Splatoon

 

First of all, two things must be said upfront about this new intellectual property from Nintendo. Yes, it doesn't have enough multiplayer content yet, and yes, voice chat is missing. Both of those "negative" factors in the eyes of many can be dismissed for now, because more content is coming very soon, and voice chat is not a necessity for tactical reasons as you wil eventually climb the ranked matches ladder, and the game is very much fun on itself without it.

Splatoon is a flashy cartoonish third person arena shooter with squid human hybrids being present as the player's persona's, and the main objective is to spray as much ink as possible in the area so that in the end, your team will have more than the opponents.

Splattering your enemies(or killing them in normal first or third person shooters)is a secondary objective that could delay the first one for the opponents to achieve, and the available arsenal is varied, entertaining and they fulfill different roles for the players to take.

A roller for instance is a melee based tool that can quickly cover much ground while simultaneously defeat enemies if they get too close to them. A splattershot on the other hand is a ranged based tool that has a wide range and a good fire rate.

There are many others available, of which several of them are variants, but pretty much all of them seem to have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the area's being played and the matchmaking itself.

This Wii U title also has a lengthy single player campaign that is more reminiscent of traditional Nintendo games rather than the absurdity that they have pretty much finally developed an online multiplayer shooter, although with innovative features, and the first inspiration that came to mind was Super Mario Sunshine's F.L.U.D.D. physics.

Innovative features include the ability to change into a squid, allowing you to traverse below the ink of your own kind so that you can hide and regenerate your ink fuel for examples. Upon respawning, you can also launch towards your teammates in a strategic manner, which sometimes can make or break your current match.

Splatoon is also equipped with an addictive soundtrack which embodies the teenage kid culture it represents, and I was pretty much instantly hooked with the online battles on my first playtime evening, especially after I turned off the motion controls for the camera.

Nintendo has most likely released the 3rd most popular multiplayer Wii U game at this moment, behind Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, as there are pretty much no other kart, fighting or shooting games that come close to these 3.

Because more content is coming very soon, the rating for Splatoon will for now stay on pending, however if this was the final game I would give it about an 8.3 just for replayability alone and the fact that there are plenty of different roles one can take with matches.