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 develpers to stop making crap and rushing games to market. At only 800 Microsoft space bucks, do yourself a favour 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
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