Leave it to Nintendo to come out of nowhere with a game that blows the modern convention of a genre out of the water. Splatoon is just that. It's a third person shooter, but it's done with that quirky japanesy flair that Nintendo is known for. You play as inklings, which are squids that morph into humanoids, and appear to be made of ink, and you're equipped with watergun-esque weapons that fire ink instead of bullets. The objective of the game is not simply to kill your opponents. Instead your goal is to claim as much territory by painting everything with your team's ink. In fact, the premise sort of reminds me of the board game Go, but with paint. Nintendo showed off only one stage and an early version of the game, but in the trailer multiple maps were spotted, as well as a weapon that looks like a paint roller, a sniper gun, and what appeared to be a grenade launcher but instead exploded with a mini ink tornado. To add to the quirkiness of the game, you can also morph into a squid at any give time and become invisble in your own teams ink, and traverse the map faster. However, getting in enemy ink exposes you and slows you down.
During Nintendo's Treehouse streaming, they demoed the game for quite some time and the internet was buzzing.Watching it in motion filled me with excitement, and i instantly could tell it would be a hit, and thousands of others seem to agree. Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-aime even believes it will do to the shooter genre what Mario Kart did to the racing genre. Why wouldn't it? Like Mario Kart, it is easy to hop into, but mastery still requires skill and strategy. A very tactical game lies underneath the colorful quirky exterior. It falls under both the hardcore and casual bracket like Mario Kart does. We've only see a glimpse of what it has, and with a 2015 release, its sure to be packed with more content, features, and maps. Its set to redefine shooters. Splatoon is definitely one to keep an eye out for.
