WiiU_Splatoon_scrn08_E3

Nintendo went a little bit out of the norm on Tuesday as they unveiled Splatoon during their E3 2014 Digital Event, an original game that looks like their vibrant answer to other third person shooters, and it looks quite interesting to say the least.

Splatoon is actually a hit at Nintendo’s E3 2014 booth, attracting quite the audience and making it even more appealing by allowing attendees to compete with the game developers themselves.

Though it looks like Nintendo’s own version of third person shooting deathmatch games like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, it’s actually far from that.  Sure, you can kill opponents and have them re-spawn in their bases, but that’s not the point of the game at all.

WiiU_Splatoon_scrn03_E3Armed with what look like SuperSoakers from the 1990’s, the object of the 4-vs.-4 game is to mark up as much territory with ink as you possibly can.  The colorful vandalism is actually reminiscent of the sludge from Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube, so it wouldn’t be surprising to know if this was actually inspired by Sunshine‘s concept.

What changes up the gameplay is with the press of a button, these gun-wielding kids can morph into squids that would allow them to traverse through the ink a lot more quickly than it would take to simply run around.  Players can use this feature to shoot at walls and then move around walls to get to hard-to-reach places, allowing them to shoot at various places from much higher ground.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a multiplayer Nintendo game without some power-ups, and there are numerous ones in the game, including a rolling brush that allows the player to just paint across all the ground he or she is running on.

Aside from normal play, the player with the GamePad can also use it to see how much of the ground is covered up in the colored goop, so it’s rather easy to see who’s winning.

Splatoon is a pretty interesting concept, and it looks like there’ll be a lot of depth in strategy to make it more accessible to a wider range of audiences.  At first look, though, it really looked to me like a random DLC game, so I’m hoping Nintendo comes up with a good single player campaign mode to really turn this into a hot IP.WiiU_Splatoon_scrn10_E3

The game is scheduled for release in the early part of 2015, and you can bet we’ll have a review up at around that time.  For this and other E3 2014 coverage, stay tuned to SmashPad.

Title:
Splatoon
Platform:
Wii U
Publisher:
Nintendo
Developer:
Nintendo
Genre:
Third Person Shooter
Release Date:
Q1 2015
ESRB Rating:
E
Developer's Twitter:

Nintendo went a little bit out of the norm on Tuesday as they unveiled Splatoon during their E3 2014 Digital Event, an original game that looks like their vibrant answer to other third person shooters, and it looks quite interesting…

WiiU_Splatoon_scrn08_E3

Nintendo went a little bit out of the norm on Tuesday as they unveiled Splatoon during their E3 2014 Digital Event, an original game that looks like their vibrant answer to other third person shooters, and it looks quite interesting to say the least.

Splatoon is actually a hit at Nintendo’s E3 2014 booth, attracting quite the audience and making it even more appealing by allowing attendees to compete with the game developers themselves.

Though it looks like Nintendo’s own version of third person shooting deathmatch games like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, it’s actually far from that.  Sure, you can kill opponents and have them re-spawn in their bases, but that’s not the point of the game at all.

WiiU_Splatoon_scrn03_E3Armed with what look like SuperSoakers from the 1990’s, the object of the 4-vs.-4 game is to mark up as much territory with ink as you possibly can.  The colorful vandalism is actually reminiscent of the sludge from Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube, so it wouldn’t be surprising to know if this was actually inspired by Sunshine‘s concept.

What changes up the gameplay is with the press of a button, these gun-wielding kids can morph into squids that would allow them to traverse through the ink a lot more quickly than it would take to simply run around.  Players can use this feature to shoot at walls and then move around walls to get to hard-to-reach places, allowing them to shoot at various places from much higher ground.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a multiplayer Nintendo game without some power-ups, and there are numerous ones in the game, including a rolling brush that allows the player to just paint across all the ground he or she is running on.

Aside from normal play, the player with the GamePad can also use it to see how much of the ground is covered up in the colored goop, so it’s rather easy to see who’s winning.

Splatoon is a pretty interesting concept, and it looks like there’ll be a lot of depth in strategy to make it more accessible to a wider range of audiences.  At first look, though, it really looked to me like a random DLC game, so I’m hoping Nintendo comes up with a good single player campaign mode to really turn this into a hot IP.WiiU_Splatoon_scrn10_E3

The game is scheduled for release in the early part of 2015, and you can bet we’ll have a review up at around that time.  For this and other E3 2014 coverage, stay tuned to SmashPad.

Date published: 06/12/2014
/ 5 stars