RedShell

Both of those new 3DS systems are lovely, the simpler XL style and the retro cartoon vibe of the N3DS cover plates. This screenshot pleases me, I just hope they also use those "NEW" icons for the next mainline AC.Having to rely on memory, the shop catalog or a spreadsheet to know which items you already own in the previous games has always annoyed the hell out of me.

Yeah, this game provides so many comedy moments. Speaking of comedy, I still haven't got bored of following unaware roller users (undoing all their hard work in the process) and then eventually splatting them.

Beat Splatoon's single player last night. Very short but incredibly sweet game. And the final boss battle is just something else! Completely off the charts bonkers. Witness the awesomeness of the final moments:

So I was looking back through the pages you collect during single player...

Finished the Single Player last night. @Mr\-Paul and @Hero\-of\-Time, you guys were right about the final boss and staff credits, I absolutely adored both of those. I was pretty surprised by...

Don't mind me, my head is full of ink at the moment.

You can use the gyro to aim (the default setting but it can be switched off) there's a live map that shows the ink coverage of each team, you can tap on a teammate to instantly Super Jump to their location (some of the special attacks also use the touch screen). It's all cool stuff, but like I said before, I find the pace of the game makes most of it unusable anyway. Even so, I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping on Splatoon just because of needing to use the GamePad, it's far too awesome a game for that.

Use the orange Miiverse postbox in the Plaza for the post to be linked to your inkling. Think it's random, I saw mine: You must have JavaScript enabled on your device to view Miiverse posts that have been embedded in a website. View post in Miiverse I know it is for a good reason, but personally I'm still a bit annoyed there's not even the option to just use the Pro. I simply can't use the GamePad screen during a match (the game moves too quickly for an old inkling like me ) and I very rarely use the super jump. I'd gladly give up both of those aspects to use the much more comfortable Pro Controller instead.

Yeah, Miiverse graffiti is awesome. :awesome: Love it. Not many games get me to stay up this late these days but Splatoon is something very special indeed.

Great games just now guys. : peace: Noticed something weird on the last one though... I was shooting blanks for a while! Yeah, none of my ink was painting anything, then after a few seconds it all suddenly appeared. Lag I guess, hopefully it'll be a rare occurrence. Anyway, looooving this game. It's jaw droppingly gorgeous and just so much fun to play!

Nicely done, @Hero\-of\-Time. I'm looking forward to seeing these credits now. Yeah, in one of our games together I super jumped to you when you'd just respawned at the base. It looked like I was going to shoot forwards into the map, but then I suddenly went backwards. This game is too fast and crazy to make proper use of the GamePad stuff, for me anyway.

G1: Mental. Right, back to Splatooooooon!!

That was clearly beginners luck. I was on fire for those first few games though. :awesome: Yeah, such a great laugh. Leveling up is a lot quicker that I was expecting, need to get myself some better gear now. BTW, @Dcubed thanks for providing my fave Splatoon moment so far. It'll be appearing in GIF form soon. *EDIT* Here it is: I tried the same thing afterwards against the other Roller player, but it didn't go quite as well.

Any game only arrivals from the Nintendo Store, or is it just the bundles that are turning up early? Nice to see they're getting those out so quickly anyway.

Dispatch e-mail GET!

My biggest issue with amiibo (other than thinking they're overpriced) is how some are seemingly becoming much more useless than others. Pikachu for example, no costume unlock in MK8 and appears to be the same situation for Yoshi's Wooly World. I'm also annoyed how Splatoon is going to lock those little 8-bit mini-games behind the Splatoon specific amiibo. Costumes are one thing, but when you end up missing out on playable content due to not having the right amiibo, that's not cool. Nintendo really should offer that stuff via more readily available/affordable NFC cards already, or also make it available for purchase on the eShop. The main appeal to amiibo is obviously meant to be the figures themselves, but as the content they unlock keeps growing/improving they'll potentially become more valuable for what they can bring to the games, and that will end up making the amiibo situation even more annoying, for both those that want to collect them and those that don't.

It's all good. No problem with people not digging the stuff I like, I'm a fan of Wii Music after all. My concern right now is that my copy of the game hasn't shipped yet...

@Dcubed, can you give Glen-i a slap please?

Brilliant. Looks like the Pikachu amiibo doesn't get included in the fun yet again though...

Hahaha! I'm guilty of this right now: http://n-europe.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1755673&postcount=1396

So the other night (during the testfire sever issues) I decided to faff about in the training area. I completely covered the first section of the map in ink and began swimming around in it. Was trying to see if the trails and splash ripples you create as a squid would eventually be erased by the game (you know how in a lot of shooters, the bullet holes start to disappear after a while when there's too many of 'em ) but no matter how much I messed with it, I couldn't see any of the older marks fading away. I can't even get my head around how they've created this effect of such convincing and dynamic paint, that's seemingly an interactive object rather than just a flat texture, but I'm seriously impressed by it. Here's a GIF of what I'm on about (with most of the doodling part sped-up) compare the floor right at the beginning to how it looks at the end: Not included in the above GIF is when I repaint half of that floor and observe it from the side, the part with the fresh ink appears completely smooth again. So I jumped right in and doodled some more. Amazing stuff. :awesome: I remember being really impressed with the painting mechanic in de Blob, but Splatoon's ink tech is something else. Shame we'll probably never see a de Blob 3, as it could have been awesome on the current gen hardware.

Yeah, but at the same time, the fact this isn't your typical shooter has to be taken into consideration. I mean there's just so much going on in a single game of Splatoon (perhaps too much ) and it can be tackled in very different ways (going for splats, concentrating on ink coverage, defending turf, reclaiming turf, ambushing enemy inklings, assisting teammates...), I reckon that alone will keep the game fresh and the user base interested for quite some time. But as you say, time will tell.

Will certainly give it a go, but I'm equally prepared to accept defeat on some of those challenges. Still got Triple Deluxe sitting at 99% too.

Not that there shouldn't be complaints about stuff, but it is a shame that more people can't just appreciate Splatoon for what it is. I personally can't wait to get my hands on this game! Even though the single-player campaign is supposedly quite short, and the online multiplayer somewhat limited at launch, there's no denying the quality of everything else... The style is great, the visuals and music absurdly good, and it offers some really unique/multifaceted gameplay which is incredibly fun. Even just for the content that'll be available at launch, it seems like a steal at 25 quid!

Beat Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush. Great little game, absolutely stunning too. :awesome: