Quick Look: Splatoon

So excited to see some footage of this game! Hopefully there's enough content to make it viable. From what I've seen, $60 is a bit much until they add in all the other modes and stuff!

YOU'RE A SQUID. YOU'RE A KID.

'...You have to tell me if you're a cop.'

I really like the look of this, it's like Nintendo had a Jet Set Radio baby.

why are the squid teens elves

All the other kids with the shrimped-up kicks better run, better run, faster than my squiffer...

Watched this live and it looks fab. Definitely will pick up a copy.

I'll wait until a "game of the year" edition with all the content they're going to put in it, if there is still a fan base playing at that time.

@alex You can quick jump to other players when you respawn, by tapping on them on the GamePad.

And everybody hides in the ink, when it's your own team.

Oooh, also, another advantage to killing the other team is that they blow up in a big spray of your own color of ink!

Also, team play is coming!

@datacats: You're a kid, but you're also in fact a squid.

My daughter had her first online kill during the global test fire event. I was very proud.

All the announced DLC is free anyway.

This game is so much fun. Not crazy about only rotating in 2 maps at a time every few hours but I've only seen one that I outright hate.

@ateatree: I would favorite this if we had that functionality.

I don't think Nintendo has ever done a GOTY edition. And even so, all the DLC is free.

Wow, that motion control... I imagine this isn't an issue when you're playing, but watching someone else play with that stuff on is just dizzying. I've been playing with the sticks, just can't get used to having different inputs for the X and Y axes.

There's already some pretty great videos lampooning the Splatoon commercials

@chicken008: @shaanyboi: I forgot about that. I just think of DLC and don't associate free with it anymore. Thanks for the reminder.

Okay, so there's one aspect of the concept that still confuses me.

You're a kid... right? I'm right about this? Okay. So, when you're NOT a kid, could you then be... just spitballing here... a squid, perhaps? And if that's the case, would I be mistaken in saying that if you're a squid, you could then alternate into being a kid? Because logic would proceed to dictate that if you're a kid, you might very well be a squid. At least in the universe created for the video game "Splatoon", anyway.

@shagge said:

Your logic is flawed, as you're actually a squid who turns INTO a kid. Your whole belief system has just crumbled before your very eyes.

So does Alex not know you don't actually start at the beginning of the map each time? You can tap the screen on an ally's location and immediately jump to their location.

@shagge: The fact of the matter is that you are a squid who can also be a kid who can also be a squid who can also be a kid who can also be a squid who can also be a kid...

@shaanyboi: Oh HELL no. My brain rejects that premise.

Kidsquid? Yeah, I can accept that. Kid turns into a squid. Hey, why not? It's 2015. Who am I to judge?

Squidkid? Uh-uh. No. That's a slippery-ass slope right there. Squids start thinkin' they can be kids, and next thing you know, we're in some Octodad territory. We have a world full of Octodads, and guess what? They'll be making messes all over the place! You come home one day, and all of your pots and pans are scattered all over the kitchen! That's no way to live! What if you need to heat some spaghetti sauce? Good luck finding the right pot to do it in, bucko! An Octodad just tore through the area! Third one today!

Squids turning into kids... ain't that some shit. Go to eat some calamari and suddenly you're gnawing on little Billy's elbow...

Ikamusume character pack plz.

28:05, idler busted!

I'd like to hear some podcast discussion on the sneering and derision this game got all the way up until launch from the media. Even now, there is still this gross mid-ninties "I can't like anything 'kiddie'" attitude in gaming and I think it needs to be confronted more. As someone who finds the whole "games as art" debate pretentious, I would like to see more of a pushback "games as fun" discussion happening.

Alright this game looks rad.

@shagge: How are they hurting anybody? HUH? They're free to be what they wanna be. There's no good reason to bring this form of bigotry when all they wanna do is be bipedal from time to time. Ain't nothin wrong with that. I get to be bipedal ALL the time. If someone wants to experiment with that?Power to em. Their identity is something that should be celebrated, not belittled. That's who they are, and neither you or I are in a position to judge that.

How is squid-based bigotry not bannable? I mean jesus, dude.

I know what you mean about the Nickelodeon stuff, but I feel like this is the perfect time for that aesthetic, as you can mine the nostalgia of people who grew up with those shows.

That and Super Soakers. There's clearly some super soaker nostalgia happening.

@shaanyboi: Typical inko squid sympathizer. I bet you support banning paint rollers and squiffers, too! Squiffers don't splat people, people splat people!

Man... I'm as open minded as the next guy, but this is still America, land of the free (to not be a squid in disguise).

The ears are the fins hangin' off the side of the squid

I wish Alex would say "I didn't realize Motion Controls could be good, I was mistaken" as opposed to crap along the lines of "it shouldn't be good, but somehow it is and I hate myself for using it but I am".

That betrays this weird anti-motion control stance that game journalists have not because the controls are poor but just because it's different and they hate that. They complain that they want new things while simultaneously championing conforming, uniformity and lack of creativity. They're mouth pieces for the 3rd party AAA way of doing things. Make one 1/2 crappy game, port it to everything it will run on, repeat year after year for infinity.

The play a game while loading thing was patented by Namco, but the patent has since run out I think.

I played it for 20 mins and now I'm bored, I also don't get why Nintendo bother with the gamepad at all, I hate it and it adds nothing, everything it does is done by every other system by displaying that info on the main screen.

The only thing the gamepad would be good for is letting you play 3DS games on your Wii U, sadly Nintendo aren't doing that. I hate the 3DS, I think it is cheap tat, poorly made and it wasn't even cutting edge when it came out with it's low resolution screens and resistive touch :\ Make a little 3DS card dongle like they did with the Gameboy on the Gamecube.

It's weird, turns out your hands are capable of much finer and faster movements than your thumb on a stick.

So why do people keep refering to this as a 60 dollar game? On the Danish eShop it's only around 300kr or 45 dollars, so it doesn't appear to be a full price release. For the price at least the amount of content in the game seems completely fine.

@civid: Because it's a $60 game.

Yeah it seems like it's only that expensive in the USA. (Not counting Brazil, Australia and affiliated places that get screwed over by default.) I got it for 36 euro's through the official e-shop.

This looks pretty good, I really need to buy a Wii U. Between this, Mario Kart and Bayonetta I think it's actually a good buy now.

This game looks pretty alright, I might grab it for my WiiU.

i thought this was realllyyyyy boring when i played it during the beta, plus not being able to use a pro controller really sucks

@itwongo said:

@coaxmetal said:

why are the squid teens elves

The ears are the fins hangin' off the side of the squid

oh that makes sense. cool. squids are cool.

A multiplayer game without a strong competitive or co-operative element? Well....ok I guess, w/e works for them.

octopuses > squid

well at least the social ones that threaten to take over as dominant lifeform once we're gone <3

Yes! I love the vaguely retro faux-Tokyo urban fashion direction they went with. Very original, considering they could have just made some minimalistic squid toons and called it a day.

"Anime hole"

I heard they brought in Moose from You Can't Do That on Television as a consultant on this game, but when they asked for her input she expressed a dearth of knowledge on the matter.

Splatoon looks very fun. I want it to be successful so that I can play a version of it on the next Nintendo console when Nintendo finally has online accounts and supports modern console features. Right now it's still not enough to make me jump on a Wii U.

You're clearly not familiar with Alex's vernacular.

Alex's very essence is framing self hate!

This game has me looking at buying a WiiU and thats a sentence I never thought I'd type.

I wish Nintendo did multi-platform stuff...