New research seems to confirm what many people have been saying for decades: violent video games do not make children more violent.
But should that really be the only criterion by which we judge whether to expose the young and impressionable to an art form that has the potential to be the most viscerally violent of them all?
I don’t think so, and I cannot help but shake my head when I encounter parents who apparently pay no attention to the age ratings and content of the games they buy for and allow their children to play.
It’s understandable why even parents who really do care sometimes cave to pressure: some of the biggest and most popular games around are shooters, and it’s a genre that offers a special sort of excitement, especially in multiplayer competitive modes, that can’t quite be matched by others.
But thanks to the always creative and innovative minds at Nintendo, concerned parents and gamers who enjoy shooters but not necessarily the sight of blood and body parts flying everywhere now have a game that ticks the boxes for “fun” but none of the ones for “traumatic”: Splatoon 2.
Ink war
The premise sounds bizarre at first, but then that’s a Nintendo staple, isn’t it... an Italian plumber faces off against sentient mushrooms to rescue a princess from a fire-breathing turtle (the Mario series); previously mentioned plumber gets together with other characters from his game and those from others to race a variety of customised vehicles around tracks littered with weapons (like banana peels and turtle shells) to use against your opponents (Mario Kart series)... you get the idea. But those who have experienced Nintendo games know that what may sound ridiculous to the uninitiated is actually sublime in practice.
Splatoon 2 continues the trend: teams of humanoid squids known as Inklings (no relation to the famous group that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien) face off against one another, armed with neon coloured ink. The ink is dispensed via a variety of weapons, most of them some sort of gun, and the goal is to “splat” players on the opposing team and paint more of the map your team’s colour than the other side can. Oh, and you replenish your ink supply by swimming through the ink you’ve already applied to the floors and walls of the map.
Mass appeal
This unique take on the third-person shooter made its debut on the Wii U, but the poor sales of that console means that this sequel for the Switch will be many people’s first introduction to the concept. Nintendo have refined what worked in the original Splatoon, adding new weapons and special abilities.
There are offline and online modes, the latter being the real attraction here, with every three-minute match with or against friends and/or strangers ending with the desire for “just one more”.
Should I get it?
Lest what I wrote above gave the impression that Splatoon 2 is just for kids, let me dispel that notion: it’s a great game for players of any age, one willing to meet you at the level you approach it at. It has the crisp controls and incredible character design we’ve come to expect from Nintendo, and while the premise is simple and can be grasped and enjoyed by the young and inexperienced, it has a great amount of depth and will reward those who devote time to mastering it. Like some of the best games and sports, it is simple to learn, but hard to master.
Splatoon 2 proves that you don’t need a gritty future sci-fi or a grim historical setting to produce a shooter that gets you itching to pick up your controller whenever you have three minutes free for another quick match. Who needs blood when you can have ink?
Score: 9/10
Platform: Nintendo Switch
