Shooter games have been sparse on the Nintendo consoles over the last few generations, as most serious shooters have gravitated other consoles or the PC. I definitely have done the same kind of gravitation. On a lark I went through my collection of games to find the last shooter I played on a Nintendo console, which was the woeful South Park game on the N64. Prior to that were the two Rare classics: Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Needless to say, it feels a bit odd to try and play a shooter on the Wii U, but I was certainly game to try.
The default game control mode uses the gyroscopic controls of the controller to fine tune the aiming, with the left stick handling the character movement. I made the mistake of trying to play online with this mode once… and never again. After switching the mode to dual stick, the gameplay became much easier but playing with it for any appreciable amount of time was murder on my hands. Switching out for my trusty Classic Pro controller not only improved the pain-level in my hands, but made me significantly more effective as a combatant. The only negative against using the Classic controller was the loss of the second screen on the GamePad. On multliplayer, the GamePad shows the map which helps to show the tide of the game is turning and allows you to adjust accordingly.
The single player mode is a campaign against an alien invader. The experience is really about show-casing the abilities of your character and learning how to play the game effectively. Gathering up all the collectable in the levels will unlock more of the back-story of Splatoon which is kind of neat to spoon it out this way. At about 5 hours in length, it's an excellent show-case of the game/training area and has some really neat enemies and boss-fights. Unfortunately, nothing other than the skills you personally learn will transfer over into the multiplayer modes.
Multiplayer mode has two different games: Turf War (casual mode) and Splat Zones (competitive mode).
Turf War allows you to play with your friends/teams whereas at this time Splat Zones does not, which is supposed to be changed on a later update supposedly. Turf War is pretty much what it sounds like: paint as much of the terrain as you can and whichever team has the most real estate at the buzzer is the winner. Splat Zones requires you to keep a specific area painted in your color for 100 seconds to win. There are 2 additional combat modes to be released in the future as well as some additional maps, but for now, the cupboard is a bit bare. The local multiplayer mode, Battle Dojo is a rather stripped game-mode. It's just competitive balloon popping on the same multiplayer maps that we've already seen. Not particularly fun or engaging.
When not playing in either of the game modes, you can do a little shopping for your character. There is a ton of customizable clothing and equipment to pore through to not only make your character less generic but tweak the game performance to your preference and play-style. Admittedly there will be much grinding for loot in your future if you want the best stuff. Visually, Splatoon is charming and beautiful in presentation. The sound effects are cute and the music is unobtrusive and works to keep the game light and breezy.
My big negatives about Splatoon are the online aspects, which have more to do with how inexperienced Nintendo is on this platform. No chat or speech functionality leaves you completely unable to co-ordinate with your teammates in a game unless you are using Skype or some-other platform outside the Wii U. I understand that these features were left off to prevent any sort of negative experience for the players but the point of multiplayer is to connect with other people outside your home, not just reduce other characters to odd bot names. Load times are horrible on match-making – even early in the game life when there was the highest concentration of players, filling a game is a giant time sink. I have a minor gripe with the un-skipable video clips, especially the news report when you first launch the game.
All in all, Splatoon is a great game. It should have been a bit more fleshed out at launch, and it's unusual for Nintendo to release a game early and patch after the fact like so many other companies do. I hope this is not a new trend for them. I wouldn't call it a console seller title but it is a "should check out" for Wii U owners.
- Tazman
Follow @MichaelSiewert
The Good:
- Playing with the GamePad is a chore
- Multiplayer match-making takes forever
- No team chat, no team speak
The Bad:
- Very interesting take on the competitive shooter
- Accessible game like only Nintendo can create
