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Preview: Splatoon

Splatoon feels like both an ingenious idea you would never have thought of yourself, and exactly what your answer would be when asked ‘what type of shooter would Nintendo make?’. Splatoon uses third-person gun combat as the platform for a game rather than the point of it, with taking out the opposition only a small contribution to the larger goal of spraying more of your coloured paint over the level than the other team.

Despite the 4v4 nature of the game, Splatoon may have been the most action packed shooter I played at the EB Expo. Level design is tight corridors leading to open arenas and reminded me of old Team Fortress level design, when 2fort was king. Combat mostly took place in the arenas, with victory there rewarded by painting the corridors your colour and pushing the front further towards the opposition base. The map made it easy to see if a sneaky opponent had got behind your lines and started to take over your territory, as well as keep track of the general state of play.

Traversal is made simple with a few neat mechanics. Your player character has two forms, squid and human, with the squid only able to move over painted surfaces (though movement is much slower in opposition coloured paint) but travels faster than human form, is harder to hit, can climb walls and slide under grates. Squid form is also how you reload your paint gun.

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Human form is where you paint the level and use your special abilities; an ammo sapping grenade and a supercharged tornado shot that rapidly paints a wide strip in front of you. At any time you can fast travel to the location of another player on your team by using the map on the tablet, meaning you are always close to the action and respawning is barely a setback. It helps contain action that is already frenetic thanks to the tight maps.

The control scheme is something only the Wii U can pull off. It is surprisingly intuitive to aim with the tablet gyroscope as it allows snappy movements that remove the pain from painting corridors and walls. The wild nature of spewing paint everywhere means that the accuracy lost by pointing a tablet screen instead of using a precise crosshair is irrelevant, you’ll never need pixel precision in Splatoon.

I had a blast playing a couple of all too brief rounds, but how well it holds up as a full release is another matter. Communication with your teammates will be important to higher level play, as fun as romping around as individuals is, Splatoon has potential as a competitive game and it would be a shame to see go to waste due to Nintendo’s online policies. It is undoubtedly fun, but whether it has staying power remains to be seen. At the moment, I am cautiously hopeful.


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About the author

Stuart Gollan

From Amiga to Xbox One, Doom to Destiny, Megazone to Stevivor, I've been gaming through it all and have the (mental) scars to prove it. I love local multiplayer, collecting ridiculous Dreamcast peripherals, and Rocket League.