Shooter video games are all about shooting targets and avoiding being shot down. The kind of game is often defined by the player perspective (FPS stands for First Person Shooter, TPS stands for Third Person Shooter), or by gameplay: shoot'em up, run and gun, shooting gallery.
Back in 1984, Zaxxon was the future. Isometric graphics? Whoa. Shadow effects? Mind blown. But mostly, it was a game about flying a chunky spaceship through a heavily fortified spa...