What I’m Playing: Splatoon
I often refer to Nintendo as the Willy Wonka of video games. They never give you what you want, but when you get what they do give you, you realize THIS is what you wanted all along. Splatoon is a great example of that. You are a kid on a team of four playing paintball, but the goal is to cover as much of the map as you can with your color of paint. Your guns can be a straightforward, standard squirt gun, or crazy a giant paint brush that allows you to madly splatter paint everywhere. There are so many options and variations that you will find something that fits your taste pretty easily.
There is, of course, a twist. Your kid is actually a squid (Hey, those rhyme!), When playing the game you first lay down an area of paint and then with the press of the left trigger you quickly turn into a squid and you ‘swim’ in the paint. As a squid you move much faster, but you are more susceptible to being splatted (dying). I really wish I could have sat in on that pitch meeting. So off the wall, yet so fun.
Splatoon is great and succeeds richly at being just plain fun. The weapons are creative, the specials are really cool, and all of the modes are massively entertaining. There is a single player mode that I am using to teach my daughter to play. At six, she is actually picking it up quite nicely. To be honest, her real attraction is customizing her character and there are a lot of accessories to choose from. You select headgear, a shirt, and shoes. They all have a distinct look and give you character different abilities. My squid-girl (I like the girl character model better) is currently rocking a football helmet, a tech vest, and rainbow sneakers.
The bulk of my play has been online, which works really well. There is no voice chat, which is fine by me. I can honestly say, unless I am playing a game with my friend John, I have never had a great experience talking during a game with people who aren’t there in the room with me. Matches are fast and exciting, and with a 3 to 5 minute length, they are not long enough to make you walk away frustrated. There is a large ‘Just one more game’ attraction though. So be warned.
In the end, if you haven’t played this game and you have a Wii U, dive in! It is a blast, and Nintendo is slowly releasing more and more FREE content to keep the experience fresh.
