Nintendo’s known and beloved for a lot of things, but team-based shooters sure ain’t one of them. While players on other consoles have been rocking the third-person multiplayer vibe for years in games like Destiny and the Call of Duty and Halo series, Wii and Wii U users have had to focus their party fix largely on brawlers.
Like a paint bucket upside the head, Big N’s new game Splatoon could change all that in a splash of messy glory.
Instead of shooting bullets, you and your cartoonish Inkling avatar blast blobs of colorful ink. It’s a mechanic that recalls both the criminally underrated De Blob series and (obscure game title alert!) SPRay on the Nintendo Wii. No matter where it’s drawn from, the splatterific vibe here appeals to the visceral grade-schooler in all of us, the part that wants to make a ginormous, gooey mess and not be responsible for cleaning up any of it.
And that’s ultimately the point. The clever twist here is that while you can satisfyingly splat your enemies into respawn oblivion, it won’t win you the match. To color your way to victory, you and your squad of teammates need to ink and claim the majority of the map. Refilling your inky ammo involves morphing into a squid and swimming through the patches of ink you’ve claimed. (Do yourself an enormous favor and make flipping off the motion controls on the Wii U gamepad your very first move. They’re wonky and too slow.)
Diving beneath the ink’s surface and popping up behind (or above) an enemy is thrilling and satisfying. And because you get stuck and become a sitting duck if you venture onto an enemy team’s color, it’s in your best survival interests to always keep the ink-guns filled and blazing. Given that there are some pretty bizarre weapon options to unlock by scoring coin and leveling up (inkzooka, anyone?), the incentive to match-grind is strong.
Nintendo’s odd decision to roll out a promised list of game modes slowly could end up backfiring. New maps and new weapons have kept things fresh, but we’ll have to see if the ink keeps flying.
Splatoon is rated Everyone +10 and is available for Wii U for $59.99.
