Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: global testfire, nintendo, nintendo switch, Slatoon 2, Splatoon

The 'Splatoon 2' Global Testfire: The Best & The Worst

Published Sun, 26 Mar 2017 14:45:36 -0500

The Splatoon 2 Global Testfire came and went this weekend, and aside from the frustration of having matches be shut down right as the clock ticked over at the one-hour marker, and the timings being super insane for some people, I thought the weekend was kinda fun. So here are some random thoughts from the weekend.

First and foremost, this was a test server, so keep in mind that you don't have a lot of options when it comes to the gameplay. The first being that you had no options over how your character looked, everything was randomly generated with different accessories, gender, skin tone, etc. I actually found that kind of cool because you never knew how you were playing as, and unless you memorized people's names on the other team, there was no sense of targeting specific players.

The weapon selection was your standard fare. You had the Splattershot, The Splat Roller, The Splat Charger and the new Splat Dualies. The Slattershot, while the standard, feels like it's been nerfed a little bit. I don't feel like I have the range I once did with the Wii U version, but the balloons seem to have a wider range, so I guess there's a give and take. The Roller pretty much functions the same way it used to, but it feels like it takes a dead-on shot to kill off your opponent in a fight. The Charger is basically a sniper's dream, but there were no real changes to its function. The one that everyone was looking to and playing a lot of was the Dualies. You get double the coverage, but your ink dries up faster than before, which is an even tradeoff. You also get a sliding curling rock that explodes when it stops sliding, which can be a really slow sneak attack.

The overall gameplay was pretty interesting. You only had one of three levels you could play on, some were pretty much an enclosed area with certain levels that only could be reached by bombing them for each team, while others had hazards like fencing as the floor which you could easily slide through to your doom. You get a solid three minutes of gameplay to mark up the relatively small maps as much as you could while also snagging points for killing off enemies. The overall goal was based more on territory than points earned, which is a nice way to divide up the win/loss ratio for a test-drive.

Some of the most frustrating parts came in the last couple of runs as people started to figure out the system. First, the wait times started getting bogged down and a lot of time was wasted waiting on people to fill the server. Above is a picture of a round I was waiting to start in for over five minutes. Seven people waiting on one individual to finally show up provided the game didn't throw people immediately into a round right after. Another issue I ran into was the territory system being games. By the third day, everyone pretty much figured out what the choke points on the map were. Below you'll see a match in which my team won by having people at three key points while the fourth used a roller to do cleanup in the back. As you can tell, it didn't take a lot for us to win, and I was also on the receiving end of this system, too.

At a certain point in the test, it became pointless to play if your team didn't secure those points because a loss was basically guaranteed. Not like we were playing for anything, mind you. Which is another gripe, but it's a very small gripe that is more for the gamer in me than anything. Usually when games to testing, participants get something out of it. A little badge or an extra item for when the game launches. Nothing that effects the game, just a small token of appreciation. Not here. You were basically playing to see what the server could do and that's it. Kinda depressing for a Nintendo title not to do something cool for the fans helping them out, but I guess they didn't think about it.

Overall, I thought the test went really well. The game has some nice little features like the ability to turn on and off the motion controls of your head with the Switch out of the dock, and a nice minigame in the waiting screen of being able to play with the music like you're a DJ. But the game itself reminded me both why I love and enjoy playing it as an alternative first-person shooter. It'll be interesting to see what additionas or differences come between now and the official game launch. Hopefully they'll do a second round of these just to work out the bugs.

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