The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is the creation from Ska Studio's James
Silva. It is a 2D side scrolling beat em up with loads of flair. The
Dishwasher was the winner of Microsoft's initial Dream-Build-Play game
development contest in 2007. Silva received $10,000 and an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract.
Over 2 years in the making, The Dishwasher finally hit XBLA
last week. Let me start by suggesting that you play this game on the
'easy' difficulty to start with. The game will beat your ass on
'normal' and above. Once you finish the story on 'easy' you get to keep
all your cool weapons and items for consecutive playthroughs on the harder difficulties.
You
play as an under appreciated dishwasher fighting through waves of
various enemy's until the final boss battle at the end of each level.
Your not going to play The Dishwasher for its story but more for its
brutally fun gameplay.
You are equipped with 2 weapons to start with but have the ability to
unlock some great additions to your arsenal such as a chainsaw and
automatic riffle and shotgun. You can only equip 2 of these weapons at
once but can swap between them pretty much on the fly.
The
visual design in The Dishwasher is fantastic, with edgy, highly
stylised graphics that make the whole world feel just perfect. Sound
design also deserves much credit from its simple but cool 'guitar
solo's' to the excellent song selections during some of the boss
battles.
Besides the story mode, you have other cool modes to
explore. Dish Challenge involves you surviving waves of enemy attacks
while attempting to score combos for points. There is also Arcade mode
which are single screen areas that change the criteria and weapon layout at the start of each level.
A lot of credit needs to be given to James Silva for creating a game that gamers
will love to play. It is also a testament to the power of XNA and will
hopefully inspire other developers to stop making crap and rushing games
to market. At only 800 Microsoft space bucks, do yourself a favor and
the independent gaming at large, pick this one up you will not regret it.
Gameplay = 8.4
Visuals = 8
Sound = 7.5
Game Now Score = 7.9/10
http://gamenowsleeplater.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishwasher-dead-samurai-review.html
