Splatoon 3 Review

I apologize for being so late to the party getting this out. How do I go on about this one without sounding redundant? I don’t know that it’s even possible at this point but I’m going to try. Sometimes the best moments of creativity and innovation come about when your back is against the wall. Other times, they come about from analyzing what you have and refining it. The original Splatoon came about in an environment of the former. The Wii U was not a big seller and in a bid to move the needle, it became something of a phenomenon. It took a popular genre, the third-person multiplayer shooter, and combined it with the fast pace of the classic PC arena shooters. But it also created its own unique gameplay loop with its core Turf War mode.

With that one stroke of genius, it made a competitive genre palatable to not only hardcore veterans who had played since the days of DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D but to the many who had barely touched the genre. Because the focus was now on an objective that anyone could do. You might not be confident in your ability to hold down a giant flashing letter in Battlefield, but you could look down and paint a floor. And doing it contributed something. But Splatoon didn’t end there, you had a well-rounded package. It eventually had Ranked Battles, modes that were akin to those in its contemporaries, as well as one that was a microcosm of the Turf War in Splat Zones. Now you didn’t worry about the whole map. Just designated areas in the center. But it also included a campaign with a lighthearted tone atop a surprisingly deep and dark storyline. It had characters nearly everyone who played the game fell in love with, and it began a tradition of stealthily teaching multiplayer mechanics through its Super Mario Galaxy meets Metal Gear Solid level design.

PROS: New mechanics. New weapons. New specials. Greatly expanded lobby system. Stellar campaign. Salmon Run is no longer limited to specific hours. TableTurf card battles.

CONS: Connectivity issues. Not all of the improvements are visible at face value.

DEEP CUT: The latest idol group is a trio, and bring along some real bangers in the soundtrack department. But they haven’t forgotten about Off The Hook or the Squid Sisters either.

Splatoon 2 would follow 5 years later and that game was the latter. It added a lot of new stuff to an already great formula. It too had a great storyline campaign mode. But it expanded upon it. It also stealthily taught beginners the basics and gave them a lot to do. Every multiplayer mode returned from the original and it introduced Clam Blitz, a new mode with elements of Unreal Tournament 2003’s Bombing Run, and the Salmon Run horde mode that became very popular with a segment of the fandom. Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion gave the single-player 80 challenges that played like a combination of Splatoon 2’s main campaign and puzzle stages with the tone of something like Portal. And clearing it lets fans play as the Octolings introduced in the original game’s storyline. Clearing 100% of that Expansion Pack unleashes one of the toughest secret boss fights of all time on you as well. And successfully completing that gives you a multiplayer item that tells the world you did it.

So with all of these improvements and iterations, one can only wonder what they could possibly add to make the game even better? And the answer to that is quite a bit. Not everything is going to be obvious to everyone at face value. The graphics are improved a lot over Splatoon 2, but in such a way you have to start to analyze it. Geometrically it isn’t a major leap, but the texture work is much sharper. There are improvements to some of the special effects, and it all runs at a pretty solid 60 frames per second. At least in the actual game modes. Once again you’ll spend time in a hub world upon booting up the game in any instance after the first one, and it has much more going on with background details and animation. The emphasis on the new city and the world that gets explored reflects this and so you’ll be running around half that when in Splatsville.

By now, Splatoon has settled into a formula that long-time fans will be familiar with but is easy enough for newcomers to get a handle on. When you first turn on the game, it immediately hits you with an important question. At least it does if you’ve played Splatoon 2. That question is “Would you like to import your Splatoon 2 data?” Choosing to do so nets you a few benefits. The first is that you’ll be given Sheldon Licenses. These will let you gain early access to some of the weapons you would normally have to grind for. If you mained a weapon in the previous game, it is nice because you can jump right in and use it. All of the base weapons from Splatoon 2 are here, and I know I’m very late getting this published, so at the time of this writing there are already some new ones you can try. Speaking of new ones, this game introduces a new bow class of weapons where you can shoot ink arrows in horizontal shots or vertical shots. The latter happens when you fire while jumping. The other is the new Splatana class, where you essentially have a weapon you would brandish like a sword. There’s a stamper and a windshield wiper for example.

Beyond getting your hands on weapons early, importing your data means that you can enter Ranked Battles earlier. In Splatoon 3 they’re called Anarchy Battles, and you can play them in either a single match called Open, or you can do a first to five called Series. Normally the game would have you grind up to level 10 in the general Turf War mode, then open up the Ranked Battles. The Ranking system has been slightly altered from the previous game. Whereas Splatoon 2 had a system that went from C to S with a -, standard, and + sub-rank in between before moving on to S+ and then X where you had a four-digit ranking Splatoon 3 does not. Instead, Splatoon 3 goes from C to S+. Recently, X was added to the game. X Rank works the way it does in the previous game, where you’re given a four-digit power level that goes up or down based on your wins and losses. However, it is separated entirely from the other letters.

That said, to access X Rank mode you’ll have to attain an S+ Rank. One thing that makes the goal a little easier in one respect is that you won’t rank down from losing games. Should you fight your way to an A+ Rank, for example, losing too many games will not take you back down to A or A-. Instead, the game has a point system in between the grades. You’ll need to attain enough points to enter a Rank Up series where you need to play three games and hope you earn enough points from that to get you over the top. If you manage to get to S+ you’ll unlock the coveted X Rank.

All of this means on paper, that the Ranking system is easier and will be more beloved. But it isn’t the whole story. Because the inability to lose rank also means that you can’t be sent back down to people with the same level of talent should you find yourself unable to win enough points to move further. Especially if you lose so much that you go into a large number of negative points. To alleviate that issue, the game does reset ranks every season, by knocking every player down by one grade. You can also get one mulligan to knock down if you choose to do so once per season. So it isn’t quite as simple as things would seem.

With all of that out of the way, during your first boot-up of the game, you’ll be tasked with creating your avatar. You can now choose to be an Inkling or Octoling right out of the box. You then customize the look of your character. This time around they’ve expanded the starter options. There are more hairstyles than there were in previous games. Eye color is a new customization option and you now get a pet salmonid (One of the enemies from the Salmon Run mode introduced in Splatoon 2.) that you can also customize. You then guide your character through a brief tutorial to get you used to the basic controls. At the end of which you catch a train to Splatsville, the new hub world that resides a long way from the desert you begin in.

Once you arrive in Splatsville, you’ll find the concept of the hub world has greatly been expanded upon. You’ll have the manhole cover where you can follow Captain Cuttlefish down to play through this iteration’s campaign. You’ll also see the shops where you can purchase weapons, clothing items, and new to the series, locker equipment. Splatoon 3’s city block hub also has a new card battle minigame you can play. And there’s also the returning Salmon Run mode. And of course, there is the expected tower you can enter to go play various modes online.

It’s recommended most newcomers to the series play the campaign first, though even veterans may want to as there are a few new mechanics to learn here. The story mode in all of the Splatoon games stealthily teaches you the game mechanics while giving you a substantial single-player experience to play through. In Splatoon 3, you don’t have to have played either of the other Splatoon titles to enjoy it or understand it. But for those who have played them, there are loads of nods to the older games, with a lot of little details that tie the three games together. One of the ways the games have allowed the players to affect the storyline is with their Final Splatfest events, which I’ll get to later. But the winners of that event in each of the games have driven the development team on what theme to lead the next title’s storyline with.

In Splatoon 2 that event was Chaos Vs. Order and with that battle, Team Chaos won. As such, Splatoon 3 has elements of chaos throughout its story mode campaign. The setup this time is that many of our favorite characters have left the upscale area of Inkopolis to visit the city of Splatsville. Splatsville is surrounded by desert landscapes, and the city embraces its fair share of the musical counterculture. This is reflected in the soundtrack, which continues the influences of punk rock, and hip-hop. But there has been a bit more of a new wave influence in many of the campaign stages with some synths and bass lines you could almost mistake for the likes of Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, or Simple Minds. There’s also a continuation of electro-pop and some post-punk influences as well.

There are two hub worlds to go through. These work like the previous games but they’ve been expanded. There’s a prologue set where you’ll see the familiar kettles you enter throughout a small map. Each of these leads to an individual level where you’ll have to get from the beginning to the end. Most of these work like a Super Mario Galaxy level structure, with you facing platformer challenges in a linear fashion with checkpoints you’ll continue on from if you lose a life. Each level gives you three lives. If you lose all of them, you’ll lose points (represented by power eggs) as you’ll have to spend some of them to continue.

In this iteration, you’ll find a lethal fuzzy substance all around the hub map. Much of which covers the kettle entrances to levels you’ll need to play. You may be wondering what purpose your pet salmonid serves as it follows you around the hub worlds and levels of the game. What he does is remove the aforementioned fuzz. You’ll have to spend a different amount of power eggs on each removable portion. This stuff also appears in some of the individual stages. So keep note of that.

In addition to helping you remove fuzz, the salmonid can find secrets within the levels for you to uncover. They’re often invisible and can hide anything from more eggs to sunken scrolls that tell you more of the lore to locker decorations which I’ll also get to later. Once you get to the end of the first hub world you’ll face a boss who is familiar to players of the first two games. Beat this encounter, and you’ll find yourself in a subterranean arctic world called Alterna.

You’ll move on as you did in the previous hub world. But Alterna is much, much larger. At the end of each section, there is a pipeline that takes you further into subsequent hubs. Think of them like the worlds of a Super Mario game’s structures. Sometimes you’ll be given a branching path, and each of these pipelines costs eggs to enter. So not only do you have to worry about removing all of the fuzz, but you’ll have to keep earning enough to continue onward. If you run out of cash though, fear not. You can go back and replay earlier maps, perhaps even looking for secrets you may have missed originally, to earn more.

The other thing that changes is the fact that in Alterna not every stage follows the same formula. Taking a page from the previous game’s expansion pack; Octo Expansion, some of these stages take a challenging approach instead, which gives things more of the first-person puzzle stage feel found in games like Portal. All of this gives the game a lot of variety. Beyond that, each of these stages whether they’re a platformer, puzzle, or boomer shooter-feeling horde battle, will teach you many of the game’s mechanics.

Splatoon 3 also continues the trend of larger-than-life boss fights where it’s one part arena shooter and one part pattern memorization. Some might feel familiar to those who played earlier titles, but many of them are entirely new experiences. Some actually reference some other Nintendo games, so for fans of Nintendo IPs in general, they are nice nods.

As for those mechanics I talked about, they can become pretty complex and deep. The basics are you can, of course, shoot floors, and swim underneath your own ink. But swimming also reloads your weapons, allows you to move faster, and at higher levels learn how to trick jump around areas faster. Splatoon 3 adds two new moves into the mix. A squid roll that allows you to parry shots fired at you, should you become proficient enough. Quickly jumping in the opposite direction while swimming can net you a free hit during a small window of animation. The same can be said about the squid jump, a move where you can charge while swimming to get an extra boost. Useful when climbing walls.

Going through the campaign can get you acquainted with the basics of each of these, but of course, playing online matches is where you’ll really learn the advanced mechanics and unorthodox uses of the different move sets. Not only will learning these kinds of things benefit you in online matches, but there is also a super-secret surprise waiting for you if you 100% the campaign. One that opens up after the credits roll and will require the use of every aforementioned mechanic to overcome. If you can pull that off you will get a nice little perk for multiplayer.

All of the major multiplayer modes are back as expected. Chief among them is the Turf War where both teams vie for control of the map by painting all of the floors their respective team colors. It is the flagship mode most will be familiar with. There are a wide variety of different weapons to use to do so. At the end of the three-minute battle, the team with the most paint laid down is the victor.

Beyond that are the modes we mentioned earlier; the Anarchy Battles. Anarchy Open battles are single rounds of the game’s ranked modes. As in Splatoon and Splatoon 2, the modes and maps are cycled every hour or so which means every combination is eventually played. The difference here is that the Anarchy Open battles can be played by anyone of any rank at any time. Whereas the Anarchy Series will still pair people up in solo queues with other players of the same rank, Open matches are a little loose with it. That’s because, in the Open, you can pair up with friends of all stripes.

Ranked Modes in Splatoon 2 could only be played with friends of the same skill level unless you were all B+ or above and played in a league together. Or, if you wanted to stick to private matches where none of you would gain experience to level up. In Splatoon 3 Anarchy Open changes things by letting your friends join up on you even if you’re all from different ranks. What’s nice about this is that not everyone is going to have the same interest level in the competitive end of the game. If you’re someone who wants to grind your way to S+ so you can play X rank, but you have 2 friends who don’t, you can still enjoy the modes together. Beyond that, it also gives newer players and casual players incentive to go beyond the base Turf War mode.

Anarchy Series battles are where individual players will want to play the ranked modes when they want to push to level up. In these battles, you’ll be tasked with getting five wins while paired with three other random people. You’re allowed to lose up to three games. If you win the majority of the series you’ll get a lot of points to level up. If you lose, you’ll lose a number of points. Consistently losing as I mentioned earlier, can get you into negative points, but if you get a good streak going you’ll reach the point level needed to enter a Rank Up series. If you can win that you’ll make the next letter grade.

Returning are Tower Control, Rainmaker, Splat Zones, and Clam Blitz. Tower Control works similarly to push cart modes seen in other shooters. There are paths set up along the map that the tower follows. Getting to the tower and standing on it moves it along that path. The goal is to move it to an endpoint in the enemy base for a win. There are checkpoints along the way you’ll need to capture in order to progress.

Rainmaker is similar. It’s a bit like a combination of a push cart mode and an escort mode. There’s not a set path in the map, but like the Tower Control mode, you’re tasked with moving an object from the center of the map into an endpoint in the enemy team’s base. The difference is that this time it’s a giant gun shaped like a fish that can shoot a powerful blast of ink. Each team is trying to get ahold of it. Once someone on your team gets it, it’s up to the others to escort them across enemy territory to get it onto a podium. That means constantly shooting down the opponents who will be trying to kill them to take it for themselves.

Splat Zones is a competitive microcosm of the Turf War. Unlike Turf War, you’re not tasked with painting the entire map. Rather, you need to paint one, or two very specific zones in the center of the map and control them until a timer hits zero. If the enemy team takes control of it from you, you’ll have penalty seconds added to your timer for if and when you take control back of them. If you do, they too will be penalized with extra seconds. Get to zero before time runs out and your team wins.

Finally, there’s Clam Blitz, where each team tries to invade the other team’s base and fill a basket with clams peppered throughout the map. In order to do this each team will need to destroy the opposing team’s shield with a football. How do you get a football? By collecting enough clams you’ll create one. Chaos then ensues as both teams shoot at any football they see, as you can’t carry a football under the ink with you, and it gives away your position. So it’s up to each team to divide duties between escorting football wielders into enemy territory and staying behind long enough to play goalie against enemies charging into your team’s territory.

All of these modes can involve a wealth of strategies to employ. It’s astonishing how deep all of them become at a high level where analyzing the maps, weapons, and how the gear system ties into all of it really come into play. For those new to Splatoon, the gear system is another one of the series’ hallmarks. When you go into the shops to buy the costume options you’ll find each of these has a perk. Which is referred to as gear. Some of these perks may refill your ink faster when you’re swimming. Some may fill your special meter faster. Some make you run faster. Or a number of other perks. You will also see question marks on these clothing options. These will be filled by random perks after so many experience points gained in the competitive online modes.

Advanced users have some other options when it comes to gear. One can go to a character in the plaza hub named Murch, who returns from the last game. Except now he’s older. Murch can put specific perks on your gear if you have enough ability chunks to do so. You get these by either grinding them in online matches or having him scrub your gear off of clothes you’re not using. You can also get gear randomly when you go into the tower to go into online matches. There’s a vending machine you can spend points you earn in online battles on the machine for random items and sometimes those items may be a bundle of a variety of ability chunks.

If you have at least 10 chunks, you can have Murch place them on one of your question marks. So it gives you the opportunity to build a very specific set of perks over time. If you have clothes you want extra question mark slots on for more perks you can also have Murch place those on them. But you need to give him Seasnails. You get these through the Splatfest events Nintendo runs throughout the year.

In these special events, the city hub will turn into a late-night block party and when you go online you’ll be placed on a specific team you choose at a table. This table will give you three options to choose from, and once you do, for the duration of the event you will play Turf War on behalf of that team. During the Splatfests, there are different variants of the Turf War. There are the open battles that are open to well, everyone hence the name. In open battles, you’ll be able to group up with friends. Similar to how you can with the Anarchy open battles where you play the various ranked modes.

Then there is the Turf War Pro mode. These battles work the same way as the open ones, except you can only play them in a solo queue. You’ll have to be paired with three random teammates and try your best to get the big win by being a team player. Probably more so than in the open version because there are more clout points at stake. More on that in a moment. As it does mimic the Anarchy series battles in that you have to play it with random players, you’ll find a lot of the people you’ll be playing with are more competitive. That’s because in the Anarchy series players are trying to grind their way up the ranks. That mindset will likely translate to the Splatfest open Turf War battles since the ranked modes are disabled during the event.

After the latest patch, they began opening up the option to play in Tri Color Turf War battles after the halfway point during Splatfests. In these matches, one team of four faces off against two teams of two. It’s still very much a Turf War. Where things change up a bit is that at the center of the map, a beacon will spawn. Two teams will have to attempt to get them when they appear. If either of those teams manages to get one or both of them, a giant octopus-shaped sprinkler will appear on the map, automatically giving them a big boost in acquiring turf. The defending team not only has to stop them from getting these super sprinklers, they also have to come away with more floor coverage than their opponents. The attacking teams have a disadvantage as they’re two-person teams against a four-person team. But anything can happen. The two underdog teams can temporarily align themselves to ensure the defending team doesn’t have said numbers advantage. But they can also go into business for themselves by trying to sneak away with both of the sprinklers.

All three of these Splatfest Turf War variants will give your team a number of clout points. Clout points are a big deal during the event because the winning team in each category will get a point toward victory. Each of those three modes ultimately adds up to three points. Beyond those points, there is one given for the most popular team (ie: the team most people joined). and one point for whichever team ended up with the most conch shells. Not to be confused with the sea snails mentioned earlier. These shells are picked up whenever you update your catalog level during the event. Which you may want to do even outside of the event as you’ll unlock some cool stuff for doing so anyway.

There are also the Festival shells you’ll get if you end up in a 10x battle and win. these give you a better chance of getting into 100x or 333x battles. If you get into any of these multiplier matches and win, you’ll gain a lot more clout points on your team’s behalf. So it really behooves you to take what would normally be seen as the most easy-going match type a little bit more seriously. That’s because, at the end of the event, you’ll be rewarded with a certain number of sea snails depending on how much you leveled up and where your team placed in the event. You can then take these snails to Murch who can boost your star power on clothes with them to get you more slots.

As you can see, this gives competitive people more depth to work with as they shoot toward higher levels. “What kind of gear should I pair with what weapon?” they may ask themselves. As far as the weapons go, there is a wide variety to choose from as denoted earlier. Every weapon class returns along with the new ones. So between the weapons and gear, you’ll have to decide what kind of role you’re going to attempt to fill in each match type.

When you do go online to play in a Turf War or the Ranked modes the lobby system has also been greatly expanded upon. No longer do you simply stand in an elevator, select your mode, and move on. Instead, when you enter the tower you’ll find a large room where you can practice on training targets. There’s also a training dummy you can turn on to practice combat with. The Targets work like the ones in Sheldon’s shop in the first two games. But by being in the lobby you can do some aiming drills while you wait to connect to other players in a match.

Connecting to friends is also, much, much easier now. Where the old games required you to plan to be on at the same time to coordinate a league battle so you could play the other modes, form a lobby for Turf War, or even set up a private game, Splatoon 3 gives you some quality of life updates. As I mentioned earlier you can easily choose “With Friends” options on Turf War or Anarchy Open battles. If you see any of your friends listed as online and in a game of either, you can join them on the fly. You won’t always be on the same team, but you can surprise them. The game does still let you set up lobbies. But they don’t have to be League Battles. Now you can ping your friends to join your lobby be it a public or private game. In a public game, you’ll usually wind up alongside one another too.

The online experience also lets you record your matches for a period of time so you can watch replays of them and see the perspectives of every player involved. This is a fantastic tool for people who want to go back and find their mistakes so they can rectify them in future matches. Next time, they may expect a splat bomb around a certain corner. Or realize that a wall they thought obfuscated them from a sniper’s perch actually didn’t. Plus they can give you codes you can give out to friends that they can punch in and watch the same replays. The feature also works with the Nintendo Online phone app. As in Splatoon 2, you can also use the app to find brief windows to get clothing items the in-game shops might not have at that particular moment. You can still use it for voice chat, but that seems pointless when you can just conference call friends or use an app like Discord. Still, the integration is nice in some respects.

Also returning is the LAN feature. This is actually a key one because it allows for people to not only host an offline LAN party in the vein of a late 90s fare like Rise Of The Triad, DOOM or Duke Nukem 3D but also for tournament organizers. Splatoon had a more niche scene due to the low base of the Wii U, but Splatoon 2 quickly became a noteworthy title on the Switch. One that had a notable scene grow up around it with several high-profile events from Nintendo among others. Splatoon 3 has already eclipsed those numbers and has gained traction, growing that community further. So retaining this feature is big.

Another addictive feature of the lobby is the locker area. Once you level up enough a room opens up where you can fill a locker with stickers, posters, collectibles, weapons, and other decorative models you can get at the new store they opened in the hub world. Run by a character named Harmony, the store gives you a catalog level as you splurge on more stuff. It’s mainly a silly side thing you can take part in to personalize your lobby experience a bit.

Speaking of personalization, Splatoon 3 adds some stuff other popular shooters have had for a while. Now you can get your own banners that display behind your name at the beginning and end of matches. You can also get titles in prefixes and suffixes that you can combine over time. Some have direct references to in-game lore, while others are more about other aspects of the game. And you can also decorate your background banner with badges you earn by completing challenges and objectives in any of the game’s other content. On paper, it sounds small, but in practice, it’s quite endearing.

And while you may miss Crusty Sean and his food truck of wonder. You can still get drink and food tickets. The lobby does have a snack bar where you can purchase them with the money you get from online battles. They’ll also sometimes show up in the balls you get from the vending machine of random chance using the same money. Speaking of that machine, you can also use concha shells (not to be confused with sea snails) you earn during Splatfests to get random chance capsule balls from it as well.

I can already hear some people screaming about the other stuff I haven’t mentioned yet like the return of Salmon Run. It returns from Splatoon 2 and is the series’ take on the player vs. environment horde mode popularized by games like Gears Of War. You and three other players get sent on extermination missions by Grizzco CEO Mr. Grizz to continue gunning down waves of salmonid sea creatures and their boss counterparts for power eggs. To truly succeed you’ll need to survive three waves and within each bring back a certain number of power eggs to your team’s basket. You’re all given random weapons every wave, and you have to work together to survive. Especially when bosses show up as they all take different strategies to defeat, and they tend to hold the power eggs. If you can survive all or most of the waves you’ll be rewarded with experience to level up. Salmon Run has its own separate ranking system and you can also unlock certain costume options that are only available to attain in that mode. Since you can use them in competitive modes, it gives fans of PvP a reason to jump into PvE. Periodically you may get a bonus wave where a mega-boss salmonid shows up like Godzilla and takes a ton of punishment before you can put them away.

Rounding all of that stuff out is the new TableTurf Card Battle minigame which is found in a separate part of the hub world. You’ll earn cards over time that represent different weapons and sprays as they’re placed on a board in a turn-based card game. The idea is to cover most of the board with your ink the way you would cover a map in a Turf War. Some cards do more work than others, and depending on where you place them you can take over some enemy turf. You also can’t place them anywhere. They have to line up on a grid in very specific ways. It takes some getting used to, but when you do it is a fun break from the other modes.

And they also brought back the plaza posts from the other two games. There’s a mailbox you can visit that brings up a rudimentary drawing program. I highly recommend you use it in handheld mode so you can draw freehand with a stylus rather than trying to draw with a thumbstick and buttons. Once you’ve created something you can upload it to a Facebook or Twitter account and in doing so, your art may appear in someone else’s plaza or even a match.

One other enhancement they’ve made is that the recon mode has been greatly expanded. You don’t have to be in an online queue to access it anymore, the same character in the lobby selling tickets is out in the plaza for you to visit. And they’ll allow you to choose any map in any mode to explore for up to an hour. This is really nice for anyone who wants to study the map layouts or experiment with unorthodox means to get around them. Very handy for anyone who wants to get a little bit more competitive with friends or strangers.

As you can see, Splatoon 3 is much more than a facelift to the previous game. It’s a lot more apparent to longtime fans than it might seem to newcomers. But it truly is fantastic in almost every way. I have to say almost because there are a couple of Mr. Grizz-sized elephants in the room. The first are some of the bugs that were thankfully caught early. Some of these potentially ruined certain modes, as they were forced off until the bugs were fixed. One of which made Rainmaker nearly instant winnable by achieving a single checkpoint. Another affected certain brush weapons. Nintendo is usually very good about catching this sort of thing before release, but sadly some of these slipped through during the launch weeks.

The other that has improved for me a bit, but not for everyone is connectivity drops. Sometimes you will be disconnected for seemingly no reason. The game will think you lost an internet connection when you haven’t. And while this doesn’t happen every day you play for a few hours, the frequency is random and can be really annoying when it happens. Especially if you’re about to win a ranked match, and then you lose points because the game thought you disconnected on purpose in a fit of rage quitting. While it’s great it punishes actual rage quitting, it is a pain in the neck to get a false positive.

Fortunately, post-release the more egregious problems have been patched out with the latest updates. And the connection issues have been greatly improved. But it still isn’t perfect. You’ll run into the occasional disconnection. Sometimes you may have a night where you see several disconnections close to one another. In which case exiting the game and rebooting the game may temporarily keep them at bay. And while it’s a lot better than it is in other Nintendo Switch games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate, it still isn’t perfect. Over time they’ll hopefully, get the situation to a better state. As it stands it’s almost gotten on par with Splatoon 2’s occasional drops.

Ultimately, Splatoon 3 is a major upgrade over Splatoon 2. At first glance, some may make the mistake of seeing a prettier version of the last game. But as you can see, digging beneath that superficial surface reveals that it is so much more than that. While this could have been pointed out a bit better by Nintendo’s own marketing, at the end of the day it didn’t seem to hurt much as it has already eclipsed the numbers the previous entries put up. The enhancements to Salmon Run make the mode more viable. The tweaks to the ranked modes and the process of leveling make them more viable for the general audience to dabble in whereas in previous games they may have stuck with Turf War. The new catalog system, locker system, tags, banners, and emotes give the series a lot of customization and personal attachment. The soundtrack is excellent and brings back familiar songs from its in-universe character bands, to entirely new efforts most anyone will love. One of the best is Deep Cut’s “Til Depth Do Us Part.” which plays during the Splatfest events. There are always great puns in Splatoon games.

The new mechanics add a lot of new utilities for the more competitive end of the player base to experiment with and master. Particularly the ability to parry with the squid roll. The Tableturf card game can be a fun diversion from shooting each other, and it can even be a pretty substantial mode in its own right. The expanded Recon mode and returning mailbox feature may seem like small things, but really can be greater than they appear at face value. The connection issues keep it from being perfect and it’s a shame some issues weren’t addressed until after release. But this is still one of the best games you can buy for the Nintendo Switch despite its faults. Whether you’ve poured thousands of hours into Splatoon 2 or you’re a shooter fan new to the series, Splatoon 3 is an easy recommendation.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Thoughts on the Splatoon 3 trailer

I know I’m really late to the party on this one, at least in article form. By now there are countless others within the gaming community with their own thoughts about what’s going on in the limited footage we were shown. For the five of you who just came out from under a rock, Nintendo recently released their first full-length Direct where they showed off games and products per usual. Every one of these videos always excites some, disinterests others, and for some reason, others get so upset they act completely irrationally about it.

This time out there was some disappointment that there was no mention of how the Metroid Prime 4 restart is going, and not much from lapsed series like F-Zero. And while they didn’t have anything to show on The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2, they did let us know there was an HD remaster of Skyward Sword coming, which admittedly looks pretty neato.

They showed a lot of popular games were making their way over to Switch like Fall Guys, Apex Legends, Hades which was kind of neat. A bunch of new RPGs, some Monster Hunter games we knew about were expanded on. Not a bad presentation. While I would have liked some other surprises, there was a lot for every kind of player there. But then at the very end, they said “Oh before we leave there’s one last thing for you to see” and then came a trailer for Splatoon 3.

Now the surprise had been a little bit blown for me as I had to work during the initial broadcast and my coworkers told me they dropped a trailer as their phones buzzed them. Almost immediately after that, my phone was blowing up with social media notifications, texts from people, and on.

So when I got home that night I watched the trailer for myself, and some thoughts have been percolating over the last few days about it, so I’ll go a little bit more in-depth here than I really could on Twitter.

First off, I’m not all that surprised there will be a Splatoon 3. That was pretty much inevitable. Splatoon launched on the Nintendo Wii U in 2015. A console that while really cool, failed to catch on for a whole host of reasons. I won’t go into that well travelled dead horse of a topic, but to suffice it to say it didn’t really sell very well. Splatoon was in many ways the best thing to happen to that console. Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. were two franchises that kept it at retail for awhile. Many bought a Wii U just for those two games. But Splatoon was a NEW I.P. on a failing console that still managed to sell an obscene number of copies. Moreover, it was a fantastic and yes, fresh, take on the team shooter that combined a new, and deep movement system not seen since the era of arena shooters like Unreal Tournament with the team emphasis of games like Battlefield and Team Fortress 2. It didn’t turn the Wii U around, but it did far better than what anyone would have expected.

Splatoon 2 came out two years later in 2017 sold millions upon millions more than the original and is still selling now. The recent announcement has undoubtedly resulted in some rebuys from old players who want to practice up, and new players who want to see what the fuss is about. So with two highly successful games so far, it was only a matter of time before a third one would be made. I wasn’t entirely sure it would have also been on the Switch, usually if it’s not a Mario or Zelda game odds are it will be the only entry on the platform. But on the other hand, Splatoon 2 will have been around for about 5 years which is plenty of time for a new entry to be in the pipeline.

Anyway, the trailer starts us out in a desert where we then see a hooded Inkling. The creator system from Splatoon and Splatoon 2 seems to be here, but greatly expanded as there are a host of hair and leg covering options those games didn’t have. And then we see the Inkling’s pupils being selectable as they raise their eyewear. But interestingly enough there is a Salmonid pet that can also be customized. This is interesting in of itself because in Splatoon 2’s Salmon Run (Horde mode) these were the things trying to kill you.

Beyond that, in Splatoon 2 after you beat the campaign and Callie returns to the hub world to give you game statistics Marie has recorded, there are storyline dialogue bits peppered in. One of which has Marie telling you that the way Grizzco is getting their power eggs is “Pretty sketchy”. So from that we can gather that the mysterious Mr. Grizz may have some major role in the next game’s storyline. He could potentially be the new bad guy holding these creatures against their will and we’re going to have to free them. The Nintendo Twitter message of New Year’s 2020 does spell out S. ave O.ur S. almonids after all.

The desert backgrounds also give off a kind of Mad Max vibe which would also tie in to Splatoon 2’s final canon Splatfest where Team Chaos defeated Team Order. The final canon Splatfest in Splatoon effected the storyline in Splatoon 2’s campaign as when Team Callie lost to Team Marie, Callie went on a sabbatical but then went missing. Nintendo’s own website put up storyboards leading up to the game. Low and behold the end of the campaign sees a brainwashed Callie fighting alongside DJ Octavio.

Further supporting this is that the NOA Twitter has called the new hub we see in the trailer Splatsville and on top of that it’s referred to as the “city of chaos”. So if we know where to look we can get little nuggets of information from this trailer. The hub has far more detail than the ones in previous entries so the little details could be nothing but visual flair, or they could be entirely new gear shops we are not yet privy to. But it’s going to be fun speculating about until the next bit of stuff about the game comes out in official means.

For the quick glimpse of what appears to be Turf War we do get to see some of the weapons appear to have been retooled. But we get a closer look at the bow the inkling carried at the beginning of the trailer. It appears to shoot a spread shot of three ink lines. There’s not a lot of multiplayer here, about 19 seconds if that. But in the chaos we can see there are two moves that happen. A strange air dodge that kind of resembles M.Bison’s Psycho Crusher from Street Fighter II, and a wall jump that allows for an extra height boost.

When I first saw them I wasn’t really sure what to think. The air dodge looks like it might have some defensive utility. Kind of like how substrafing in the current game makes you harder to hit, and lets you zig-zag out of the way a little bit faster. The thing is the spin drill animation of the trailer makes it look like it won’t be something only the most experimental people will discover or find in a metagame. It looks like something built in, anyone can do. It also makes me wonder if it will have some kind of parry property where maybe you can deflect a hit.

The wall jump seems to show one player getting a double jump off of a wall swim jump then one shot killing an opponent. We don’t know if it will have any major utility other than surprise attacks yet, but I immediately thought back to my Unreal Tournament 2004 days where double-jumping, dodge jumping, and wall dodging not only helped you avoid projectiles, but also helped you navigate the map faster with alternative routes. Maybe this swim jump boost will let you get to even higher ledges it would take many more seconds to reach through other means. If this is true, this opens up the game A TON. These moves have official names thanks to the NOA Twitter. They refer to the first move as a “Squid Roll” and the jump as a “Squid Surge”.

So I really want to see them elaborate on both of these. They also have a brief glimpse of a few specials. One of which looks like a combination of the Sting Ray and Tenta Missiles from Splatoon 2, which I’m not sure how I feel about. The Sting Ray is already pretty beastly even if it is a little slow. The Tenta Missiles aren’t so much beefy. But they can be annoying, and it can be a great spotting tool as they bottle rockets all home in on you. Having both of these at the same time, if that is indeed the case could be overkill. So balance is going to be a concern. The other two specials they showed off were a new robot crab, and the Inkzooka from the original Wii U game.

The crab is definitely interesting. How will it work? Will it be a turret I can place on or near the objective? That would be something terrific for defense. Will it be more of a satellite that follows us around and protects us? Will it be something we can use to target a specific enemy as they try to capture an objective? All of these could be pretty good uses. The Inkzooka seems like they’re no longer having it fire tornadoes of ink, and instead it’s firing off up to three mortars of ink. Sort of like a bonus three shot Explosher you get to break out .

Overall, a lot of stuff packed into a few seconds. It reminded me a bit of the character trailers for fighting games where you have to look at everything frame by frame to gleam something from it. So we know we’re getting two new moves that are going to enhance combat and potentially navigation. That’s exciting. The new bow looks interesting. I wonder if it will be another charger type weapon or if it will be more like the bows in Chivalry or Mordhau. And if it will be like the latter I think that will be fantastic because in those Medieval games, bows cannot be held forever. After so many seconds you have to cancel your draw, and redraw. Otherwise you will lose all accuracy and hit nothing. You also have to account for leading targets and projectile drop. So hopefully it will be similar here.

I also like the idea of the pet salmonid for the story mode. I can’t help but wonder if they will be utilized in multiplayer somehow. And it’s obvious the death crab special is going to be a highlight or it wouldn’t have gotten that forefront view. In any case, Nintendo answered some fan questions preemptively with their Twitter thread. One other thing is when the characters spawn in on their espresso machines. It looks like we’ll be jumping into the map from above now. This is going to be something I’ll be paying attention to as more info gets told to us. On the plus side, it looks like it should cut down on the odds of a team going in and trying to spawn camp the opponents. But on the negative side, does this mean you can spawn pretty much anywhere in the map? Or do you have to be within a certain vicinity of the end of the map? If it’s the former, well that could be nice as you could try to find a spot where it’s safe. But if it’s the latter, once everyone figures out what that limit is, spawn camping teams will just go there instead. So again, this is information I’ll be paying attention to. It’s interesting the old clam bake point in the trailer has tarps all over it.

In any event I am very excited to see how this one turns out next year. I presently have over 1,200 hours in Splatoon 2, and continue to enjoy the game. My hopes for the game are bigger maps, an improved individual Rank system that would factor in more than whether or not you and those you were paired with win or lose. Things like who is holding an objective, saving teammates, getting turf covered and more should be a factor in my humble opinion.

I’m also interested to see what capacity Salmon Run shows up in if it returns considering the fact that we have a pet salmonid now, and the implications it places on Mr. Grizz. Will he be the bad guy? Will he just be a patsy for DJ Octavio? Will DJ Octavio reference Vince McMahon? There are a lot of questions that open up from such a small amount of footage. I’m definitely keeping an eye on the future videos Nintendo puts out on this one.

Splatoon 2’s competitive scene map debate.

Recently, one of the top European Splatoon 2 players did a couple of video episodes on their thoughts about how they felt they could grow the community. Ways to help not only the top players keep their knowledge of the game ever-growing, but to welcome more people who are new to the multiplayer aspect of the game into playing more competitively. One of the major thoughts he had about this was to have the tournament scene agree on reducing the number of maps to use.

ThatSrb2DUDE argues that due to the fact that there are four major modes in the game (five if you find the odd tournament that includes the base Turf War mode) there are north of 100 maps in the game when you consider that there are small changes to each map for each mode. For example, if you fire up Shellendorf Institute on Splat Zones, you’ll notice some slight alterations to the basic Turf War version of the map. And that this added complexity could potentially turn off some people from getting into the competitive side of the game because of it. Instead of knowing 23 basic maps they have to know the 23 basic maps plus the four variations of each. So in a way, yes that’s 92 if you count variations. 115 if you’re also counting the basic Turf War mode as well. As he points out, most of the tournaments don’t play Turf War, but a handful of tournaments do play them so it’s worth noting.

I want to start out by saying I do see where this movement comes from. If you’ve never played the game or you’ve only played a little of it and then decide you’d like to see what competitive gaming is like,  that is a lot of nuances to get by. Many of the changes to the maps between are true, minor, but they can greatly change the methods of which you traverse your way to the goals.

Be that as it may, I think I have a unique perspective on this, as from 2002-2009 I played a lot of competitive Unreal Tournament games. Now while I was never anywhere near a top dog in terms of getting out to scores of tournaments and racking up wins, I was in a clan and we had a lot of scrimmages. UT, UT 2k3/2k4. and UT3  all featured a scene with far more maps than Splatoon 2. That’s because not only were there whichever maps came with the game but also multiple modes and the community created thousands of maps and mods. Many of these also were played in tournaments.

He brings up the point in the video that some may cite a lack of variety if some map/mode combinations were ignored but that all 23 base maps would have at least one of their variants played so there would still be variety. And that is true. But from my time in UT, the map variety could be endless depending on the given tournament you were in. But many would point out and rightfully so, that in UT most of the maps were made for specific modes. Facing Worlds was made for CTF for example.

Still, it was possible for the community to alter maps for other modes or even invent entirely new ones. I know my clan had a hell of a time playing 2k4 Freeze Tag, a fun take on Team Deathmatch where everyone was frozen in place when killed, and a teammate would have to revive you. The round would end when one side was entirely frozen. It’s the vast kind of variety that I became accustomed to. If my memory serves me right a number of contests implemented some of this community content. Modes, maps, bright skins, the list goes on. But of course, some of these events had their own specific rules. It wasn’t just one wholesale ruleset across the board. On our server, we kept a large swath of maps going in the UT2k4 rotation. Ask most veterans of the game, and they’ll tell you as great as a map as it was, playing only Rankin could get old quick. (It was the lone map on many of the demo servers that let you try the game out.) That isn’t to say there weren’t favorites. Every UT had a variant of Deck. The original version had Conveyor, the iconic Facing Worlds and the beloved low gravity map Morpheus. UT2k4 gave us the aforementioned Rankin, Citadel, Albatross, and many more. UT3 had a few memorable ones too like Shangrila, Tolan, and Rising Sun. And it wasn’t long before each game would see ports of each other’s maps showing up in addition to the slew of community content.

And I think that’s where my opinion would lie. I think every tournament should be able to decide on their own which maps and mode combinations are permissible. The exception being a Nintendo backed tournament, where Nintendo would probably decide that. But since they generally do their own World Championships I don’t think that would be an issue. This way one show might allow for say Clam Blitz on Walleye Warehouse when another show might not.

I think within those organizations though they should hear all opinions because not everything the top players want is going to be appreciated by the lower-ranked players until they get to that level. At the same time, sometimes someone who is starting out can bring a perspective the more skilled players hadn’t considered before, and the organizers can try to find a ruleset that they feel best fits the needs of the different player levels.

Having said all of that, I know the current professional players have a much different perspective than I do being on a different (ie: higher) level. They’re going to know things about the game that I don’t. They’re going to have a larger range of experience and knowledge seeing they have played thousands of hours more than someone at my level. Against the best players in the world, I should add. They are going to have information that is invaluable. So that isn’t to say I’m completely dismissing the idea of a mode reduction should all of the shows adopt it. And if I were to enter a tournament with three friends I don’t think any of us would suddenly not play because Arowana Mall‘s Tower Control variant wasn’t included.

But opinions were called for across the spectrum. And because I religiously played a game that called for an insane number of variations at the time,  I have no problem personally, with the maps in Splatoon 2. Or their variants. Although I will concede that ThatSrb2DUDE’s point about clams spawning near goals in Clam Blitz could be seen as cheap. If you have someone stocked up on Ninja perks, and speed perks, they could conceivably sneak into enemy territory, and rack up a bunch of free points before getting noticed with little effort. Maybe that’s something Nintendo could look into with a future patch.

In closing, I will say one thing I absolutely do not want to see happen is barriers being placed in between skill levels. Let me explain what I mean, using a game I loved playing as an example. Near the end of its peak, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare had a lot of beginners pick it up during deep discounted Steam Summer Sales. And they weren’t being retained due to the high skill ceiling. Now part of the turnoff obviously were some of the indifferent or even sometimes cold veterans whose attitudes were “Git Gud” rather than ask “What are you needing help with?” But worse than that, the developer didn’t address their concerns either. Instead of helping to cultivate a better environment they created “Beginner” servers where only low-skill number players could play together. In doing this it didn’t enable any of them to learn any nuance or meta-strategy. So when they got too high a level to play on the beginner servers they were just thrown to the wolves and slaughtered where many just stopped playing altogether. As wonderful as that game was, It was a huge problem that ended the life of that game far sooner than it should have. I don’t see that happening in Splatoon 2, at least on Nintendo’s end. They’ve always been good about trying to make games interesting for dabblers and enthusiasts alike.

But I don’t want to see that happen in circles of the community. You don’t want to have a system that coddles new players. They’ll never grow without challenges to overcome. But you also don’t want to inadvertently create a gatekeeping scenario where only people already way into the game will want to get invested. It is a video game after all, and most of us, even the competitive ones want to have fun. More importantly, we want people to play against, and those people are only sticking around if there’s some fun to be had in doing so. So if you do see someone new playing the game on stream or at a convention or your house, be welcoming to people. One thing I’ll never forget about Unreal Tournament III was a loading screen tip that rings true. “Practice good sportsmanship. You were an n00b once too.”

Again I’m not a top dog in Splatoon 2 by any means. I’m just a big fan of the game trying to grind his way to X rank if it’s possible. I’m not in a clan and I’m probably one of the older fans as I have the salt and pepper on my chin as I crack open my can of IPA. Still, I think for a geezer in the “A” ranks, I hold my own most of the time. And no I don’t think the game should be UT, I very much enjoy it for what it is. It’s an excellent and unique take on one of my favorite genres. But I see parallels at times. Having a wide range of modes and maps is one such example.

Anyway, if you play any Splatoon 2 or even if you don’t, what do you think? ThatSrb2DUDE posted a link to a survey, that I’ll put below! It runs to 11/8/19 so you have a few days to look it over and make your voice heard. And hey, again, I am not a top-level player by any means so don’t take my opinions as facts here. But if you do happen to be at the top of the mountain reaching for the brass ring, I hope something I’ve talked about is at least useful to some degree. Either way, it’s definitely an interesting topic to weigh in on whether you’re a top-level player, a fan like me who plays regularly, or even an occasional dabbler.

Competitive Splatoon Survey.

Earth Defense Force 4.1 Review

Sometimes you have a rather hectic day. When you get home you want to play a game. But you want to play a game that doesn’t require a lot of detective work or puzzle solving. You just want something fun. In many ways, that’s what this series really is. Starting way back on the PlayStation 2 with Monster Attack, and Global Defense Force this is a line of games that sees you shooting waves of creatures.

PROS: A lot of old-school arcade action. Camp.

CONS: It could become monotonous for some players.

EDF!: You will hear this war cry constantly.

Originally released as Earth Defense Force 2025 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360,  4.1 is an updated re-release for the PlayStation 4 that later came to Microsoft Windows via storefronts like Steam. It has everything EDF 2025 did, plus some bonus content. And on top of that, there were some DLC missions released one can buy if they wish. But there are a lot of stages in the base game to cut your teeth on.

So what is the objective in EDF 4.1? As is the case in the rest of the series, you’ll be tasked with entering large maps and killing waves of monsters. Frankly, the game controls like a champ. Everything is pretty brisk, smooth, and responsive to boot. Especially on the Windows version which allows you to play it with a keyboard and mouse.

Over the course of 89 missions or so you’ll be tasked with gunning down, incinerating, and destroying thousands of giant insects, robots, and more. Generally, that’s what each mission boils down to. Going into one of the game’s 16 maps, and killing the biggest hordes you’ve seen this side of Serious Sam. But where Serious Sam has a path in each level with a horde/power-ups/horde cycle it also lets you spend hours hunting for secrets in any given level. EDF veers even more toward classic golden age arcade games in its play. It’s fast, and constantly throwing things at you like Robotron 2084, but then has a bunch of Role-Playing elements to keep things fresh.

For instance, the game has three classes from the outset with one appearing later. You can be a Ranger, which plays a lot like the characters in most First, and Third-Person Shooters. On foot, blowing away monsters. There’s also the Wing Diver who gets a jetpack, and laser weapons. She can be very effective. However, it takes some time getting used to dashing around. She also has limited time she can fly around with the jetpack before having to land and recharge it.

From there you have the Fencer who is a heavy weapons expert. This class has a risk/reward element due to the expanded might, but complexity, and slower speed. Finally, you have the Air Raider who can call in pilotable vehicles, forcefields, and healing stations.

Each class has several weapons to choose from in the fight against the threats. But here is where the game sinks its claws into you: You have to get the new weapons by finding them as drops when killing monsters. Moreover, the best weapons are more commonplace on higher difficulty settings. So to get the best gear for later missions you’ll want to play the first few on tougher settings. This way you have a leg up on the tougher ones.

But where the game really shines is in the multiplayer options. You can play the game in split-screen, or you can play the game online. The game was clearly meant for multiplayer as the different classes can complement each other when coming up with a strategy in any given level. The Wing Diver can be useful against the areal enemies while the other classes can deal with ground threats. It’s much easier to coordinate battle plans with friends than it is trying to get the NPC Allies to do their jobs.

While EDF isn’t the best looking game out there, it does look really nice. The maps are large and relatively expansive. The textures are fairly sharp, and while the geometry may not match that of other contemporary titles it does allow for better performance. Even my aging computer ran the game maxed out, at a relatively high frame rate. The audio department is more of a mixed bag. Most of the music is standard fare, but the sound effects and voice samples are quite good. Some of it comes off a little hokey at times, but that just plays into the Kaiju theme.

Really this game can be quite a lot of fun. Especially when you have a few friends to play it with. It might not be the deepest experience as you’re going to do variations of the same thing most of the time. But it does mix it up quite a bit with the focus on multiple enemy types, and grinding away to better gear. That said, it isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea because it can get a little repetitive. Especially for those who choose to go it alone. Still, it is fun enough to recommend. If you’re easily distracted you’ll want to play it in short bursts. Nevertheless, as time goes on and you open up more content you’ll likely find yourself going back to it, shouting your war cry with your fellow brethren.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion Review

Splatoon. It’s become one of the most popular Nintendo franchises in a fairly short period of time. And, as I’ve pointed out in two reviews, it’s easy to see why. It’s an excellent take on third-person team shooting. Plus, each of the games offered a substantial campaign that was easily worth the asking price. Now, Nintendo has gone 90’s PC gaming, and released an expansion pack for Splatoon 2. It boasts a whopping 80 stages, and promises to expand the lore. But does this expansion truly deliver?

PROS: An 80 stage campaign. Killer OST. Unlockable multiplayer content.

CONS: Some of the mission goals aren’t always clear.

PEARL & MARINA: Can be used to cheese your way through.

Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion does indeed deliver on its promises. Maybe not in the exact way you might want. But it gives you what it promised mostly in spades. The campaign centers around Agent 8, a Octoling who wakes up in a subway with no memory of who they are. You’ll start out by customizing the general look of your Octoling, like you did for your Inkling in the mainline Splatoon 2 campaign. As it turns out, Captain Cuttlefish from the original game is also in the subway. Over the course of the campaign we learn that the subway is actually a test facility.  That’s right, Inkopolis has its own Aperture Science.

The way the expansion is structured is a bit strange at first, but eventually you’ll figure it out, and everything will make sense. Throughout the course of the game you’ll be riding along on a subway train. Stages are placed about along train lines. Some of these tracks intersect with other train lines, and if you want to see everything, you’ll need to complete every stage on a line. Beating any given stage, will give you something the game calls Mem Cakes, icons that resemble the characters throughout the Splatoon mythos. That is, if the characters were marshmallows in a breakfast cereal. Completing an entire line, and collecting all of the Mem Cakes will net you apparel you can use online when you complete the storyline. There’s a giant insect on the subway train. Every time you go to him with a set of Mem Cakes you’ll get the aforementioned clothing.  You can also play as a Octoling online if you complete the storyline. So this expansion gives you incentive to try to beat all eighty of its stages.

In order to play stages you’ll need some power eggs, and the game starts you out with some. Each stage has an entry fee depending on how difficult the designers feel it is. Once the fee is paid you’ll begin the stage. Stages do show off a lot of variety. Many of the levels play like the ones in the primary campaigns of Splatoon, and Splatoon 2. You’ll go from point A to point B, and take out any enemies you see along the way.  While that sounds simple, in practice it rarely ever is. Your reflexes, and mind will be pushed hard as you try to balance combat, and platforming. These are a lot like EX grade stages in other games, where the bar is raised even higher. You’ll find yourself learning advanced techniques, and new mechanics. But don’t be intimidated. These skills parlay into the primary Splatoon 2 multiplayer, and you’ll likely do better at its other modes too.

But that’s far from the only kind of stage you’ll be playing. Other stages are survival modes, where you have to go a period of time avoiding obstacles, and projectiles for a period of time. Some of them will send you into a room of death traps. Other times it will be a room of enemies. Often times you’ll be completely unarmed, and in just about every instance you cannot take a single hit of damage. The time limit can be as low as a few seconds, or as long as a few minutes. When you first start out these will indeed be pretty tough. But over time you’ll learn patterns, and eventually clear them. As frustrating as the early attempts can be, these stages are a lot of help too. Because again, you’ll learn how to better dodge, and outwit online opponents by playing them.

The 8-Ball stages are about on par with what you’d find in Valve’s Portal series, at least in terms of complexity. Initially, things start out pretty softly. You’ll get the basic mechanics of the idea, shooting an 8-Ball at just the right angle to move it along a series of courses to the end. But as you unlock newer stages based around the mechanic, they become far more elaborate. Many of them have segments where there are no guard rails. So if the ball falls into the abyss, you lose a life. Some of them involve pinball bumpers, multiple balls, switches, and time trials. They’re some of the best stages in the expansion.

There are also a number of puzzle stages that involve rotating the stage around in order to reach your objectives. Again, these are comparable to some of the Portal puzzles in terms of complexity. Then there are the handicap matches. These are the multiplayer games, only instead of playing online, it’s just you up against a team of Octolings. These matchups can be compared to the ones in the main Splatoon 2 campaign. You’ll have to defeat the Octoling soldiers which seem to have advanced A.I.

But it doesn’t end there. Some of the stages will give you an option of what weapon to use, while others will demand you use a specific one. There are also gauntlet stages, where you’ll have to defeat hordes of enemies in order to get to the next checkpoint. Some of these use the mechanics from the main game as well, such as invisible walls, and floors that need to be inked in order to see them, or switches that have to be shot in order to freeze a piece of geometry so you can jump on or over it. There’s even one that puts the attackers on a turn table, where a switch will cause enemies to spin around in front of you.

There are also a few boss stages in this campaign. Many of them bring back harder versions of previous bosses. But there are also a few new ones that go along with the storyline of the Octo Expansion. The toughest part about these, are the high entry fees. If you lose, you’ll be going back to other levels to grind away enough currency for a re-match. Be that as it may, these can feel like a massive accomplishment when you finally emerge victorious. When I say these are harder versions, I really mean these are harder versions. The strategies you used before won’t always translate to the rematch. Plus you’ll have to dish out more damage than before, and be on the lookout for new tricks from these old dogs.

The overall goal is revealed to you when you happen upon a phone in the early goings of the Octo Expansion. This mysterious phone wants you to collect four devices, that are represented on the rail line maps. In order to get to each, you’ll have to play stages that lead up to them in order. Once you’ve done so, you’re ready to escape (which isn’t as cut, and dry as it sounds) But you won’t see every rail line initially. You’ll discover them when you find a stage that intersects on them. So as I mentioned earlier the game gives you a lot to do. Especially if you want to earn those cosmetic items for multiplayer in Splatoon 2. Discovering new lines will also have the conductor giving you currency to enter new stages with so you’ll get a perk for doing so. Don’t forget clearing stages also gives you money so you’ll earn money to go on. As stated earlier, certain levels also give you a choice as to what weapon to use. So if you want to go high reward for an equally high risk, you can choose the least advised option for a bigger payout.

Of course some of the challenges on display here take only the most honed skills. For many, this will only give the drive needed to complete these. But if you find them too frustrating you can call on Pearl, and Marina to let you skip them. It’s a lot like the aid Nintendo has put in some of its Super Mario Bros. games. Allowing people of a lower skill level to see everything. However the game also makes note of the stages you’ve skipped, and gives you faded versions of the meme cakes outlined earlier. This means you also miss out on some of the lore, because much of the storyline is built into background item drops, chat logs, and other devices. It isn’t all front, and center via cut scenes.

A lot of this stuff is really well written too, and goes a lot deeper with allegorical commentary, than you might realize. But it also does it without beating you over the head. It’s subtle enough that those looking for it will find it, and those that don’t pay as much mind to it won’t miss it. And at the same time there’s nothing controversial one could glob onto. They did a great job of letting players see the events from a number of viewpoints. There is also some Sci-Fi in this that comes out of nowhere, and yet still fits the storyline like a glove.

You don’t have to clear every stage to be able to complete the campaign, but because of some of the multiplayer rewards, and some of the storyline elements you’ll have enough incentive to go back, and play the stuff you skipped, or replay the stuff you might have previously found too taxing. You’re definitely getting a lot of value in the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion.

Be that as it may, I do have a few minor gripes with it. The largest small problem is that it isn’t always clear where you’re supposed to go in some missions. In this handful of stages, you’ll figure it out simply enough with some trial, and error. But knowing off the bat helps immensely most of the time. A minor nitpick but there you are.  It’s also possible to cheese your way through by skipping stages after every two failed attempts. The flip side of this is that you’re not really getting the experience of actually playing the game. It’s certainly a viable mechanic for newcomers to be able to see more of the game, but it has the potential for abuse.

I also would have preferred more original bosses over the returning bosses from the campaign. The new versions of these old bosses again, do present new, and more difficult challenges than before. But seeing these guys again just didn’t have the same magic. Especially when so much of the rest of the expansion is so new. Still, you’ll likely enjoy the tension that these skirmishes provide. It’s just too bad they couldn’t have had some more original characters for these encounters instead. Visually speaking, there isn’t a notable jump over the base game, but it still looks great. Nice designs, some slick textures, and visual cues. Pretty much everyone will be fine with it. But for those holding out hope this would look like a pseudo-sequel were probably aiming a little too high.

And finally, I would have preferred more New Wave, Power Pop, and Pop Punk tracks than the expansion pack delivers, but the Electronica it gives the audience is very good. It’s at its best when it goes for ambience during some of the most difficult tasks at hand. There are also some great uses of sampling the original Wii U game soundtrack in it. So in terms of using the soundtrack for telling the story, one can’t complain much.  Again, all of my issues are minor, and two of them boil down toward preference more so than actual complaints. Really the main issue is that some goals aren’t laid out to you properly in a very small percentage of levels. In the grand scheme of things, that really isn’t that big a deal.

Octo Expansion is a worthwhile expansion pack. Players who wished the base game had more single-player content than the base game should absolutely download this. With 80 stages, and so much variety, chances are you’ll be playing this a fairly long amount of time. It also has plenty in it for anybody who has become a big fan of the characters, and the world they inhabit. There is a lot of backstory here for those willing to look for it, and for those looking to uncover it. Not only in the cut scenes, and chat logs. But in the actual gameplay as well. It is even a solid buy if you come to Splatoon 2 for the Turf War, Ranked Battles, and Splat Fests. Because beating a lot of these stages will actually improve your skills online. They often require learning some advanced techniques to complete which then parlay into multiplayer. Plus there are all sorts of apparel, and Octoling options you’ll have access to once you manage to complete the storyline.

Is Octo Expansion required to be able to enjoy Splatoon 2? Not at all. If you stick with the base game, you’ll still get to enjoy all of the Turf War, and Salmon Run you want. But if you like the idea of some added online perks, and hours upon hours of new content for a game you already love, Octo Expansion is a solid recommendation. There are so many things to love about this one. Whether you’re a hardcore fan who sings Calamari Inkantation every chance they get, or just somebody who happens to enjoy a good console shooter, Octo Expansion is quite the catch.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Splatoon 2 Review

Well folks, it’s a new year, and thanks to a nice Christmas bonus I now have a Nintendo Switch. So now I have another platform to play games on, and review. I apologize for the delay in getting out some articles to you. Just know, the end of the year gets very busy for me, leaving me not as much time as I’d like for reviewing games. All of that being said, my first Switch game purchase is a sequel to one of the best games I own for the Wii U. Is Splatoon 2 as good as its surprise hit predecessor?

PROS: Everything you loved about the original, and then some!

CONS: Convoluted voice chat. Consulting the map is worse. Drawing with thumb sticks.

AMIIBO: The older figures have as much merit as the new ones.

In a lot of ways Splatoon 2 is a much better game over its predecessor. It features a lot of new weapons, and new maps. It has a few new modes. It also takes the Nintendo Switch’s wireless capabilities to add a LAN like feature. Think in the vein of the original Xbox’s system link feature. There are new characters, and a lot of great customization options. Even the campaign is improved. There is a lot to like here.

For those who never played the original game, be it because they didn’t have a Wii U, or because they were more enamored with something else, Splatoon 2 is a shooter. More accurately, it’s a third-person shooter with a lot of the stuff you’d find in a first-person shooter. You’ll be killing people, and blowing things up. But what really sets the game apart from every other game of its ilk is its mainline game objective.

Splatoon 2 is a very multiplayer focused team shooter. You’ll hop into game modes with other players online or offline (I’ll get to that soon enough), and fight alongside your teammates for victory. Splatoon’s trademark mode is called “Turf War”. In it, each team has to focus their efforts on painting every floor their own color. You’ll be doing this with a variety of paint, and water themed weapons, and tools that shoot ink. As is the case with many modern shooters you’ll start out with a competent gun. But as you play the game more, over time you’ll begin to level up. Once you get to around level 4 or so, you’ll be able to go into the various shops to buy newer weapons.

Each of the weapons also comes with a perk you can use once you earn enough points by painting the floors. Some of them are things like jetpacks where you can temporarily hover above everyone dropping ink. Others are rack mounted ink missiles. Or shields. Or any other number of things. During all of the game modes, you can, and will be killing each other. But that doesn’t get your team victories. Playing the objective does. When you kill an opponent it is really just a means to buy yourself a few more moments to paint.

Seeing how the characters in the world of Inkopolis are Squid people, you can transform into a squid which results in all different kinds of strategies. As a squid you can swim under your own team’s ink. You can camp in it, waiting for enemies to walk into an ambush. You can paint walls, and swim up to higher ground. You can try to go stealth, and get around opponents so you can start painting over their ink, and change the those floors to your team’s color.

Each of the modes lasts around five minutes per round. At the end of the Turf War the game displays an overhead look at the arena, and the team who painted more of it their color wins the round. Winning a round gets you a lot of points, which helps you level up faster.

The other modes are played under Ranked Battle, which you can begin playing once you reach a certain level. There’s Tower Control, which is a take on the push cart mechanic seen in other games. You have to hold your position on it, and the longer you do, the further toward your goal it drives. Of course the opposing team will try to kill you, and take it for themselves. If they’re able to do so, it will go in the opposite direction toward their goal.

Splat Zones is a variant of the mainline Turf War. Only instead of painting the entire map, the game will outline two key areas to paint. If your team gets one, or both painted your color, you have to defend the position, and hold it as long as possible. At the end of the round the team that held them down the longest wins.

Finally, there’s the Rainmaker, which is another take on the push cart mechanic. But this time it’s centered around a special weapon; The Rainmaker. One player on one team will have to take it, and then get it to the goal on the opposing team’s side. The player can defend themselves with it, as it fires charged shots. But the player will instantly become the default target. The entire enemy team will try to kill them so one of their own can take it for themselves. This is the only mode where your attack performance is going to matter as much as an objective.

Once you, and some friends have at least a B rank, you can group up into a League Battle, where you can play as a team in the various Ranked modes. The nice thing about the Ranked modes in this is that each mode has its own individual rank for you. So for instance, if you’re doing well with the Rainmaker mode, but patently average in Tower Control, you’ll see an *A* in the former, and a *C*. It’s great because if you get competitive you can see where you may need some practice.

There is also a fourth mode called Salmon Run. This mode works as a horde mode, where you have to keep waves of killer robot fish from taking you out. You’re also given a quota of eggs you need to collect during waves. These are dropped by bosses. It throws you into the grind with three other players, and you’ll have to work together to get all of the eggs, and survive. This also mixes up your load out when you play it, so you’ll be forced to learn to use weapons you might not normally choose. The only real issue with this mode is that you can’t play it all of the time. At least online. You have to be leveled up enough to do Ranked play, and the game’s servers will turn this mode on, whenever whomever manages it decides it’s playable.

 

When you first fire up Splatoon 2, things go about the way they do in the original. It will give you a quick character customization process. After this you’ll, be thrown into a brief tutorial to get you used to the control scheme. Splatoon 2 works in TV mode by using the two Joycons in the grip included with the Switch. Or you can use a Pro Controller or equivalent. As was the case on the Wii U in Splatoon, you can play with or without gyroscopic aiming. For those who eat, sleep, and breathe a controller with their shooters, turning it off might seem like a no brainer. But honestly, I would recommend using the gyroscopic aiming. When you’re in the heat of battle, and need that smooth, yet pixel perfect aim to hit something it is a Godsend. It isn’t quite as good as using a mouse in a PC shooter, but it’s still much better than the thumb stick. Particularly when trying to hit high or low targets on an angle. And you can focus your camera at any time by pressing the Y button. Handy, if somehow you find yourself stuck looking too far off.

With the Tutorial done, you’ll be dropped into the Inkopolis hub world. Again, as in the original Splatoon, you can go to the different shops after you’ve leveled up a bit, talk to NPCs, and get video updates telling you when maps have been rotated on the servers for online multiplayer. But beyond that you can find a shady character named Murch. Murch is pretty much this game’s version of the first game’s Spyke. After you get to the proper level, you can have Murch track down outfits of the random player characters who appear in Inkopolis. For the right price. They generally won’t have the same stats, but it is a way for you to find some of the nicer clothing options early, although they’ll usually cost you more.

As for each of the shops, again as in Splatoon one shop will have the weapons for purchase as you unlock them. You can also try them out before you buy them to see if it’s right for your play style. The others will cover shirts, shoes, and headgear. Each of these does more than simply make your character look cool. They have different attributes that will help you during your multiplayer matches. Some may boost your run speed. Some recharge your weapon’s ammo faster. Some will negate some enemy perk effects on you. As well as other potential benefits. Over time you can add other abilities to the clothes. If you ever regret some of the abilities that found their way into the clothes you can also have Murch scrub them out for a fee. At which point you’ll have to start over leveling that piece of apparel.

You can also buy food from a food truck for some temporary benefits. Beyond that you can also scan in Splatoon, and Splatoon 2 amiibo figures for some costumes. The original toys get you some of the outfits from the first game, while the newer toys get you some newer options. It should be noted if you open the Callie/Marie two pack, these toys also get you songs to listen to.  The toys will also give you access to a photo feature, and let you save load outs to them! One cool thing the original game did was implement the Wii U’s Miiverse service very well. You could post on Nintendo’s boards, and even draw fan art. But the game would post these pieces of art on walls at random in online matches.

With the service defunct, this game does retain a draw feature. Going up to a kiosk in Inkopolis will allow you to draw pictures, or write messages that can appear in the game on the walls. The thing to keep in mind though is you’ll want to use this feature in handheld mode, as you can draw freehand that way. Sadly, if you’re using the console in TV mode you’ll have to draw with the controller. Something that doesn’t work well at all. The sticks just swing far too wildly for you to do the intricate kind of detail needed if you’re someone who loves to draw. I should also note that once Nintendo rolls out its online service, you’ll need to pay $20 a year to enjoy online multiplayer. As of this writing it costs nothing to play online. But if you haven’t kept up with gaming news over the course of 2017, it has been something to be aware of. On the plus side, the netcode is really good in this game. I ran into no lag, even when connected to a hotspot getting coffee.

If you’ve been reading thus far, worried that you can only play this game against online warriors fear not. As I mentioned earlier, Splatoon 2 has a mode that works a bit like an offline LAN. If you have a few people with Nintendo Switches meet up somewhere, you can use the system’s wireless setup to connect the consoles together allowing each of you to play against one another in teams locally in the same room. Now unlike an actual LAN, you won’t be sharing files, resources, and other stuff through a router. But, it does make for a great time that will take you back to four player F1 Race on the Game Boy. However, if each of you have an old Wii wired adapter, you can play an actual wired LAN tournament through a router. This is also handy for convention tournaments.

But things don’t end there. If you’re not typically drawn toward multiplayer games, but you do enjoy single player action games, there is once again a campaign. Splatoon 2’s campaign is a bit more fleshed out that the original game’s was. This time instead of following Captain Cuttlefish down a sewer drain, you’ll see a mysterious woman hanging out in the back of Inkopolis square. When you follow her, you’ll find it’s actually Marie from the first game. It would seem her best friend, and fellow pop star Callie has gone missing. As an undercover agent she hires you to join her to face the Octarians.

This time around they’ve taken Callie, in addition to the Zapfish. So you have to help Marie rescue her. In the sequel you’ll again play a multitude of stages that combine elements of Super Mario Galaxy’s platforming, Metal Gear Solid’s stealth, and Doom’s circle strafing. It’s a lot of fun, and requires more than just hand, and eye coordination. Each of the stages houses blueprints, and hidden fish. If you find them you’ll get some back story for the game to read, as well as the ability to unlock some firepower for the multiplayer modes. You can also spend the tickets found in the campaign at the food truck for some boosts. Finding all of them takes some time, and some sleuthing on your part. Especially in later stages where they get pretty creative in hiding these items.

Stages are laid out similarly to Super Mario 64. There’s an overarching hub world, with different entrances to each of the stages. Some of these are cloaked, so you’ll have to shoot them to make them appear. Things get a bit more intricate as time goes on. Every stage will put you in exponentially harder situations that will force you to learn the mechanics. Until you get to that final showdown.

Boss fights in Splatoon 2 work almost exactly as they did in Splatoon. You’ll find the weak point, attack it, and then find you’ll have to do it three times. But each time, the attack patterns become a bit more complex, and so you’ll have to employ the advanced strategies you’ve learned in order to take them down.  Aesthetically they get more, creative as they’re introduced to you too.

The campaign is also done in a way that ultimately trains you for the multiplayer. But does so in a way that feels fulfilling. It doesn’t feel like padding, or that it only there as a trainer. The story is entertaining, and has a lot of funny dialogue. It’s also got a fair amount of challenge, and isn’t too long, nor is it too short. Though the final boss may irritate you a little bit with the cheap desperation moves.

Visually, the game looks slightly better than the original. With the game going up a minor notch from a 720p resolution to a 1080p resolution. A lot of the art has call backs to the original game, and even some of the old maps were retooled, and brought back. The texture work is also a little bit cleaner than in the old game. Overall, it isn’t that different from the last game. It’s still beautiful, but those hoping this would be a massive graphics leap over the old game may be left wanting a bit.

There are a few minor complaints I have with the game though. As a veteran of the first game, the dual screen gameplay really did one thing well. That was the map screen. You could jump to a teammate’s aid at any time by touching them on your screen. In this one you can still get to them, but you have to pull up the screen mid battle, and then select them. That fraction of a second in the heat of warfare can get you killed as you’re busy pulling up the map instead of looking at the incoming threats.

Another thing I think some people won’t like, is the cumbersome way they implemented a voice chat feature. Rather than, simply including it in the game, and letting players use a common headset you have to download an app to your smart phone, and have that an arm’s length away. This doesn’t affect me as I don’t have much more than a crappy old prepaid emergency phone. (I know, I know, I’m a relic.) But for those who do, this can be inconvenient, especially when someone calls your phone, and trying to take a call while voice chatting is going to be a pain.

It’s probably better to have a cheap, old laptop nearby with Discord, or another voice group chat application on it, and just using that to strategize on the fly instead. It’s not that much different although at least you won’t have to drop out to take an important phone call while you’re in a game. You can just tell everyone in the chat you have to take the call, without inexplicably leaving.

I also found it odd that the Salmon Run can’t be played online all of the time. Shooters generally let players play their favorite modes whenever they want, and locking this one up for arbitrary reasons just seems perplexing to me. Maybe they were trying to make it feel like a Splatfest event. But then again, it is one of the offline LAN modes too.

Fortunately, one thing that is very impressive is the soundtrack. Not only do some of the great tracks from the original show up again, but the variety is larger too. You’ll get the Pop Punk, Power Pop fix. But you’ll also get a lot of New Wave, Funk, Disco, and J-Pop too. In fact, a lot of the tracks mix a lot of these sounds together to make for something new. It really is a lot of fun to listen to. Hopefully, Nintendo will find a way to release this soundtrack as they did the first. Just at a much wider availability.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the game. Aside from a couple of baffling decisions it does successfully move the great gameplay of the original onto Nintendo’s newer, highly successful system where more people can be exposed to it. It’s fun because even if you’re not very good at shooters, you can still do very well by focusing on the objectives. As long as you’re painting a floor, you’re getting some points, and leveling up. In fact, just like last time around, you’ll find a lot of good players don’t boast the highest Kill to Death ratios. That isn’t to say it isn’t important. It buys your team more capture time. But you don’t have to feel bad if you see your little squid combatant explode into Looney Tunes gibs constantly. I only wish they could work on solving the AFK issues that rise on occasion. If someone abandons a match, or stops playing, it’s curtains for their team. If you’re on that team it can be frustrating to find the reason you were beaten is because player 4 got zero points. Which is impossible unless you set the controller down, and walk away. But I digress.

Splatoon 2 is a great game. It is pretty much everything the first one was, with a lot more weapons, and clothing. The new mode, is pretty fun, even if it does only open up once in a while. And if you really don’t do multiplayer, the campaign is something that you’ll at the very least enjoy one play through on before trading it in or selling it off. I wouldn’t hop in if you aren’t willing to at least try a multiplayer game. At least with this being somewhat portable though, the LAN option is a great way to play locally with friends if your only concern with online are the trolls, and jerks who spoil things.  And even beyond that, the ability to join a lobby with three friends mitigates this a bit.

I know I keep repeating myself in this review. But for those who do love online competitive multiplayer though, this one is a no brainer. There are a ton of great strategies, action, and advanced movement techniques to master.  If you like online multiplayer, but are hesitant about needing to Get Good, fear not. It’s still something you can have a blast playing at a rudimentary level. Really, the only people who may want to pass are those who have no interest in competitive gaming. Though the campaign is still worth a rent for those who love a good platformer, or action romp. The issues I do have with it don’t ruin the experience by any means, but can be annoying. Still, as I said earlier, it’s a must play for Switch owners who are fans of multiplayer. Especially those who loved the original Splatoon on their Wii U machines.

Final Score: 9 out of 10.

Devil’s Third Review

I know. I know. I’m late on this one. But I have a really good reason. I only recently managed to secure a copy. The game initially showed up stateside, where GameStop had a mere 420 copies nationwide. To say that the speculator market went insane over this is an understatement. For at least two months the game went for as much as $300 in online auctions. Nintendo quietly released more into retailers hands. The aftermarket price did fall a lot, but you can still pay as much as $80 for one. I lucked out, finding mine at retail last week, and it was likely the only new copy in my State.

The game has been a bit of a pariah since its release. Not only was there an initial speculator craze, that made a handful of second-hand sellers a considerable chunk of change, there was negative reception. There was a lot of negative reception. From other reviewers who hated it, to average players who hated it, the word of mouth got around fast. But is it really that terrible? Is it deserving of the ire not seen since the likes of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie?

PROS: Fun mechanics. Large weapon assortments.

CONS: Technical issues. Dumb A.I.. Microtransactions negatively impact multiplayer.

DTV: The action, and cheese are right out of a B-Movie.

Before I get into just why Devil’s Third is so reviled, I have to give a little bit of background. Way back in 2008, Tomonobu Itagaki left Tecmo, along with several Team Ninja members. He had announced he was leaving because he hadn’t been paid what he felt the company had promised him. He also announced he was suing them. Shortly thereafter he, and the others would form a new studio Valhalla Game Studios.

Valhalla would immediately begin work on Devil’s Third. In 2010 it was showed off at E3 for the first time. There wasn’t much focus on it compared with all of the other stuff at the show, but that wasn’t where the bad news would begin. During development, the game switched engines a number of times. The initial engine they started on had to be scrapped when the company they licensed it from went belly up. The game was then restarted on Relic’s Darksiders II engine. After awhile the team ran into other problems, and they moved the project to the Unreal 3 Engine.

Things became worse for Valhalla in 2013 when THQ went out of business. During the sale of THQ’s assets the IP for Devil’s Third was given back to Valhalla. But they now had no cash flow to finish their game. Itagaki spent a year trying to find another publisher. Eventually Nintendo would pick it up. Nintendo would also dictate that Devil’s Third would be a Wii U exclusive.

Upon firing up the game you’ll go through the typical credit screens. One for Valhalla, one for Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine, and you’ll finally end up at a calibration screen. Before you can even get to the title screen you’ll be asked to move the screen borders to your TV’s actual borders. After that you’ll make your way to the title screen.

The title screen has three menus. A single player mode, a multiplayer mode, and an options menu. In the options menu you can choose preset button configurations for the game pad. You can also revisit your border settings, volume, and contrast settings. One nice thing is the ability to tweak the sensitivity of the thumb sticks. It isn’t going to make it anywhere near as seamless as mouse look in a PC game. But it does give you a leg up on a couple of other games.

The single player campaign is a mixed bag. The story is right out of a direct-to-video action movie you’d find in a Best Buy bargain bin. In a war torn future, the global landscape has changed. The US was broken up into different territories, most of the world is in ruins, and an old cold war era terrorist has destroyed satellites. This has resulted in much of the world’s economies wiped out, as the decimation of the satellites has caused an EMP-like situation. Many computer systems are out, modern vehicles don’t work. Everything is in ruin.

A US Official goes to Guantanamo Bay to release one old prisoner named Ivan who was involved with this old threat in a past life. So as Ivan you have to escape the prison (where your cell is a lavish apartment replete with guitars, and a drum kit for some reason), meet up with an old war hero, and fight your former allies for revenge. You go to all different kinds of locales in the campaign. Panama, Japan, a shipyard, are but a handful of them.

The game plays like a combination of Itagaki’s Ninja Gaiden games from Tecmo, Call Of Duty, and a hint of Max Payne for good measure. You can go into firefights using both melee weapons, as well as an assortment of guns, grenades, rockets, and other projectile weapons. You can actually do some pretty cool things with the system. Like Ninja Gaiden, enemies can be dismembered in various violent ways. Some of the projectile weapons cause them to explode into giblets. Swords, axes, knives, and pipes will often crush skulls, and chop off limbs. There are even a lot of cool canned animations for the melee attacks that make it feel even more like a fun Dolph Lundgren B-movie.

Using the melee attacks will eventually fill a meter. Once full, you can activate a melee buff, that makes your attacks much more potent while your tattoos flash. There are some sections where you’ll have no choice but to use this mechanic as the game throws  you up against mini bosses that can withstand a lot of gunfire. The unfortunate thing if you come into this as a fan of modern hack n’ slash titles is that there isn’t much of a combo system.

Devil’s Third has two melee attacks. You can do light, or hard swings. Light swings do less damage, but you can get a few of them in in a short amount of time. Hard swings do a ton of damage, but have cool down periods between swings. These are only around a second, but in many situations that can feel like too long. You can also block incoming melee attacks. After you get two or three swings in, the aforementioned canned animations occur, usually killing an enemy. The problem is that there aren’t any of the intricate challenging combos you’re probably used to. Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and God Of War, all let you do some pretty deep combos. Many of which could even help you those times where you found yourself completely surrounded. Not so, here. You can get a few light swings in, maybe combine them with a hard swing, and that’s about it. You do have the ability to throw your melee weapon as well, which can sometimes be beneficial.

There’s also a pretty good dodge system in place, so you can dive out of the way of firepower,  peek out behind cover, and toggle a run command. The run command can also be used to parkour on certain surfaces to get to higher ground. You can also combine the movement commands with melee to perform an instant takedown that can be really handy in certain situations. Finally, you can slide to cover while running which is cool.

The shooting mechanics fare considerably better. Most of the guns, have a nice punch to them, and work the way you’d expect. Machine guns, sub machine guns, being best at medium range, shotguns being great at point blank, and everything being decent at a range. Explosives also have splash damage, so you have to be careful about shooting them too close. Devil’s Third also tries to keep itself from becoming monotonous by adding some turret sections, and a few sections where you use your X-Ray glasses to find traps, or to lock onto targets for air strikes. Some of these succeed in what they’re trying to do, others feel like busywork. None of them go on too long though.

If there are any complaints to be had with the shooting, it’s that the right thumb stick’s responsiveness isn’t quite as smooth as in other games. It takes a little while to get used to. But while you’re acclimating yourself you can expect to miss a few shots, and get beat up by an enemy that probably seemed like easy pickings.

Speaking of enemies, there is a surprisingly large variety here. You’ll see your usual video game mercenaries. But there are Predator stand-ins, Resident Evil monster stand-ins, mech like super soldiers, enemy vehicles, and many more. Again, there is an issue that rears its head here, and that is the inconsistent A.I.. Sometimes you will find enemies have the most dead on aim in the game, or the best possible blocking times when you go to swing that emergency fire axe. But then you’ll get to the next section of the level to find the next run of henchmen are complete idiots. They will stand in the open practically asking you to shoot them in the face. Even when there may be a ton of optional scenery to duck behind.

This can even affect the bosses sometimes. You could fight a boss in ten long battles, all of which you narrowly lose, only for them to become a pushover in fight eleven. It takes you out of the moment, especially after having to pull out all of the stops so many times. It’s almost as if the game just decides to randomly put you over for no apparent reason. But the inconsistent A.I. really isn’t the biggest problem with the game.

Those would be the technical issues. The game will randomly suffer from frame drops, and micro stuttering. Make no mistake, it’s infrequent. It isn’t a constant problem while you play through the campaign. But it can happen at the worst possible time, and get you killed. Even on the easiest difficulty setting. It doesn’t matter if there are 2 enemies, 60 enemies, or even no enemies. Your frame rate will go from an acceptable 30 frames per second down to 5 frames per second for around fifteen seconds. The conditions are arbitrary. It isn’t something where it happens when too much is going on for the Wii U to handle. It will randomly drop. In my play through I had it happen around ten times during the campaign. The campaign will get you between six to eight hours of play time depending on how fast you pick up the nuances. Difficulty settings honestly don’t impact the game much. In my case going from the easiest setting to the hardest one, I only noticed that enemies did more damage. The A.I. didn’t improve much, and they seemed to take only slightly more damage when I hit them.

Some have really given the game’s graphics a hard time. To their credit, it does look like some of the earliest textures, and models were carried over from older builds to the final build on Unreal 3 Engine. You can probably notice it in the screen shots in this article. I won’t sugarcoat it. The visuals are pretty inconsistent. Ivan looks pretty amazing. There are a lot of little details on the model, and in some parts of the game you’d be forgiven for thinking you were looking at an Xbox One game. But then you have structures, and other models that have the complexity of a very early Xbox 360 game. Some of the textures aren’t as good as other textures. That is until you realize that the game has another technical issue. It seems like there is an issue loading textures. Go into one of these bland areas, and hold still for a moment. Eventually, things begin to look considerably better as details begin to show up on brick walls, marble floors, or painted surfaces.

While I don’t think it looks as bad, or plays as bad as some of the criticism would have you believe, you can’t entirely dismiss it. Devil’s Third does have some issues that really bring it down a lot. Having said that, I still had a pretty fair amount of fun playing through the campaign. It has a lot of problems yes, but they aren’t so bad that they make the game completely unplayable. It’s very simplistic fun, and that’s okay. If you can forgive the inconsistent graphics, and occasional frame drop, you can honestly find a fair amount of enjoyment in the campaign. Even if the A.I. goes from Einstein to dumbass out of nowhere.

You can also find enjoyment in the multiplayer portion of the game. It has the typical modes you’ve likely come to expect. There’s a standard death match, and team death match mode. There is also a capture the flag mode, a bomb mode similar to the one found in Counter-Strike, as well as a fruit mode. This makes teams compete to capture fruit, and put it in a device for points. Finally, there is a Siege mode. This reminds me a lot of Sanctum, where you defend or attack structures in a map depending on your team. Moreover, Siege actually encourages players to form clans, as you can place structures in maps, and compete for territory.

Siege will give you the option to join a clan, or be a mercenary. If you join a clan you get the perks of having your base placements effect matches, as well as having a neat little icon next to your name. If you would rather play with your friends, you can also form your own clan, and invite them into it. When people ask you to join their clan, you’ll get an in-game email notification that you can accept or deny. If you opt out of being in a clan, and play lone wolf, you can still play Siege. But you will mainly be there to help whichever team you’re assigned to. You will get rewards for playing the mode however.

Before you can play Siege you’ll have to get set up with gear, take a brief tutorial, and then fight through the other modes of your choosing until you reach level 5. But of course, this is where once again, there has to be a problem getting in the way of what could have been an excellent game. Microtransactions. I hesitate to say that the ones in Devil’s Third are as nefarious as the ones in a lot of free to play games. They aren’t. But by God are they still pretty dubious. The game has two forms of currency. In game cash you can use, and golden eggs. Golden eggs can be used to buy some items, while the cash is for others. You can also convert the eggs into cash. Beating the campaign gives you a lot of eggs, and winning or placing in matches gives you one to a few.  Finding all of the trophies in the campaign adds more. Thankfully, the weapons in multiplayer are all purchased with in game cash. So beating the game will essentially give you enough eggs to turn to credits to unlock every gun in the multiplayer.

However, some things like multiple load outs for you to preset weapon combinations with, and costume pieces need to be purchased with eggs. Many of them require fifty eggs to unlock. The costume pieces also have negligible buffs, and nerfs on them. One shirt might take one less damage point from bullets while reducing you one speed point. The differences are so miniscule they rarely have any impact in combat whatsoever. They seem pointless to even be there. Really, they serve a mainly cosmetic purpose. But it doesn’t feel any better. Especially since you can pay real world money for eggs if you don’t want to grind out battles for eons. Siege mode also gives you a finite number of ammunition, so you’ll use the in game currency to replenish it. Again, another example of microtransactions  running amok. Thankfully, you’re still given plenty, and the rewards you get for playing generally cover you well enough. So you really shouldn’t have to buy any eggs to convert to cash to resupply with.

Prices for eggs will make you laugh your ass off, and ask the game if it’s serious. One hundred eggs will cost you $20. Go back to what I said a moment ago about how many eggs you need for a costume part. This means if you don’t want to grind your way to costumes you can easily spend a few hundred dollars. On nonsense. This is almost as bad as the technical issues, and for some players it might actually be worse.

This is all disappointing because the underlying multiplayer game play is actually quite good. It makes effective use of the mechanics from the campaign, allowing you to use the same melee, movement, and gunplay. The maps are well designed for the different playable modes. I’ll go out on a limb, and say if not for the microtransactions this could have given some other online shooters on the Wii U some competition. It feels a lot like the multiplayer from Max Payne 3, minus the bullet time. In place of that are super weapons you can use for a short period of time after filling a meter. These do feel pretty beefy, and will have you cheering when you take people down with them. But they’re not win buttons either. You can still be taken out pretty easily when using them. Be it a shot from afar, or a sword from behind.

The technical issues from the main game do sometimes crop up here. Sometimes just before a round starts there might be a hiccup, and you’ll notice texture pop in. But outside of that, the death matches run really well. Interestingly, you can also plug in a USB keyboard to use in the chat room before matches. You cannot play the game with it though, so don’t expect to have a PC experience here. The game doesn’t support headsets or microphones though. Peculiar seeing how they went to the trouble of adding keyboard support. Anyway, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter much since the most played mode is death match. The goal of which is to be a loner who racks up the most frags.

Overall, I wouldn’t call Devil’s Third a completely terrible game. There are many issues that keep it from being an exceptional single player game. The microtransactions really hinder the online experience much more than help it. In spite of all of these problems though, I can say there is fun to be had here. The story, while full of plot holes, and clichés does live up the B-movie vibe it goes for. It’s still a riot to cut down waves of low level grunts with a shotgun, or an iron pipe. You’ll still feel an enjoyably surprising shock when a boss knocks a weapon out of your hands. The 75% of the time that the A.I. is smarter than a box of rocks it can be an exciting challenge. Especially when there are new tools given to you to try out. None of this is going to blow you away, but you’ll likely enjoy playing through it over a weekend.

Multiplayer actually is a blast though, which is why it is so disappointing to see it marred by a microtransaction system. The weapons, and mechanics are so enjoyable. Some of the extra costumes you can customize your character with do look cool. But they’re nothing anybody should spend real world money on. It’s the type of thing that should have been a  DLC pack you would find in a Call Of Duty game. If it had to be sold as an extra at all. The system here just nickel, and dimes you. It isn’t quite the level of a free to start game, since again, you can at least get all of the weapons by playing the campaign. But man, does it come ever so close to it. Beat the game, use the credits on the weapons, and enjoy the multiplayer that way.

If after all of that you want to jump in, you can try to hunt down a copy like I did. But you can also buy it on the Nintendo eshop. In the end though, you’re getting into an average game. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing you haven’t seen elsewhere. But you’ve also played far worse. Although being average isn’t bad, there are many better games to choose from. If you do decide to play it anyway, you’ll have some fun. If you temper your expectations.

Final Score: 5 out of 10

Splatoon Review

Third Person Shooters have become one of the most popular genres since joining their First Person brethren. Nintendo has seen some minor action in these realms before. With Metroid Prime being one of its flagship entries. But that trilogy was more of an adventure game, with light combat elements. Long before that, there were Rare’s Goldeneye, and Perfect Dark. What  did both of these titles have in common? Second Party status. Nintendo’s formerly partially owned studio made these. Nintendo hasn’t had a fully First Party shooter with a competitive focus. Until now.

PROS: Focus on a different target. Family friendly as well as hobbyist friendly. Miiverse. Humor.

CONS: A little light on maps. Customization needs to be unlocked. Campaign may be too hard for young kids.

STEVEN BLUM?: There’s a homeless version of Mugen named Spyke who will steal clothes for you.

A smaller, younger team of Nintendo’s developers played a lot of those Nintendo 64 shooters back in the day. They initially came up with an idea of two blocks splattering ink on a floor. Competing with one another to see who could cover more of it. From that game play idea, the team built Splatoon on top of it. It’s a surprisingly captivating direction to take the genre in. For years we’ve been used to shooting at each other for frags. Even in games with team based objectives, there is an obsession with kills versus deaths. Splatoon has fragging, but the focus on turf really makes kills secondary.

Booting up Splatoon for the first time immediately puts you in a tutorial to get you accustomed to its control scheme. The game uses the Wii U gamepad in a combination of controller, and mouse look controls. If you’ve been accustomed to game pads over the last 20 years, it may take you a few minutes to get used to. But it’s actually pretty intuitive. The left stick moves your character, while the right stick just swerves the camera left, and right. You actually use the Gamepad’s gyroscopic feature as a mouse. This makes aiming much closer to a PC game. Things are fairly smooth, and easy when tracking down an enemy. The left, and right turn speed is a little slower though, so you may go back, and forth between using the stick, and moving the pad. For those who absolutely refuse to use mouse look, you can turn it off in the settings, which makes the right stick aim instead.

Once you’ve completed the tutorial you end up in a hub world. Walking straight ahead takes you into the online battles. You can play turf war against friends, or random players in four on four matches. Every match you play, whether your team wins or loses will give you some in-game currency, and experience points. Of course winning a match will give you more points, than losing. Rounds are two minutes long. In that two minutes your team has to paint as much of the floor with your ink as possible. While your team is doing this, the other team is doing the same thing. Skirmishes then break out, as you kill opponents to buy yourselves enough time to continue painting the level in your turf color. It may not seem like much, but Splatoon’s combat actually becomes pretty deep. Pressing the left shoulder trigger will turn you from a humanoid, into a squid. You can then swim in your own ink, undetected by the enemy. Spraying walls allows you to even swim up them, and onto higher terrain. If you’re running out of ink, turning into a squid, and swimming in your team’s color will reload your weapons. Each weapon comes with two secondary attacks as well. Pressing, and holding the right shoulder button will launch the first secondary. This uses up more ink, but depending on your weapon can have a variety of uses. Ink grenades, landmines, and shower curtains are just some of what you’ll see in Splatoon. Each can be used in a variety of tactical ways. The shower curtain can be placed in narrow hallways, while you paint the other side of it. You use it like a force shield in a sense. There are desperation weapons you can use as well. Filling a meter by painting over enemy ink, will let you launch them by pressing the right stick down as a button. Then you can press the right shoulder button to use it. There are ink tornadoes, Shin Hadokens, among a plethora of other options.

The gamepad touch screen also comes into play during battles. There is a fast travel option you can use. If you look at the pad, during a match you can see where your team mates are, and super jump to their location. You can also see where enemies are, so long as they aren’t swimming in their ink. This can be good, and bad. Good in the sense that you’re able to quickly come to the aid of a comrade. Bad in the sense that the opposing team can use it as an ambush. This could be even more effective had Splatoon offered a voice chat option. Unfortunately it doesn’t. While the reasons are sound when it comes to public matches (Not having to deal with sore sports hurling slurs or curse words in a family friendly game is a good thing.) it takes away communication from friends.(You also have the ability to join your friends in these matches through a friend’s filter.) It isn’t unreasonable to think someone might have 7 friends or acquaintances who might play this together online. Still, with the short match times, it isn’t too much of a detriment. You’ll still have plenty of fun, and if you’re desperate you can always conference call three friends during your games together.

While you’re in the lobby waiting for players to join up, you can also play mini games on the gamepad. These also appear on an arcade cabinet in the plaza, where you can play them at your leisure. The best of these is probably the first one, a tower climbing game, where you jump up platforms as a squid.  After levelling up to a certain ranking, you’ll be allowed to play ranked matches in addition to the standard turf wars. Every so often you should stop playing online, and re-enter the hub stage. There are stores you can enter to buy better weapons, and clothes. Clothes in this game do more than simply make your character look cool. You have to reach a rank of 4 before you can buy anything. But once you do, you’ll find the store clothing items will enhance your online play with perks. A shirt may refill your ink faster. A certain pair of shoes may make your character run faster. At the same time none of this feels really overpowered. if you can aim, and move well enough, anyone can defeat anyone. In addition to abilities, all weapons have some sort of drawback. There is a big emphasis on balance when it comes to maps, and weapons. While there are plenty of weapons to choose from, rivaling even the Call Of Duty series, there aren’t many maps. Nintendo is promising free content updates for this game, so in a few months things may be better on this front. But for now, it is a little bit lacking. Thankfully, the underlying game play is so much fun, that it shouldn’t dissuade you.

This game does a lot of little tiny things that make it feel different enough from other games in the genre to make for a vastly different feel. The atmosphere is right out of a mid nineties Nickelodeon cartoon. The music is filled with late 80’s, and mid 90’s power pop, and pop punk trappings. It’s pleasant to look at, and listen to. While it might look like a children’s game on its surface, it really does hit a vibe that screams “Everyone is welcome.” If you love your modern military shooters, you’ll have fun. If you cut your teeth on Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament, you’ll have fun. If you’re a parent who wants to play a shooter with your 10-year-old child, the both of you will have fun.  Very few, if any, developers have been able to implement a genre usually aimed at a 17, and up demographic, into an all ages setting.

The game also does a really great job at implementing Miiverse. Probably one of the best implementations thus far. Going through the hub world, you will find other players’ characters populating Inkopolis, with their forum posts being spouted in a cartoon bubble. Other times you will see Miiverse postings appearing as graffiti on walls. You can also go to a kiosk to post to Miiverse. It’s pretty good, and I hope it’s expanded upon either in updates, or new games. Another thing that happens fairly often are the progression updates. As you get farther in the game the two valley girl news caster characters will warp you to the hub world to watch a news brief. Sometimes this will be upon unlocking a new map, or mode. Other times it pushes along the single player campaign story. That’s right. Splatoon also features a campaign.

If you go to a certain manhole cover in the hub world you will find this old man inkling named Captain Cuttlefish. He’s a conspiracy theorist who is obsessed with proving a race of Octopi are looking to take over the world. Why? Because years ago the people of Inkopolis defeated them in a turf war, and they want revenge for it. Of course the Captain can’t prove it, but he sends you on a 5 hour-long campaign to stop them anyway. While Splatoon is focused almost entirely on the multiplayer aspect of the game, this campaign is not an afterthought. It does a pretty great job of acclimatizing newcomers to the controls of the game, and teaching multiplayer techniques. All while offering a satisfying single player experience. Much like the base game, it starts you out in hub worlds. You have to find secret entrances to each level by uncovering them with ink. When you do, you’ll enter them, and be treated to a TPS meets Super Mario Galaxy level. What I mean by that is that each one of these levels has launch sequences similar to the SMG series. You’ll kill a bunch of Octopi, look for secrets, and then launch Mario style to the next area.  At the end of each of these levels, you’ll free a Zap fish. Think of these like the game’s shines, or stars. After you beat so many stages you’ll have to contend with a boss. And make no mistake, these bosses are difficult. They add in the challenge of Nintendo’s greatest platformers’ boss puzzles, and patterns with third person shooting.

All of the stuff you need to succeed in the multiplayer, also needs to be used in this campaign. So for those who have zero interest in the competitive online combat, the campaign is still going to be compelling. Plus you can use the skills you learn in either mode in the other. The campaign is also worth playing for those who have no interest in single player. Why? Because throughout the campaign are hidden blueprints you can find, that will unlock weapons for the multiplayer mode. So the game is really poised to make you want to try everything. There is also a 1 on 1 multiplayer mode where one player plays on the gamepad, while the other uses a classic controller, and the TV set. This is played offline, and each player tries to shoot target balloons. But they can still frag each other to buy time to pick up a few more targets while the other waits for their next life to spawn.

Splatoon also has support for Amiibo figurines. There are three figures available one based each inkling, and a squid figurine. In the plaza there is a giant Amiibo figurine package. Putting one of these toys on the gamepad will give you a handful of special clothing items, and a list of challenges. The special content really has no bearing on the gameplay. The clothing items don’t give you any better perks over the main game’s. The challenges are really for a personal experience, so you don’t really have to buy any of the toys to enjoy the game. Though two of the mini games can be unlocked by beating the challenges.

Splatoon is an excellent Third Person Shooter. Nintendo has laid the seeds for what could potentially be a major franchise, and has made one of a handful of shooters that can be enjoyed by any age group. Still, it isn’t absolutely perfect. There aren’t any functional problems to speak of. Everything in the game feels great. After bingeing on the game for a couple of days non stop, I can say I rarely ran into a connection problem. I never experienced any notable lag. This game is solid in every respect. But the lack of voice chat in games with friends, and the low number of maps keep it just shy of reaching its full potential. Nintendo has plans for updates, and content. Nobody knows all of the details, but as of now things are light on the map front. It’s also going to disappoint some that you have to unlock the ability to customize your character by levelling up. Fortunately the game play in multiplayer is so good, it will keep you wanting to play in spite of those issues. The game’s single player campaign is also a great ride. It might prove difficult for some of the younger children to get a handle on, and lead to some frustration. But if your kids are pretty good at platformers like Mario, or Donkey Kong, and want to move into fast paced action games Splatoon is easy to recommend. It’s also easy to recommend to any shooter fan. It plays great, and does a number of things to move the genre in a new direction. Whether you’re a hobbyist, or a dabbler Splatoon is something you should look into.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Review

Relic has for the better part of a decade, made some really interesting RTS games based off of Games Workshop’s Warhammer franchise. Each of these games has translated much of the tabletop board game to the world of video games. But in 2011, Warhammer would be thrown into the world of action games. Space Marine brought the lore of Warhammer to a slew of players who may have never touched an RTS or a tabletop game.

PROS: Beautiful graphics, and atmosphere. Solid performance. Multiplayer.

CONS: The game can be repetitive. Limited customization options Multiplayer lowly populated.

WHAT?: You have to unlock classes, and customization options.

For the uninitiated, Warhammer 40K is a decades long running tabletop board game. Featuring figurines for players to customize, Warhammer is about strategy. Battles play out with dice rolls while players keep stats of their armies’ strengths, weaknesses, and supplies. This is admittedly a gross oversimplification of a deep strategy game. But it gives you an idea of what one can expect. Warhammer has such a cult following that it actually spawned several computer RTS games. When Relic took the reigns we saw titles that captured the spirit of the board game version with all off the micromanagement computer strategy gamers love. But with Space Marine, Relic attempted to bring the property to action gamers who may have loved the character design, but for whatever reason couldn’t get into strategy games. As well as the Warhammer buff who also happens to like a variety of action games.

Space Marine follows a single player story campaign in which players take on the role of Captain Titus. Titus is on a mission to save a planet from an impending Ork invasion. Throughout the campaign you will fight quite literally hundreds of enemies in huge firefights. Often reminiscent of games like Serious Sam, Painkiller, and Bulletstorm. However, the game also features a melee combat system. As you play through the missions you will find yourself constantly switching between various guns, and hand to hand armaments. Space Marine does this seamlessly, allowing you to dispatch four or five enemies at a time. With swords, knives, axes, or hammers while shooting other enemies. Shootouts also showcase some of the grittiest visuals the Xbox 360, and PS3 can muster.Enemies will lose limbs from taking a chainsword to the shoulder. Or a torso will explode in a shower of gibs in a hail of gunfire.

The game feels like a really well put together cross between aforementioned arcade shooters, and third person action slashers like Devil May Cry. There is also a health system that is neither quite the widely accepted “Hide behind a wall to regain health” or the classic “Find, and manage stimpacks wisely” systems of yesteryear. Instead, while you can hide behind walls for cover (and stop yourself from losing more health), the way you regain it is through killing. Sometimes this means stunning an enemy to perform a gruesome killing blow. Other times it means using the game’s fury meter. Similar to Alice: Madness Returns’ mechanic, Fury is a meter that will fill your health bar, while allowing for less damage to be taken. You fill the meter as you play. Once you activate it you have a limited time of reprieve before you need to start filling it again.

As the game progresses, you will find upgrades for your weapons, and watch in-game theatrics that further the story. I can’t compliment the graphics enough. Space Marine still looks beautiful, and runs at a smooth frame rate. Nowhere is this showcased better than in the real-time cut scenes. These scenes are accompanied by some really impressive performances. The game’s story goes for the same sort of action movie clichés a lot of other action games have over the past decade. But it still manages to engross you into the world of its source material. It manages to give off some background to newcomers without a lot of speeches. It follows the rule of “Show. Not say.” pretty decently. Even if it does use the tired method of finding audio logs to fill in some of the gaps. While the story is predictable at times, it is entertaining, and the final boss battle features just the right amount of challenge. That said, once you beat the campaign there is little reason to go back. The campaign does have a few drawbacks, that a handful of people will absolutely abhor. First off, the maps are VERY LINEAR. Aside from the rare alcove with a recorded message, levels are rife with models of rubble. These are placed in a way that blocks your every incentive to want to explore. This complaint can hardly be levied only at this game. Most of the single player action games over the last decade have gone down this path. But it would have been nice if Space Marine could have been one of the games to buck the trend. Especially since everything looks so good, and does capture the aesthetic of the board games so well.

The other issue some may have is how the game is structured. Most of the levels in the game follow a formula. You’ll find an ammo dump room, which leads to a skirmish room where you will fight hundreds of enemies. Then you will wander into another ammo dump room leading into a cut scene or story exposition. Then you will fight another 400 enemies before exiting the level. Now if you love old school arcade games, horde modes that force you to micromanage your ammunition, or games like Serious Sam you might not see this as a negative thing. But if you don’t, this can become tiresome. Especially since Space Marine’s campaign is 16 stages long. Some of which can take up to an hour to complete. To be fair the game does try to mix it up with an on rails shooter section or a boss segment. But some may find it isn’t enough to keep them wanting to play through it in one sitting.

Thankfully, the one place where Space Marine truly shines is in its multiplayer mode. Which is also sad because it isn’t populated much these days. The main two modes are a Team Deathmatch mode, and a Team Objective mode. But these are done very well. As in many other games there is a class system:

Tactical Marine: This is the most well-rounded class between speed, shooting, and melee.

Assault: This class allows for jump packs (Jet packs you can fly around with) and has an increased melee range for people who love knives, and chainswords.

Devastator: This is the tank class where you have reduced speed, but can take more damage, and have access to the more powerful guns, and explosives.

One novel feature is the ability to copy load outs. This is a great way for new players to close the gap on higher rank players. Because it lets you respawn with the weapons they killed you with. Do well enough with these, and you’ll level up even faster. Speaking of levelling up, the game also doesn’t dole out XP based only on kills. If you used two weapons on someone there’s a bonus. If you assisted someone else, there’s a bonus.

There is one gripe with the multiplayer, and that’s the fact that classes, and character customization have to be unlocked. You have to grind your way to level 3 to use the classes, and to level 4 to tweak your player model. It doesn’t take eons to do, but it is a nuisance. Also, it would have been nice if Orks, Eldar, and other franchise races were playable factions for multiplayer. There is DLC you can still find for the game that adds in a 4 player cooperative mode where you get to be the Chaos Space Marines. But that’s not really the same thing. But even in its basic state, multiplayer can be a fun alternative to the real world themed shooters out there. The major drawback to all of this however is the age of the game, coupled with the ownership of the developer changing hands. Unfortunately the multiplayer isn’t populated with a lot of random players these days. Many people moved on to newer games so you would mainly have to play the multiplayer option with friends. Things fare slightly better on the PC version but not by very much. The game also isn’t getting the support it once had. That’s because after the game came out, publisher THQ folded up, and the studio making the game was acquired by SEGA.

Should you buy Space Marine? That depends on your taste in games. For anyone looking for a frantic “Kill anything that moves” action game, you’ll have a lot of fun playing through the campaign. It certainly hits all of those notes. But if that isn’t your preferred gaming experience you’ll want to play it in bursts. The formula can become repetitive for those who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe spectacle fighters. Even if it does blend that style, with shooting really well. Multiplayer is going to be a crap shoot at this point. It’s one of the better takes on the competitive team shooters to have come out over the last five years. But it’s also old hat at this point, and people have moved onto other games. If you can still find nine people who are willing to play it with you, it is a lot of fun. But that’s probably a big “if” at this point. Still, it can be found fairly inexpensively, and is a great title for those who are curious about the Warhammer universe.

Final Score: 7 out of 10

Tomb Raider (Reboot) Review

As everyone should know by now (if you don’t already) late 2012’s Tomb Raider is a reboot of the classic action platformer series. Started on the Playstation, and PC in 1996. Tomb Raider has followed the adventures of Lara Croft who much like Indiana Jones is an archaeologist. An archaeologist who often stumbles into danger throughout her adventures.

The reboot attempts to show Lara Croft’s evolution from a capable yet self doubting woman to the confident action hero fans have come to expect. The story centers around Lara’s crew searching for the mysterious island of Yamatai for historical evidence of a kingdom that is said to have existed on it. During the search the crew is stuck in a violent storm, and shipwrecked. They find that the island was not only the one they were looking for, but it has also been overrun by a dangerous cult. Lara has to solve the mystery of the endless storm that has trapped everyone on the island, save her fellow travelers, and defeat the sinister cult.

Things really become bleak when it turns out that the cult seeks out Lara’s friend  to use as a vessel for the soul of the ancient deity they follow. Moreover, her other crew members find themselves under constant assault, the threat of being abducted, and tortured. Afraid, yet determined, Lara faces up to her fears in order to save the proverbial day.

The storyline is a pretty interesting one, even if it isn’t completely original. Throughout the game Lara discovers clues, artifacts, and historical evidence that tie everything together pretty nicely. There are some moments that come off as cliché’ or contrived. There are moments that are even quite predictable. But on the whole you will come away entertained. The theatrical feel is expanded when you are playing the game. The graphics are enough to give anyone pause. Player models have some of the best texture work seen over the last few years. Little details on clothing, accessories, items, and effects really display how painstakingly hard the developer’s art department worked on this title.

The sound effects are on par with the graphics, featuring some wonderful voice acting not only for the main characters during the cut scenes, but for every character. Guard banter is right out of a serial movie. The score accents the action, and adventure very nicely giving the game the Hollywood blockbuster movie vibe that it is obviously going for. Gunshots, wild animals, weather, are all other elements of sound that are exemplary in performance here.

The way the game plays is where some of the confusion will kick in. Tomb Raider’s world works much like a Metroid game. Every stage has multiple paths in, and out. These paths interconnect to each other so going off the beaten path, and discovering new things is indeed possible. There are also hidden alcoves in nearly every section that hide some lost tomb in a giant room. Each of these rooms is essentially a puzzle section. Solving these puzzles, and collecting the rewards gives players some back story, as well as a reason to go back, and replay sections that they might have missed. Much like the Metroid series, there are certain areas that require certain items to get into. Adding another reason for you to want to explore the island.

There are campfires in every level too. These work a lot like the save rooms in Metroid Prime or Super Metroid, where you can essentially have a checkpoint save. It is here you can also level up Lara, and her arsenal. As you go through the campaign you will find new weapons, search for salvage (either by solving an easy puzzle, or smashing a crate open) or taking out enemies, and searching their bodies. When in a campfire area Lara can upgrade her weapons, abilities, and items using the salvaged gears collected. There are also skill points she can use to buff certain attributes up. Much in the way modern military shooters allow in multiplayer. Campfires also allow for fast travel between areas.

Where the identity crisis kicks in however is oddly enough, in its story. The story unfortunately pushes the play experience into a linear one. Pressing a button will pull up a gray look to everything, and highlight where you need to go next, along with clues on how to get there. Instinctively, most of the people who play this will end up taking these paths. Solving a puzzle, going into a shootout section, then getting some more of the story. In a lot of ways it’s a missed opportunity. Instead of feeling like an open world you can explore at your own pace, you will end up feeling like you’ve been playing another linear third person shooter.

Thankfully, the shooting is never dull or repetitive. This is in part because of not only the well done mechanics, but because of the variety. Players can take a stealth approach, sometimes completely avoiding a firefight. Or they can go in all guns blazing. Weapons, and take downs feel satisfying. Stealthily taking down enemies from behind will bring up a Quick Time Event, that will keep enemy suspicion down if you are successful. Sadly, the game does have a bit too many QTE sections in certain theatrical areas of the story. They’re not implemented poorly, but there are a number of times you may wish you could skip them. The timing on some of them leave no room for error either. So you may find yourself replaying some of them several times before you’re allowed to progress.

The game also has a few multiplayer modes thrown in. One of them is the typical Team Deathmatch mode you’ve seen hundreds of times before. Another tasks one team with delivering supplies, with the opposite team trying to stop that team by killing them before they can complete their objective. The third is a variant of the second with one side exploring for parts to make an S.O.S. Beacon while the other tries to stop them. None of these will really hold your attention very long, as they aren’t going to have the focus of a competitive multiplayer shooter. As a result the multiplayer modes feel a little bit like a wasted effort.

Tomb Raider is worth checking out. It has an entertaining if derivative story. It has really fun shootouts, and stealth mechanics. It has some exploration for those who want it. Unfortunately, it isn’t as fleshed out, or as refined as it could have been. Hopefully, the upcoming sequel will allow exploration to deliver more of the narrative rather than linear storytelling.  Tomb Raider is still a really fun ride however. If you never got around to playing it before, you may want to  get around to it before the sequel hits.

Final Score 8 out of 10