Could Splatoon be the "Mario Kart" of the shooter genre?

     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.

Wii got U covered.

 Since its launch, or even before then, The Wii U has been the victim of much criticism. The media argued that Wii U would be for the casuals, then they argued it wasn’t casual enough with Nintendo Land. the argument soon became that the Wii U doesn’t know who it is appealing to and that it has an identity crisis. well, I am here to let you know that all of those views are wrong. Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing with the Wii U. They are doing what they have always done, and that is try to appeal to everyone rather than just one particular crowd.

   The media, (the more western portion anyway) tries to make the Wii U out to be some sort of child toy or lesser than the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One. This is due mainly to the fact that shooters have become the main focus in the western audience, and Nintendo is unapologetically Japanese just as it has always been. Most of the people saying that Nintendo has changed or that they have abandoned their fans, refuse to see the truth, which is the game industry has changed, but Nintendo remained the same. There was once a time where adventure games, RPGs, and platformers were big. That is the time when Nintendo was still considered cool. For comparison sake, Call of Duty is now a big name in the game industry and kids grow up playing Black ops  and Modern Warfare these days, as opposed to playing Mario and Zelda. How can The media write off Nintendo as ignoring it’s fanbase, yet ignore the fact that Playstation purposely ignored some of the franchises that made it famous? Am I the only one that noticed that Spyro games (skylanders included) are now getting advertised more as Nintendo console games even though they began life on Playstation? What about Crash Bandicoot? He’s seen his share of Nintendo exclusive releases, and not a word was said.

  With E3 behind us, Nintendo is now making it very clear who they are pitching their games at, which, I repeat, is everyone. They’ve shown off Bayonetta 2, and the new Monolith RPG known only as X , and Smash Bros. for the hardcore crowd, Wii Fit U and Wii Party U for the casual gamers, and Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario 3D worlds for the mixture of the two. With Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikmin 3, and wonderful 101 all coming before christmas, I find it hard to see how anyone can say Nintendo has forgotten their fans, or is only for the casuals now. It’s gotten so ridiculous that even Reggie Fils-aime himself has gone on the record saying that he doesn’t know why the media say the things they say about Nintendo. One thing is for certain, when the Wii U is set and done, the media will be singing a whole new tune about Nintendo, and if not, the fans certainly will be. There are some big shockers headed our way, wait and see.