Much to my disappointment, The Dishwasher – Vampire Smile has very little to do with any form of dishwashing – so those of you looking for a house-keeping simulator involving the cast from Twilight, you’ll have to look elsewhere. What this questionably-titled bundle of joy and squishyness DOES offer you, however, is the chance to bathe. Indeed, to bathe in the blood and decapitated heads and innards of hundreds of unfortunate foes who were stupid enough to cross your path.
For players who never played the first game, Dead Samurai, “The Dishwasher” part refers back to the protagonist of said first title (SPOILER: He was a dishwasher) and followed his journey to destroy a Cyborg Army leader to save the world. During this little trip, the Dishwasher attacks a masked cyborg assassin and defeats it – only for it to be revealed that it was in fact his sister, Yuki, who had given herself willingly to the Cyborgs.
Incidentally, this is where Vampire Smile hurls you at the beginning of the game – serving as the prologue to what will become Yuki’s tale of revenge – told through amazingly stylized comic book panels.
After the events of Dead Samurai, the world is in ruin, and Yuki has been blamed. Brought back to life by unknown means, she escapes from prison and goes after the dudes, she believes, put her there.
The story isn’t overly complicated – but at the same time it’s never really quite laid out very clearly. Some instances, like the sudden Silent-Hill-esque “WTF is going on now” moments, are jarring; but as the game progresses, things begin making more sense. In the end, the game is clear on mainly one thing: “this dude is your target – go kill him, and do it in the most grotesque way you can.”
And grotesque, it is. Purely from a visual standpoint, Vampire Smile presents itself in the darkest and grungiest way this side of Salad Fingers – with black and white contrasted by the buckets of claret you’ll be extracting from enemies and splashing on the walls; the game doesn’t shy away from the odd haze of colour now and then, but it never lets you forget that this isn’t some pretty rainbow picnic.
The hand-drawn characters and enemies will undoubtedly strike an impressed nod out of you (unless you’re too cool, you know), and, really, with some of the monstrously disfigured bosses this game throws at you, you will wonder whether or not the guys at Ska Studios are quite sound in their heads.
Moving from area to area, you have a bunch of tools at your disposal to decapitate, destroy, diembowel, slaughter, slash, slice, bash, crunch, smoosh, bludgeon, gore and otherwise maim your foes – with a selection of upgradable weapons in the form of swords, blades and guns, as well as a handy (lol) chainsaw that conveniently gets grafted onto one of your arms. It makes (sorta) sense in the game, okay?
Add to that some handy-dandy “magic” powers, and you really have an arsenal at your disposal to kill everything on screen.
Each type of move is assigned to a different button on the controller; you’re melee (swords), chainsaw and grabbing attacks on the alpha-pad (A,X,Y,B) and your guns and magic dedicated to the triggers. By using all the buttons creatively, you’re able to execute some devastating combos that literally wipe the floor with the bad guys. Add to that your evade ability (activated by tapping the analogue stick) and you can be all over the screen in an instant, slaughtering the masses as you go.
You’re also able to “quick change” your weapons – switching from, say, the quicker (but weaker) katana – to the bulkier (but beefier) Cloud Sword (which includes an obvious nod to Final Fantasy). Getting to grips with quickly changing weapons mid-battle to generate MAX-UBER-DEATH, adds a strategic element to gameplay that’s rewarding for gamers who care enough, but not entirely necessary for those who don’t.
With two single-player campaigns to tackle (playing as both the Dishwasher and Yuki), as well as offline and online co-op – there is a lot of game here. And trust me when I say co-op is an absolute blast. I almost mean that literally. For the asking price of 800MS Points, there is very little to complain about here.
But I will find something.
Um, I guess you could try to hold it against the game that things can sometimes get very chaotic – with enemies flooding the screen; the excessive amounts of blood flowing; and the shaky camera movement not really helping much; it can be difficult to actually tell what’s going on. Another point could be the somewhat challenging difficulty – unless you get to grips with the combat system, things will definitely get tougher for you – the MOFO boss pictured above, for instance, had me crying for an hour.
However, neither of these things are really faults. The core idea of this game is balls-to-the-wall chaotic slaughter – it’s the over-the-top maiming that’s the whole draw – and as for the difficulty; well, die enough times (like I did) and the game opens up a pretty rainbow kitten difficulty which will hold your hand and feed you candy-floss.
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is an excellent example of mixing stylized visuals, over-the-top action and a dynamic combat system, all set in an intriguing world. I never got the feeling that the game was ever taking itself too seriously, or trying to be something that it’s not. The random heavy-guitar-riff bemani mini-games slotted into various levels proves as much.
It’s a game for borderline mindless, bloody, fun; and come on, who really needs an excuse to get into that?
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