Game Review: The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

Gerard Campbell - The Press

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

For: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade)

From: Ska Studios

Score: * * * *

One of the most appealing things about The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is that it was made by one man, James Silva, over two years, using Microsoft's XNA software- development package designed for budding game designers. It sure doesn't look like it's a one-man production.

What's also interesting about this 2D side-scrolling (sort of) hack-and- slash platformer is that it plays better than some of the full-priced games made by large development studios that have disgraced the Xbox 360 over the past three years (Vampire Rain, anyone?).

You play an undead samurai dishwasher on a quest for revenge against an evil cyborg army . . . blah, blah, blah.

OK, so the story is pretty ho- hum. But the action is what leads this tale, as the undead dishwasher faces off against legions of zombies, cyborgs, special-forces troops and FBI agents, using a samurai sword, some nasty-looking cleavers and a variety of acrobatic moves that would make the members of Cirque du Soleil clap in approval. The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai has a visual style all its own, with muted, washed-out colours and almost smudgy visuals, every now and then punctuated by orange explosions from bombs or blue sparks from enemies as they teleport in to confront the hero.

The story is moved along through comic storyboards, which can be skipped through, but they add depth to the reasoning behind the dishwasher's motives.

Silva has complained on his blog that some game reviewers are typecasting the game as a button- masher. To be honest, that's what it feels like sometimes, especially when you are swamped by enemies.

You can perform particularly brutal execution moves triggered by pressing the Y or B button. When that happens, the action slows down, the camera zooms slightly in on the samurai and his prey, and blood flows. Sometimes, when the action heated up, I threw the button combinations out the window and mashed the action buttons. There's nothing wrong with that, right?

You'll face boss fights at the end of every level - sometimes it's death riding a horse, or a rocket-launcher- wielding robot - and the Gamerscore Achievements are worth noting, too, especially one in honour of former Xbox executive Peter Moore, who famously once stopped playing guitar mid-song during a Microsoft press conference.

Being a side-scrolling 2D game, sometimes Dead Samurai trips up on its own cleverness, especially when the samurai is trying to negotiate the many climbable ledges and walls. Sometimes he'll scale them with ease, other times it's not so clear where you must go.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai's washed-out look might not appeal to everyone, but it's encouraging to see that Silva has produced such a high- quality indie game on his own. I'll await with interest his next title.

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