A Splatoon kind of Birthday!

J loved Splatoon so much he wanted his birthday cake in a Splatoon style...!

It's J's birthday this week. He'll be 11. And on Saturday he had a couple of friends round for a gaming party. We'd only just received the download code a couple of days before that so we kept it a surprise for the day of the party.

When we told our boys that Nintendo had sent us a copy of Splatoon for the WiiU to review, the squeals of delight could be heard down the street! We then watched J tell his friends as they arrived and I wish I caught their reaction on camera. It was awesome. J and his two friends had the biggest grins on their faces as they just kept repeating in amazement - 'Splatoon!''Splatoon''Splatoon!!!' Whilst jumping up and down.

They soon wanted to get started. They had all heard about this fun new game and really wanted to drive straight in so, after they each ran through the tutorial, that is exactly what they did.

Little Miss T stuck to playing her own game on the DS as Splatoon is rated PEGI 7

In Splatoon you play as an Inkling - a person who can turn into a squid during the game. A unique style of game - part shooting, part strategy, part puzzle, totally complete frenzied fun. There is a range of game types to play. In each, you must play the part of a character carrying a weapon - the difference from any other game is that you fire ink (remember, you are part squid).

In the two-player contest, you have to shoot to pop balloons, with the winner being the one that pops the most. Of course, covering your opponent in ink is also fun and slows their progress too. As this is the local multiplayer mode, the boys have spent quite a long time on it, battling each other and thrashing Daddy.

The online multiplayer mode sees you teaming up with 3 other players, and taking on 4 opponents. You simply have to cover more of the ground in your team's colour than the opponent does in a set time. As you progress, you earn credits to upgrade weapons for future contests. Despite the other players being far better than Daddy, he still earned points based on his own personal progress, so it really is a fair battle even if you do not win the round. 

Then there are the missions, which see one player taking on a series of challenges in a story mode to try to rescue the missing ZapFish from the Octarians. Our J loved this, as he particularly likes any longer term challenges in games.

The controls were quite easy to pick up, despite there being a lot to remember. Switching from the WiiU game pad to a handheld controller for the two player game was a bit more difficult, as it has no motion sensor, but the kids managed it faster than Daddy!

All in all this is a fantastic fun game,  and one I am sure we will keep coming back to. Do watch the video over on the Nintendo site as it really does give a flavour of the fast-action ink-blasting fun.

As his friends were leaving at the end of the party, all we could hear was them saying things like 'awesome' and 'best day ever!' So I think they really liked it too.

Now back to birthday planning for his actual big day. He's asked for two cakes - a big one for his mainstream class with the Splatoon theme and a smaller one for his ASD unit with the Tomadachi Life Apartments on it! Tomodachi is his other mega favourite game and you can read about that here.

Disclosure: We were sent a download code for Splatoon as part of the Nintendo UK Family Blogger Network, for the purposes of this review. All opinions are our own.