Tag: Splatoon

Splatfest: Naughty vs. Nice

The North American Splatfest is underway today (from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time). The teams are holiday themed, where you can choose to be naughty or nice. I’ve chosen the “nice” team, and I’ll be providing updates on my progress throughout the day on my quest to reach the rank of “Nice King.” As corny as that sounds.

The maps for this Splatfest are Urchin Underpass, Flounder Heights, and Mahi-Mahi Resort. Flounder Heights is one of my top-5 favorite maps, while Urchin Underpass is alright, and I still haven’t played enough of Mahi-Mahi Resort to form a strong opinion either way.

splatfest-nvnTeam Nice Update #1: I’m using my Aerospray RG, at least for now. I started out with 10 matches, with my “Nice” team winning five and losing five. Even though I haven’t had any disconnections in-match, I have been repeatedly disconnected between matches. It’s hard to go on a nice run when you keep getting separated from your better teammates.

I’ve made it up to the rank of Nice Defender. But I’m not optimistic about Team Nice’s chances for one reason: I was the leading player on my team for all ten of the matches I’ve played so far. If I’m the best player every time, we’re in serious trouble! 😀 Still, ten matches is a very small sample size. I’ll update this again soon though, so keep checking back!

Team Nice Update #2: My second attempt at Splatfest didn’t start out very well. My team lost the first three matches I played, and five of the first six. But then, my luck seemed to change a bit. I ended up getting more help from my teammates–I even had a level-50 player on my team for a couple of rounds. Prior to that, I had been getting lots of teammates with ratings in the teens/20s.

My teams ended up winning five matches in a row. Although, there was a disconnection in the middle of that run, so it wasn’t the same team throughout. After the streak ended with a loss, I called it a night. I finished this session with six wins and six losses. In total, my record to this point is 11-11. Still too close to call. If you’re keeping track of your wins and losses, please leave a comment!

My ranking is still a Nice Defender, but I have 42 of the 50 points I need to become a Nice Champion. I’ll be back with another update in the late afternoon or early evening. Whether you’re naughty or nice, I hope your Splatfest is going well!

Team Nice Update #3: I gave Splatfest another go this afternoon, and it didn’t go well. I was often put with lower-ranked players (with levels in single digits or teens) and I was often put against significantly higher-ranked opponents. The matchmaking in this game really sucks sometimes, especially during Splatfest.

I started a total of 17 matches: I had 4 wins, 9 losses, and 4 disconnections. The disconnections were especially frustrating, because my team had large, late leads in two of them (the other two were early/close).

I noticed a few of my matches were against other “Nice” teams. So I expect the nice team to win the popularity vote, but I predict the naughty team will win overall.

I raised my rank up to “Nice Champion,” and I have 30 of the 99 upgrade points needed to reach Nice King. I’ll probably give it one more try later this evening.

Team Nice Update #4: After losing my first match of this session, I decided to switch from the Aerospray RG to the N-Zap 89. Even though that may hurt my ink totals, I figured it would allow me to be a bit more lethal at splatting people (not that I’m good at that anyway). I still lost the next two matches though, and I was considering giving up my plan of becoming Nice King.

And then it happened. I ended up with two level-30+ players on my team for a change, and we won. Two of the players left, but two level-40+ players joined in. For once, we had a superteam! Soybean, Pon, Alex, and I stuck together and won several matches in a row. Some of the players started to come and go…I even got disconnected once…but I was on a roll. My teams won a whopping fourteen matches in a row!

The 13th win earned me the title of Nice King, but I played one more match (so that people could see my king title before I retired to my throne, haha). So this session netted me 14 wins and 3 losses. My overall grand total (not counting disconnections) was 29-23. Still relatively close…but I still have a hunch that Team Naughty is going to win overall. I’ll be back a bit later with the final results.

FINAL RESULTS: Nice Squids Finish Last

Team Nice won the popularity, 59% to 41%. But Team Naughty won 59% of the battles. And winning counts for six times as much as popularity, so Team Naughty is a big winner. I guess Santa won’t have many presents to deliver this year, with so many naughty squids out there. 😉

nvnresultsI ended up scoring 18 super sea snails for earning the rank of Nice King. I hope you all enjoyed the Splatfest!

Video: Splatoon – Funny Moments #2

I have a new video of Splatoon for you all. It’s a compilation of clips that are funny or otherwise interesting. It includes some unfortunate falls, close calls, strange sights, and laggy moments.

If you’re not sure why a certain clip was included, this list will describe what’s going on in each clip so you know what to look for: Continue reading “Video: Splatoon – Funny Moments #2”

Splatoon First Impressions

Splatoon for Nintendo Wii U came out today, and I picked it up and gave it a try. If you don’t know, it’s a third-person shooter where you play as characters known as inklings; they have a human-like form and a squid form. Two teams of four players each shoot ink around a level, trying to cover as much ground as possible with their color of ink. The players can also kill (or “splat”) players of the opposing team. There’s also a mission-based one-player mode.

Splatoon - One player gameplay.The game starts out with a tutorial, where you have to shoot balloons as you learn the basic controls. The first thing I noticed is that the game uses motion controls by default. You move the gamepad up and down to aim your weapon. I’m not a fan of motion controls, so I wanted to disable that ASAP. I also wanted to change the horizontal direction of the camera stick, but I couldn’t access the settings until after I completed the tutorial. You can then adjust your settings in the plaza, but you’re not holding your weapon there, so that’s not extremely useful. The only place you can adjust the settings while you’re holding a weapon is in the weapons shop. The entire settings menu disappears when in gameplay areas such as Octo Valley; I really wish the settings were more accessible.

Once I made my initial changes to the settings, I tried out the one-player mode. Here, the focus is on defeating enemies and overcoming obstacles. There are also some platforming elements, even though your character isn’t much of a jumper. In some areas, you’ll need to find a key to unlock a launchpad that takes you to a new area. There are also bosses to fight. Your weapons use ink as ammo, and it gradually runs out as you shoot. To reload, you need to press ZL to change into squid form while standing in ink of your own color. You can also swim while in squid form, allowing you to move around quickly–but again, only through ink of your own color. I played about four or five levels of this mode, and I had a good time.

Splatoon - One-player gameplay.I then decided to try out the online battles. Each time you start, you have to wait for a total of eight players to be added to the game. You are assigned to teams of four, and you have to spread your ink across as much of the level as you can. It was honestly quite frustrating at first, because you only have the basic gun and you’re playing against players who use giant rollers, big bombs, and other advanced weapons. They can kill you in one hit, and it’s hard to make much progress until you’ve leveled up at least a few times and purchased new weapons and other upgrades. Heck, even after I upgraded my weapon, I was still getting killed far more often than I was killing other people.

Even though victory or defeat is decided by the amount of ink on the ground, some players will focus on taking you out–so you have to keep on your toes. Even after a dozen online battles or so, I’m still pretty bad at it. I need to learn how to use the special weapons more effectively, and I need to start paying attention to the gamepad. It shows a map of the level, complete with the current ink coverage. It’s hard to take your eyes off of the action, but it seems to be a necessity to get good at the game.

Splatoon - Online gameplay.One other thing I want to mention is the shop. It allows you to buy new weapons and clothing items to customize your character. For example, you can buy new shirts and shoes that give you new abilities. An item may increase your defense, give your bombs a larger range, or allow you to swim through ink faster. But you can only access the shop once you’ve reached level 4…and it seems that the only way to increase your level is to play online battles. So you may want to keep that in mind before buying the game if you don’t plan on playing online (or if you don’t have a decent internet connection). Nintendo is preventing offline players from fully customizing their characters, which seems a bit harsh if you ask me.

Overall, I had a very good time on my first evening with Splatoon. The one-player missions are pretty fun, and the online battles are particularly enjoyable. Even when I lose over and over, I keep wanting to come back for more. I’m actually enjoying the game more than I thought I would. So it definitely gets a thumbs-up so far.

In case you’re interested, here is a picture of the game disc.

Splatoon discAnd here is gameplay video of an online turf war battle: (view on Youtube)

Buy Splatoon at Amazon.com