In a time long forgotten, before the days of Xbox Live, the local multiplayer regained supreme overlord of the gaming landscape. Often it was seen by the many that a game could be deemed great if it was good locally to play, hence why Halo shined so brightly for many people, but it is a trait in games which has been lost in recent years due to the expansion of the mega machine Xbox Live. So when an Xbox One game makes something which is solely based on local multiplayer and nothing else, you have to wonder how good this could be? Slash Dash is exactly that and I’ll be exploring a bit more into this rather interesting project.
As stated above, Slash Dash is a game which is 100% local multiplayer, nothing else. No single player, online multiplayer, just you and your mates in the room. The concept is simple and reminiscent of years and years ago of a time on the original Xbox. Gaming has evolved since then and this does beg the question, does this type of game have a place in the world we live in today?
In a short answer I honestly don’t think it does, well not to this scale anyway. Slash Dash is the stereotypical ID@Xbox game, where somebody hasn’t really played the genre before and is just making an off the cuff remark. It contains limited modes, and has an life span lower than a few games of FIFA. And while writing this I feel as if I am doing the game a disservice but it is incredibly hard to find positives.
Let me run down what you do get, Slash Dash presents just 4 modes, Assassination, Capture the Flag, Mirror Match and Death Race. Remember these are only solely local multiplayer, and Assassination forces you to have 4 local players, which I couldn’t even try because I don’t have 4 friends (I joke, but you get the idea). This in itself is one of the main problems behind this game, the concept is slightly flawed but the lack of features and modes and custom-ability makes this game more of a chore and maybe a suggestion of a failed experiment wouldn’t be too much of a push.
You do get several different environments to choose from which are well crafted and drawn, however it is all a bit samey. The controls work well and there is fun to be had in small doses of time, the premise of the game is simply to kill your friends using your shogun (your character). This can be done by simple slash, you can use a stun as well to add a little bit of variety but it’s hardly wide ranging.
So to answer my question at the start “is there a place for local multiplayer only in the Xbox Store today?” I don’t think there is and slash dash has only made me re-enforce that opinion, it simply is way too small to make any headway for this plucky genre that may be trying to make a comeback and in reality the world of online gaming has become too big for this game to succeed. That doesn’t make this a bad game though, there are some fun features and good times to be had, but it is simply too short to make you come back for more. Once you’ve tried the modes out, I’d be surprised if you still have this installed at the end of the week.
