Formed in 2005 by Daniel Coleman and Robert DeMaria, Semnat Studios is a tiny little development company that started off crafting smaller PC projects, one of which eventually grew into Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, the company's first console title, courtesy of Nintendo's WiiWare platform. It's a simple 2D shooter starring a toaster with a top knot, doing battle against the mixed hordes of various vegetables and square-shaped creatures that remind me of Pop Tarts.

We stuck a fork into Eduardo and rattled it about in order to see what came out of Semnat's first offering

Loved
Not Much: While there wasn't much that I truly enjoyed about Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, a few of the game's finer points to deserve some merit. Particularly the background art for the game's various levels. Consisting of a mix of lovely composite images, the background art for Eduardo deserves to be in a much better game. I also have to give developer Semnat Studios kudos for their multiplayer implementation, managing to inject bit more fun into the game by adding 1-3 friends to the equation.

Hated
Toast and Re-Toast: From the nifty, hand-drawn look and feel of the screenshots we've been seeing, I assumed that there was really going to be something special about Eduardo the Samurai Toaster on a game play level. Unfortunately I was completely wrong to assume. Eduardo is a simplistic side-scrolling shooter with repetitive enemies that grows tiring after the first few levels, when you notice that the bosses are repeating. They continue to repeat, and despite a few levels that mix things up by adding an element of self-scrolling, the whole experience is as flat as whatever it is Eduardo is supposed to be killing.

Who? When? Why?: When the main selling point of your video game is a catchy name, you might want to focus a bit more on developing the story behind said name. Why is Eduardo the samurai toaster? What is his motivation for going through the game's levels, hurling weapons at bees and various assorted rectangular objects that could either be toaster pastries or playing cards? The bland, repetitive game play might have been salvaged a bit had we been given some sort of insight into why we were subjecting ourselves to bland, repetitive game play.

It's really hard for me to come down hard on Semnat Studios. After all, they are basically a couple of guys who joined up with a couple of other guys in order to develop a WiiWare title based on a PC game they've been fiddling around with for years. It's a feel-good story, and one that highlights the ease of accessibility of Nintendo's platform for up-and-coming developers. Unfortunately, Eduardo also feels exactly like a game that was created by a small group of guys with limited resources, and that's one the major obstacles a developer needs to overcome in order to deliver a successful independent game. Eduardo feels like a glorified flash game, and that isn't the sort of title that is going to bring in large amounts of Wii points.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster lures you in with an intriguing title and some equally intriguing art design, but delivers little more than crumbs once you turn it upside-down and give it a good shake.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster was developed and published by Semnat Studios for WiiWare. Released on June 15. Sells for 800 WiiWare points. Completed all levels on default difficulty setting and played through multiple levels via 2-player co-op.

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Semnat Studios is bringing Eduardo to WiiWare sometime this winter, and from the looks of it things are shaping up quite nicely. It comes across as a bit of a scribbly mess at times, but we all know that good things lurk in scribbly messes, and hell - as long as there is a samurai toaster somewhere in there, who the hell cares what it looks like? SAMURAI. TOASTER. See? Doesn't matter.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is a side scrolling 2D shooter featuring frantic, hand-drawn graphics that put the power of toast at your fingertips. It's got scooters fitted with lasers, five pastry-themed power-ups, and drop-in four-player co-op. It's coming to WiiWare this winter, which I am relatively sure means sometime soon.

Look, honestly? Do we really need any details about this? You can check out the screens below if you'd like, but let's be honest here. You were sold on the name alone. It's okay. I too am thusly afflicted. Semnat could have very well just issued a downloadable screenshot with the title in big letters and I would have serious considered shelling out a couple hundred points, just to always have that on my television.

Colorado, USA - January 5th, 2009 – Indie developer Semnat Studios is excited to finally announce the upcoming Wii™ release of Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, an incredibly fast and frenetic sidescrolling, run‘n’gun 2D shooter. The game will be released exclusively for WiiWare™ this winter, developed and published by Semnat Studios.

With visuals drawn and scanned in from several different art mediums such as pen & ink, acrylic paint and charcoal, Eduardo sports an untraditional aesthetic design for a videogame. Jump, shoot, whip, drive, fly and throw your way through hordes of Peking Opera pastries, spear toting carrots, robotic mangos, and more. Play with friends as you learn to cooperate effectively, or be annoying by throwing each other around the screen and attacking one another.

FEATURES

- Drop in co-op play for up to four players.

- Ride scooters equipped with laser-blasters and fly around in rocket packs in single player or co-op.

- Use 5 different pastry pickups to upgrade your firepower.

- Battle enemies through 13 unique levels.

- Several different difficulty options to choose from, allowing players to pick their desired level of challenge.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster has been Rated E for everyone by the ESRB.

About Semnat Studios, LLC

Daniel Coleman and Robert DeMaria formed Semnat Studios in early 2005. Starting out as a hobby, the team began working on games in 2003. After a couple of projects (one of them being an early version of Eduardo) they decided to focus more seriously on game making. So for the next several years they would work their way up, now with the support of Ian Bowie and musician Raymond Gramke, designing numerous versions of Eduardo for the PC. After working on these prototypes for a few years they found the opportunity to make a version of Eduardo for the WiiWare service on Nintendo’s Wii system. In late 2007 they began development on a new Eduardo, learning from their experience on the PC versions.