Splatoon (Demo)

Update: Another Testfire Demo has been announced for Saturday May 23 3pm PST! Check it out!

At the end of May a new IP arrives on the WiiU and players will be inked with excitement. Splatoon had a Global Testfire weekend and in case you missed it, the demo featured two online maps where teams of four Inklings squared off trying to cover as much ground with ink within two minutes. The squid players can swim around in their own paint to charge their guns or advance quickly through the muck. Paint from the other team is like glue and stepping in it will make you one slow-moving target, so always squirt before you walk! Check out the announcement trailer from last year’s E3.

 

There were four weapons to use: Splat Charger (charged sniper rifle), a paint roller and two variations on short-range guns, Splattershot and Splattershot Jr. All classes have secondary weapons, and so far they were all bomb or grenade variations. The Splat Charger was the most difficult weapon to use, but sniper rifles are a special breed, as far as helping the team it didn’t lay down much paint, but it is useful for protecting an area or supporting allies. The Ink Roller, on the other hand, easily lays down all sorts of ink but you are an easy target on the front lines. The Splattershots were fun to use; with Jr. having a spread shot without as much distance, the Splattershot was definitely the gun of choice.

One of the wonderful things that sets this game apart from other shooters (besides ink) is that it’s 3^rd person, so you don’t miss out on the action to the side and back. The game also features gyroscope controls (up and down) along with the right stick (left and right) to aim. While the gyro controls take a bit of getting used to, it doesn’t take long for them to feel natural, especially with a quick center button if your aim gets off-kilter. If you are a true pansy you can turn off the gyroscope. It seriously isn’t necessary; at no point will you be twisting in your chair trying to aim, and the sensitivity can be adjusted.

Splatoon’s Global Testfire let players log onto a demo version for three one-hour intervals to test their servers under stress. For the most part I suffered very few connection problems. The first few minutes had me all inked up and shouting to the greasy gods of Internet and Ink while my connection sputtered like a dehydrated desert piss. Maybe it was their servers but a quick glance at various message boards confirmed many people were online right away. After the first half hour disconnecting wasn’t the norm and the connection worked better than Mario Kart 8. The next two sessions went off with nary a disconnect and when a group was lost, I was right back selecting weapons without leaving the demo. There were no beta-type screwups while playing the game. Once the sessions started they worked smoothly with no glitches at all. Even with paint constantly being painted over and characters zooming all over the place, the action and graphics were smooth and did not suffer from server lag. There was also a short tutorial map that let you run around solo getting used to the controls, bursting balloons and swimming in a skate park.

The graphics look great on Splatoon even if they don’t push the edge of the system. The Inklings look like a gang of tweens and it fits well with their “Super-Soaker” like weapons, and when they turn into squids they look right at home swimming and jumping in the glistening ink. The colours of the ink are randomly assigned, which helps to keep things looking fresh while the music pumps out fast-paced guitar rock. There is basic character creation, and the game proper will have clothing and weapons available to buy with points, all with different mods and boosters.

One of the truly ingenious parts of Splatoon is how different weapons react to each other. The roller may seem like the best bet to cover the most area with paint, but if the majority of the team is “rolling” all members are susceptible to easy fire from the other team. Likewise, without a roller in the group, tagging area is more time-consuming and the enemy can cover whole areas while your pea-shooter struggles to keep up. Swimming in the ink adds a neat extra layer to the frenzy but it isn’t an ultimate defence, especially against rollers who will paint right over you and cause you to explode in an inky mess.

Painting walls will allow players to swim up walls to perches, where they can dispense paint onto unsuspecting squidlings or cover an area quickly. This can provide shortcuts over contested areas or a perch for a sniper. There are no points for exploding your adversaries into a sloppy mess of goop, but it will stop them from covering more area and force them to restart at their camp. When restarting players can super-squid-jump to one of their allies by touching their icons on the D-Pad map.

Splatoon ignores voice-chat altogether in favour of an online environment that isn’t littered with shit-heads yelling at each other for dying or calling each other names. While this seemed like a horrible idea at first (I was for a moderated voice chat with draconian consequences for offenders), after playing I didn’t miss the negativity of the Internet at all. Using the map there was no problem figuring out where my teammates needed some ink most.

This all adds up to a highly addicting experience that ended all too quickly. Every time the big fat cat gave out the scores, it got more painful to bear as every victory or defeat was one round closer to the end of the Testfire and the long wait for Splatoon to be released to begin again.

The Testfire was preceded by a Nintendo Direct video that explained the game proper and ended with several announcements of in-game events scheduled for the summer. While the game proper will have a one-player platform shooter-style campaign, it will also have online modes other than the Turf War Splatoon demoed this weekend. 

Splatoon is poised to be a summer hit—with online events and updates rolling out well after the May 29 release through August. Maps, outfits, weapons and game modes will be released as updates and not paid DLC. One such event will be cats versus dogs, where players pick a side and battle it out for the title of ultimate pet. Also the merchandising, merchandising, merchandising will surely make Nintendo tons of cash. Nintendo hasn’t had an IP so fitted for sequels, toys, T-shirts, slippers and prophylactics since Pokémon, and Splatoon has set itself up to be the fun console game to beat this summer while the inklings squirt Nintendo ink all the way to the bank.

Did you enjoy the Testfire? Sound off in the comments!