I have fond memories of The Dishwasher - when I was working late in the studio one time, PartnerNet brought up some future-treasure from Microsoft's mysterious portal of wonderment. This was one of those games, and from the moment I downloaded it, I was hooked. The game itself doesn't have super-polished graphics, or feels like it's been fluidly iterated from one version to the next during development - that's the point.
It feels totally visceral - totally right. Rough around the edges, a swagger and personality that many games only dream of. You can tell this was a labour of love for a small team of individuals rather than a heavy manufacturing machine - and it's all the better for it. You play the star of the game - The Dishwasher Dead Samurai, hacking and slashing through enemies which not only feel less like fodder and more of a challenge, but also features some relentless sections throughout. You can execute enemies using "clean" kills, and are actively encourage to do so. When you do, the feeling is rather special. Like a grindhouse classic, the camera angles and tilts towards your character, framing the action of grabbing a dude's head and slicing it clean from his body with an eruption of blood-coloured particles and brightly-coloured power-ups.
Later on in the game, you get your hands on a sword which allows you to gracefully warp through space and time, giving you a valuable angle of attack and more breathing space. Enemies on jet-packs are shoe-ins to this kind of tactic, and a lot of fun can be had by grabbing them in mid-air and piledriving them into the ground below.
This game feels like it shouldn't belong among the Popcap-polish and the sheen of Microsoft-approved button icons. This is reason alone for you to grab it.
