounf people. I bet you're very popular.

Do you want to start a petition, or something? Do you really feel attacked in your inner self when somebody use the term "shooter " to describe a FPS? Or anything else? Sometimes, just having a discussion with a person is enough to get the gist of what they say. Nobody has to summarize everything with a single word. We're not talking about medicine or biology: we're talking about media, and to a greater extent, art.

How would you describe JJackson Pollock's art? With only one word?

EDIT: Yes, there are typos in my post, I hope nobody will lynch me for that.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

You have no clue what Gun Shooting is (holding a gun-like controller) or Run n Gun (sidescroll shooter with your feet on the ground.)

Yes i do understand these meanings and you're being very rude simply because your thread did not go your way.
A game mechanic (i.e. the medium of play) is entirely different from a genre which is the culmination of aesthetic and atmosphere. Please know your terms before you approach threads. And your language. The escapist is a respectable website, not a flame arena.

Game genres are defined SOLEY by their mechanics. Besides survival Horror but that's a bad term anyway.

Games aren't books their genres are never defined by aesthetics and to do so is decadent. And a genre is just a set of conventions it can apply to mechanics aesthetics or whatever. For video games it's obviously the former.

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

They see me trollin,
they hatin,
Patrolling they tryin to stop me typin dirty,
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
i think im so bad,
I'm lolling,
They hopin that they gon stop me typin dirty,
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty

Mods think they can see me hate
I'm ten so it ain't easy to be seen
They all see me type but they can see me glee
And my hotpockets on the deck and the LCD screen
Ride with a new clan, destroyin from inbetween
Holdin my playstation controller pwning all them noobs
Give em wackers a coma
You all ain't know, I'm crazy like Christopher Crocker
Just tryin to TK ain't tryin to have no friends
Im F**king King, I pull in the ladies
Laws of Moderating you know they hate me
High pitched voice turned all the way up until the maximum
I can speak for some players tryin to have some fun
But i packin somethin that i have and you will never have a troll banned up
With a new account, I'm trippin yall
Voice loud and Internet slow
Pissed and Pissing all up in his grill
Pull up from behind and knife him in the back
Flame shields down gotta stop pollution
Teams changing like no ones watching?
This the Play-N-Skillz when i out and owning
Got banned in every forum except here but I'm still ain't losin

They see me trollin,
they hatin,
Patrolling they tryin to stop me typin dirty,
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
i think im so bad,
I'm lolling,
They hopin that they gon stop me typin dirty,
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty
No ones gonna stop me typin dirty

On Topic
I couldn't really care less what they call genres of games, shooters or FPS its all the same to me

 

[OtherAlex]

Back in my day, we called them Shoot em ups. I shall continue to do so.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

unnecessary distinctions...

I seriously cannot fathom how you can think we don't need to sort Time Crisis and Contra into different genres. Quit talking about games if you can't understand something so obvious.

How would you describe JJackson Pollock's art? With only one word?

I don't have anything to say on the subject. I'm not an expert and nothing I say would be valuable.

And your attempts to psychoanylize me have lead to the wrong conclusions. I just don't like ignorance.

 

[captaincabbage]

The thing is, most people understand what is implied by "shooter".

When I say shooter, only five people on this site think of Ikaruga.

Ika-who-what? . . . I think I just unwittingly prooved your point. XD

OT: As far as I'm concerned, 'Shooter' is just an apt description for an FPS as any other game where you hold down buttons until someone dies.

I'd persoanlly like to know what your designation of an RPG is, but my definition is 'a game where you play a character's role'.
Any game which gives itself the title RPG is just as valid as a game that I decide as being an RPG. For example, I could label Red Dead Redemption as an RPG, since you inhabit and control John Marston and he embodies the very idea of what you think he should be like.

My point is, lots of games have lots of labels, based on each and every person's perception of them. The labels that each game is aligned with in popular culture are designed specifically so that you can choose a major, easily identifiable componant of that game and file it under that tag so others can find it and quickly categorize it on the fly.

Long story short, it's here, deal with it.

 

[tehroc]

Yup, video games need pretentious, horribly complicated nomenclature like the music industry. I mean I feel like a complete ass when I get my trance and electro mixed up....

Hey now trance and electro are completely different, that would be like saying metal is the same as rock just because it has guitars in it. Placing songs into genres makes it easier to describe to another what they are like.

 

[Dublin Solo]

unnecessary distinctions...

I seriously cannot fathom how you can think we don't need to sort Time Crisis and Contra into different genres. Quit talking about games if you can't understand something so obvious.

How would you describe JJackson Pollock's art? With only one word?

I don't have anything to say on the subject. I'm not an expert and nothing I say would be valuable.

And your attempts to psychoanylize me have lead to the wrong conclusions. I just don't like ignorance.

Ahh, I see. So everybody's ignorant, except you.

That's your opinion, buddy. I hope you don't mind that we all have our opinion on this very specific subject, then.

 

[Tanis]

I think you'd be taken more seriously if your name wasn't 'Halo Fanboy'.

He could at least be more precise and tell us if by writing "halo" he means religious iconography ,a natural phenomenon or a successful series of *he-he* shooters

Son of a...*fixed

OT:
But, seriously, I know this cat is trollin', but I just find the whole thing funny.

When talking about a game casually 'shooter' or 'rpg' or 'action' or...you get my point, is fine.
Now, when saying 'the best *insert genera here* of all time is *insert game here*' I can understand wanting to be specific.

While I LOVE System Shock 2, it's not 'the best shooter of all time', because SS2 sure as heck isn't a FPS/TPS/TS/Shump/Bullet-Hell/TDS (or BES).

If it was, it'd be over level 9000, and probably impossible to make.

 

[Dastardly]

FPS games are, in fact, "shooters."

Saint Bernanrds are dogs.
So are labs, collies, pugs, and dachsunds.
Referring to any of them as "dog" is perfectly fine. It's just not specific.

It's one thing to unify terminology, and it's another thing to ignore the convenience and utility of "general headings" that can include more than one specific subgenre.

 

[Steppin Razor]

How is this worth making a thread over?
And who needs genres anyway, why do things have to have specific descriptions? All of this nonsense just leads to the confusing pointless bullshit that exists with music right now, like "psychobilly progressive jazz punk" or "symphonic experimental avantgarde post-metal".

I'll be honest - I was always more a fan of progressive avantgarde post-punk jazz-metal myself.

 

[jboking]

snip

I'm like 90% certain that the 'medium' is the video game itself. FPS, RPG, RTS, etc. are all genres within the medium of video games, not the medium themselves.

snip

I think, and I could be totally wrong, that this phenomenon has a ton to do with the idea of increasing specificity. 'Shooter' is a very general term for games which involve gun play, but in no way can be an accurate evaluation of a games full content.

If you run windows, think of it like folders and sub-folders. In my "My Documents" folder I certainly have tons of documents that are all mine, so the name fits, but just "My Documents" doesn't accurately describe what is within each document. To solve that problem, I have sub-folders like "School work" and even from there, more sub-folders like "Philosophy". That's how it works, I believe.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Who cares, there are two types of shooters:

Tactical ones - by extension competitive ones (CoD 4 on Hardcore for example)

Arcade Shooters - everything from pie tossing to Halo to Timeshit to Haze and all those railshooters. You know, games that are more lightfooted with no sort of real competition tied to them.

Wait, what? Forgetting for now that you're using the newer, narrower definition of "shooter" that the thread is complaining about without even acknowledging the history behind the term, how can you say Arcade Shooters are not competitive? Doom, Quake, Unreal, TF2 and even Halo would like a word with you.

If you're serious, WTH? If you're trolling, well played I guess.

 

[David Bray]

Game genre's are defined SOLEY by their mechanics. Besides survival Horror but that's a bad term anyway.

Games aren't books their genres are never defined by aesthetics and to do so is decadent. And a genre is just a set of conventions it can apply to mechanics aesthetics or whatever. For video games it's obviously the former.

Put simply, no they're not. By saying a game's impact is based solely on its mode of play is limiting it to nothing. An FPS can only ever be an FPS. It cannot be a transcendant experience that explores the meaning of being human in war filled attrocity, it becomes merely a game where you shoot things in the first person.

Anyway, i've had enough of your trolling. Derp away.

 

[Hyper-space]

Welcome to the Escapist!

Do you really want a term that can be used to describe everything from Starfox to DooM to Muchi Muchi Pork? Stick to correct terminology if you don't want to look like an idiot.

Meh. If they have things that shoot things, it makes sense to me, so why not?

A failure in language usually lead to a failure in logic. Like calling Ninja Gaiden and Diablo "hack and slash", or comparing action adventure like Zelda to real adventure. Even a "puzzle" game like tetris is at least half action. Lets not even get into how misunderstanding of the term RPG lead to the whole genre being pratically whiped from computer gaming.

Jesus christ, this has to be the most serious argument of semantics in a long time.

Massive amounts of butthurt detected.

 

[David Bray]

snip

I'm like 90% certain that the 'medium' is the video game itself. FPS, RPG, RTS, etc. are all genres within the medium of video games, not the medium themselves.

I suppose we are going into the realms of sub-mediums and sub-genres but the mode of play is the game. Without mode of play there is no game so the game itself is the FPS, RPG, RTS, etc. which is the medium.
Great point though.