"Splatoon," the new shooter title from Nintendo, is now available to play on the Wii U, with its full release launched on May 29. Barely a week after the launch, players are saying that the company made the right decision and they are very ecstatic about the game.
Although it is considered as a third-person shooter, how "Splatoon" plays is contrary to what others think when the term "shooting game" is mentioned. Since Nintendo mostly cater to the young generation, what they designed is poles apart from young adult and older-themed titles like "Call of Duty" or "Battlefield."
In "Splatoon," players take on the role of Inklings, the half-squid/ half-person characters in the game. The Inklings can switch from being human and squirting enemies with ink, to being a squid that can swim through their own ink pools.
Instead of characters dying, the game is more of a turf war genre, with characters "dyeing" every now and then. This will just take them out of the current game for a few seconds. In one of the game modes called Turf War, the objective is to dye the place with the team's color and cover as much of the area as possible, with each opposing team trying to turn the tide in their favor. One strategy that the team can do is to designate a hitter, an Inkling whose job is to splash opponents with color. While opponents are temporarily out of commission, the team can then use those precious few seconds to enlarge their conquered area.
What disappoints fans, though, is the absence of some features that make online play more exciting – at least for adults. The lack of team voice chat makes it almost impossible for team mates to check on each other, especially in the heat of the fight. However, Nintendo offers an explanation for not including voice chat function in the game. Most "negativities," Nintendo says, stem from gamers' frustrations being voiced out during gameplay. In addition, the colorful displays and the helpful team map on the Gamepad compensate for lack of real-time team play-by-plays.
