It's really addictive, possibly because due to the painting mechanic, you can always be doing something to help your team or gain territory. The visual aesthetic of it all helps matters too, and makes it particularly satisfying to spread your goop everywhere (it feels very similar to using the Fludd in Mario Sunshine).
My only niggle is that the map is fiddly to use. Haven't played the original but I bet it was so much better on the gamepad. It's just a pain to bring it up during a game.
There isn't a map on the screen, and you don't need it for that. The levels are pretty easy to navigate and you can see where the enemy is just by looking.
You don't need a map most of the time, but not having the gamepad down there makes the Super Jump mechanic a bit fiddly. The dpad warp to your team mates help (you can warp anywhere else moving your cursor right?) but it's not as intuitive as having the map just below to tap.
But then how do you know what areas of the map that you can't see are covered by the opposing team? Switching between map and gameplay seems counterintuitive. The map is very important. It should be on screen at all times.
My only experience with these games are the two maps in the trial but in general it seems really easy to just see across the map in general - your spawn is normally high up so you get a good view, and generally the middle ground is pretty visible. The spawns are harder to see for obvious reasons.
This, coupled with the paint mechanic, makes it fairly obvious where the contested areas are or where you should head. Coupled with the rapid swimming movement it makes it fairly straightforward identifying and getting to where you need to be.
Plus bringing the map up for a split second is really easy, and the colours make it obvious which territory your enemy holds. It's just the warping that is a pain.
Besides, it's not generally the normal in shooters anyway to display exactly where your enemy is, and many just do the "blips on the radar" thingmy, so I don't think you need to see, second-by-second, what exactly is going on.
It works fine when you're alive, but it's a fiddle to use for the Super Jump on respawn. Haven't even tried using it to Super Jump in game. You can apparently use it when cornered to go back to your spawn point, and maybe it works on the gamepad, but you'd likely be dead before you could bring up the map and do it.
Guess if you get the muscle memory down for the d-pad controls you can do it quicker.
Gutted! I thought the times for Sunday were 4pm and 12am but it was 4am and 12pm. Wondering why I can't get in. Heartbroken. Can't wait until the game launches. Only got to play two sessions.