Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Jamestown


The Short


Pros
- Bullet-hell shooter set in the lost 1700s settlement of Jamestown. On Mars.
- Takes itself way too seriously, which is just stupidly awesome
- Competent shooter with multiple ships, styles, and four-player co-op
- Various difficulty levels mean even the suckiest player of these games can play it and get better
- Lots of bonus content

Cons
- Later levels are only unlocked by playing on the harder difficulties, which means noobs will only get one level
- Only has five levels total
- Mac version is badly ported; expect massive slowdown

Ok so...this game is kind of weird. 

The Long

Jamestown is straight stupid. Apparently when the colony of Jamestown vanished in the 1700s, it actually went to Mars. Yeah. And so now there's a war between the Americans and the Spanish (who have allied with Martians) battling for the future of Mars. In space. Driving space scooters. And space...sailing...boats. What is...what is videogames?

Point being, this is an indie pixelated bullet-hell shooter and it is great. It's silly premise and extremely ham-fisted story (which works because it takes itself so damn seriously) only adds a layer of fun to an extremely solid, very well made top-down shooter. Lots of little things also are implemented to make this game great, so let's get to this review, shall we?

Expect to kill a lot of Martian Spaniards

As a bullet-hell shooter, Jamestown works. It has a wide range of difficulties available, from "super easy" to "I hope you played Ikaruga." The main trick is the "Vaunt" system. When you gather enough money (represented by coins or golden gears that pop out of enemies), you can activate "Vaunt," which gives you a temporary shield and a bonus multiplier. Keep picking up gears and the multiplier will stay up, earning massive points. I also think you do more damage. Don't quote me on that, though.

It's a balance because the shield doesn't come back, and if your Vaunt is on you can't turn the shield back on, but if you let it drain and then re-fill it you get another shield. So you have to decide if you'd rather keep your multiplier or sacrifice it for a shield. Nothing as deep as Ikaruga's color-swapping combo madness, but it gets the job done. 

There are also lots of bullets. 

There are four ships, one of which is unlocked from the start and the rest you get later, and you can choose between regular and alt-fire. The more powerful ones are also the harder ones to control, so you have another layer of skill there for those who seek it out. 

You can also play this game four player on one box, assuming you have the controllers (getting an Xbox 360 Windows Wi-fi plug helps if you already own an Xbox with four controllers) and four of your friends can blast Spanish Martians together. The game doesn't really scale much (or at all) for more players, but since you share credits if one of your friends totally sucks then you'll probably want to evict him from the team. You also have to share the vaunt-earning powerups, so that's another switch-up. 


There's a lot of unlocks and challenge modes, but the game still feels a bit short. 

This game only has six story missions, and there's an (annoying) twist to unlocking them. Playing on easy only nets you one level; future ones are unlocked by beating the previous levels on harder difficulties. I get that this is a good way to force wimpy players to attempt it on harder difficulties, since that's the only way to unlock the final level, but if you just aren't that great at bullet-hell games (or your Mac version has the worst slowdown of all time due to a shoddy port) you'll not get as much value out of it. 

There's tons of challenge modes, ranging from dodging bullets to scoring a set number of points in a set amount of time. By "tons" I mean "a little over a dozen," but they are good extra content that will help teach you how to do better. The lack of content might be a little disappointing, but these are the types of games you play through shooting for high scores, and are meant to be played again and again. I mean, I love Ikaruga, and that game only has four levels. It's that brutal difficulty that keeps us coming back, and your attempts to get better and better scores (and eventually "one credit" it).

Four players is absolute madness. 

The game looks and sounds great. The graphics are all pixelated in HD and look beautiful and colorful. The music is period-esque sweeping orchestrations that are completely absurd and fit the goofiness perfectly. You could really do a lot worse. 

At $10, Jamestown should be an easy sell to anybody who is a fan of these types of games. If you don't know if you like them or not (or 1943 was your last experience with this genre on the NES), then $10 is a pretty low bar of entry for checking it out. It's colorful and fun, though the poor Mac port, limited content, and restriction of the final levels for only the hardcore is a bit of a pain. 

Still, it's worth a shot just because you'll be shooting Spanish Martians on Mars. In 1770. 

Four out of five stars. 

This game is so stupid. I love it. 

Hoard


The Short


Pros
- Arcade style action where you play as a dragon
- Burninate the countryside, burninate the peasants, burninate all the people in their thatched roof cottages
- Four player multiplayer is actually pretty fun
- Easy to grasp a hold of, core concepts are solid and fun for a few games

Cons
- Graphics look pretty bad
- Doesn't mix stuff up enough; once you've played the tutorial you pretty much know how the rest of the game goes
- Keyboard and mouse controls are totally broken; better get a controller here
- Single player is not fun at all; AI is stupid
- Multiplayer is awesome, but nobody is playing it
- You aren't really getting much value for your $10 here ($15 on PSN)

It's gonna be really hard to not make Trogdor jokes this whole review. 

The Long

Hoard is an interesting little game where its big promotional push is you "PLAY AS THE DRAGON!" Essentially an arcade game (that reminded me a little too much of the free Dash of Destruction Doritos game on XBLA), your goal is simple: burn stuff, get money, return it to your cave before the other dragons beat you to it. By getting gold you can get upgrades like speed, damage, life, and carrying capacity, until you are the biggest and baddest dragon of them all, razing countrysides, stealing princesses and holding them for ransom, and putting Smaug to shame. 

It's a cool idea. Too bad that's about all this game has. 

If it burns, we can kill it. 

All matches typically play out the same. You have two to four dragons who all want fat loot. It starts slow, burning farms and small settlements as you grow in power (or burning each other, if your friends are jerks). As time passes things ramp up: thieves show up to snitch your gold and you have to defend it. Princesses, escorted by knights, can be kidnapped and if you can hold them for long enough they'll pay out a hefty ransom. Cities keep popping up and growing stronger, making your adventures more and more treacherous, and all the while your friends are getting more powerful (and are still jerks) so they burn you to steal your precious gold. Some friends. 

TROGDOOOOOOR! Ok, that was it. I promise. 

With a handful of maps, if you have four players together (online, in Steam's case) this game is actually pretty hilariously fun, at least for a few maps. You can all act like jerks as you fight to get the most gold (the game is time based, so whoever has the most at the end wins), and since matches are usually only 10 minutes you can easily jump into the next one before the losers get all whiny. It's a blast for a couple of games, especially with people you know.

And then you realize something: that's all there is to this game.

Repetition sets in quick. 

Killing guys, getting gold, going home; you'll be doing this over and over. And while it's tolerable when with friends (and for the initial few runs), after a few games you'll all probably be done with it forever. Single player is a horrible experience; playing against AI dragons just doesn't have the same fun and thrill factor as stealing from friends would. It gets bland extremely quickly, which is a shame. 

Run away!

It also hurts that this game looks ugly. The "board game" aesthetic was a little endearing for a while, but the lack of variety between maps (hope you like green or brown fields) means they all look kind of the same. The sprites are really small and lack detail, and the effects are bland. Again, the fact that I filed this under "board game" helped, but I still can't shake the impression this game just doesn't look very good, even for an indie title. Sound is also poor and gets extremely irritating very quickly. 

It's also worth nothing that (for me, at least, playing the Mac version) the keyboard and mouse controls were straight up broken. It plays fine on an Xbox 360 controller (using duel sticks to move and shoot fire), but on my regular computer stuff I could hardly control it at all. We are talking completely broken here. 

I got this in an indie bundle, so for that price it was worth it, I guess...

As it stands, I can't recommend Hoard. If you have four friends and everybody can get the game for super-cheap, it might be a fun diversion for a few hours (or if you pick it up in an indie bundle, which I did). But paying the full $10 on Steam (or oddly up-priced $15 on PSN) is absurd. There just isn't enough variety here, even for arcade point junkies. Again, there isn't anything fundamentally broken about Hoard (except keyboard/mouse controls), but at its core this simple game just doesn't have the carrying capacity like other simple games like Bejeweled or Royal Envoy. 

Plus, there's no Trogdor. Two out of five stars.



I almost made it this whole review...

Amnesia: The Dark Descent


The Short


Pros
- Genuine Lovecraftian horror
- No combat; you run or you die
- "Insanity" mechanic is fantastic and only adds to the horror
- Slow burn of creepiness that reminds me of the classic Silent Hill games
- Excellent sound design and graphics
- Might be the scariest games I've ever played

Cons
- Can be difficult to know exactly where to go next
- Might be a little slow at first for the impatient
- Messing up just once and result in a quick death
- Playing it in the dark with headphones can seriously freak you out

This may not look creepy, but you have no idea how tense this experience is. 

The Long

What makes a game (or a movie, or a book) truly scary? Some people would say it's an overabundance of gore to disgust you and freak you out. Others would argue its the fear of isolation, of not being able to see what is out there coming to get you while you are totally alone. And some think it's zombies on motorbikes

For me, the best horror is a slow burn, a general uneasiness caused by fear of the dark or the unknown. The fear of not being able to trust your senses, of seeing things that you don't know if they are real or not. And when you start doubting yourself, that's when you really start freaking out.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent does this perfectly. It might be the creepiest game I've ever played. 

If these screenshots don't look creepy, its because I'm avoiding any potential scare-spoilers. 

The concept behind Amnesia is simple: you awake in a dark castle with - you guessed it! - amnesia. You seem to have left notes to yourself along the way, so armed with a lantern and tinderbox you set out to find exactly what is going on and try and get out of the castle alive.It starts with a very slow burn, walking through empty corridors, the only sounds your echoing footsteps and the winds breezing in through unseen windows. But the atmosphere goes a long way, so when stuff really starts getting messed up, you are already extremely on edge. It's a great horror trick, one Silent Hill 2 did very well with its introduction, and it is masterfully executed in the opening moments of Amnesia.

The game is essentially an adventure game mixed with survival horror, with some twists. The biggest of which is the insanity concept. When you are in the dark, your character slowly begins to stress out more and more, leading him to become more "insane." Eventually your vision starts to blur, your head aches, and you start seeing things that aren't actually there at inopportune moments. Or are they? Since the monsters (which this game has, though you only see them in small snippets if you want to live) can be straight up invisible at times, it can be hard to trust your eyes once your insanity meter is high enough. This leads to another terrifying aspect: do you run from that monster thinking he is real, or is he just a figment of your deranged mind?

The places you go are very creepy without the need of any blood or gore.

Since light plays such an important factor, you'll be doing a lot of digging around for lantern oil, lighting torches on the walls or candles, and only braving dark areas when you feel completely confident. Your character moves slowly, but not slow enough to be completely frustrating, and he can run when stuff gets crazy. And it will. Trust me, it will.

The art design in this game also adds to the scares. Rather than painting the walls in blood and guts with hope that you'll freak out, it instead uses gothic architecture and your own imagination (and some stellar sound design) to cause you to imagine your own monsters. It's a primal creepy, the fear of the dark or the weird and old, and it gets its hooks into you very quickly. When you do get to the few sections that are bloody or gory, since the rest of the game has been extremely tame the shock value is amplified to almost near-unbearable. While games like Dead Space 2 reveled in gore constantly, Amnesia knows how to use it to properly provide scares: after a long burn. It's excellently executed.

This game reminds me of Myst for some reason, if Myst were full of Lovecraftian horrors. 

Controls are simple. You make mouse gestures on objects to interact with them as you would in real life (click and move the mouse forward or back to open doors, dressers, etc.). This really seems like a game that would work real well with a Wiimote, but I digress. This "hands on" approach to stuff like opening doors (rather than just clicking and opening them) makes the world feel more real, and also makes it all the scarier when you are running for safety and have to swing the door open rather than just click and bust in. You could argue it's a mechanic implemented to make you die more often, but I think it works since it was introduced from the start and it gives you time to get used to it before you constantly screw it up in a panic. 

There are a few problems. The slow opening, as mentioned, might turn some players off who expected instant scares, but I found the chilling and surprisingly great looking environments enough to push me forward until stuff really got nuts. It can also be hard to know what to do or where to go next; there isn't really a hint system and some levers or buttons are a little too well hidden. Puzzles aren't particularly difficult, but when you get caught on one it really breaks the horror immersion element. Your character also walks really slow by default, as I said above, which means if you ever have to backtrack it can be a major pain in the butt. 

I know I'm probably failing at conveying this, but I'm serious: This game is really, really scary. 

Graphics look excellent. They aren't the highest polygon count and don't have the best texture bump-mapping or whatever, but it all fits a theme and looks good throughout. Lighting is decent but could have been better (long shadows from your lantern probably would have helped make this game a lot creepier rather than just a blanket glow), but the architecture and locations are so perfectly crafted the little things are forgivable. Perhaps better complimented should be the sound design: this game has no music and is almost always in complete silence, save your footsteps, a breeze from a broken in wall, and the patter of little feet you pray belong to a rat. The silence goes a long way, with the game unafraid to just leave you in the quiet as your lantern oil burns down, which shows the developer had a lot of confidence in their scares. As they should; this game is horrifying.

Amnesia gets in your head. 

As a fan of horror who thinks gore is a cheap way to convey "scares," Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a godsend. Creepy, slow, quiet, and with a good mix of jump scares and genuine thrills, Amnesia is what the modern Silent Hill games wish they were, and is certainly on par with the originals from that excellent series. But even then, Amnesia does enough original to carve it's own unique niche from the horror genre, and one I would love to see expanded upon. As it stands, if you are a fan of actual, genuine horror and don't mind games that take their time getting there, Amnesia is certainly worth the $20 asking price (but it goes on sale constantly; I grabbed it for $5 off Steam).

This is real horror. Five out of five stars. 

A little creepy goes a long way. 

VVVVVV


The Short


Pros
- Simple in concept platformer involving switching the direction of gravity
- Puzzles/platforming range from very simple to extremely difficult
- Metroid-esque map system and non-linear gameplay
- Presented in a charming, 8-bit style
- Music is incredible

Cons
- Only about two to three hours long
- Part of the game where you "escort" a crew member is extremely frustrating
- Getting all the collectibles can be a near-impossible task
- Movement is a bit slippery; it takes some getting used to

Get ready to VVVVVV. Whatever that means. 

The Long

Something I love about indie games is the fact that they don't have to be massive. Where games like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow pad their gameplay in attempts to add "value," indie games can focus on a single mechanic and then make a short but well crafted game around it (like Braid, or from a professional standpoint Portal). VVVVVV is the perfect example of this. Using a simple mechanic paired with difficult, NES style gameplay, it delivers a short but sweet experience. And at $5 on Steam (or $7 on the 3DS e-shop) it shouldn't be missed.

Each area has a unique mechanic, not unlike Braid

VVVVVV's gameplay is extremely simple. The only control you have is to "flip" your character, reversing gravity and sending them flying up or down until they hit a stable ledge. You can't stop them from flipping until they are on a solid platform (so no flipping in mid-air), but you can direct their falling/flying direction. From that basic concept comes one of the hardest platformers you'll ever experience. The game starts easy and quickly gets difficult, every area employing a unique strategy that mixes up what you are doing. And just when you think you are about done with it, the game ends.

This is not an easy game. 

Puzzles and rooms are clever, with checkpoints being given extremely liberally to prevent frustration. I'm reminded a lot of Super Meat Boy in that regard: it isn't trying to punish you for failing, rather it wants you to pick yourself back up and try over and over. I was stuck in some rooms for upwards of 5-10 minutes until finally beating them, and there's one trinket I'm certain I'll never get.

Controls can take a bit getting used to. Your character moves a bit like he's on ice, sliding a little more than he should with his momentum. It can be difficult at first, but after a few rooms you'll get the hang of it. Considering every room was designed around this control scheme, it never feels unfair, but it is different from other platformers so you'll need to keep that in mind. 

This game is surprisingly big. 

You explore the world via a Metroid style grid/map system, with each area their own "dungeon." While the exploration is nice, it only really serves as a means to the next area. You can also tackle any area in any order, with the game sometimes forcing you into a hidden level after beating a world (or on the last world). Since you never get any power-ups or upgrades, the entire game is beatable from the start, so it really boils do to either which one you find first or which one you pick to do first.

Despite the tight controls and excellent level design, there are a few down points. One "bonus" area requires you to escort another character. When you are on the floor he'll run blindly towards your position, and on the ceiling he'll stop. Unfortunately, having to gauge the momentum of your teammate can be tricky, and if either of you die it's back to the checkpoint. This is probably the single most frustrating part in the entire game, and the one I do not look forward to when replaying (while I love the rest of the game). 

The game is also very short, which might turn a few people off, but it's also only $5 and feels the right length for not adding any new mechanics. It also has tons of bonus levels to attempt (most of which are harder than the main game), so content-wise you are still getting a decent chunk for your cash.

This game has some great music. Bonus that it's also on Rock Band!

Graphics look good, employing a retro-esque 8-bit style. It's simple but all fits together nicely, with rooms being different colors to show progression. The music is a real stand-out, with almost every track being a mix of retro-sounds with a modern beat to it. They sound fantastic, and some areas I wanted to stay in longer just because the music was so excellent. 

This room isn't as bad as it looks. 

For $5 on Steam, you really can't go wrong. I've heard the 3DS e-shop version (at $7) is actually a little better because the game plays better on a controller than a keyboard, but I can't attest to it as I don't have a 3DS. As it stands, if you have any affinity for difficult-yet-fair platformers or just like old-school NES platformers, VVVVVV is a must buy. There's a demo for it on Steam but...come on. It's $5. This game is really something excellent.

Five out of five stars. 

Plus, you know. The soundtrack is so good

Monday, March 19, 2012

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile


The Short


Pros
- Takes every issue I had with The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and fixes them.
- Two characters, each with unique weapon sets and playstyles
- Each character has their own story mode, and while they aren't particularly unique they are different enough
- Arcade mode is back and better than ever
- Co-op throughout, and it's less broken
- Wider scope of difficulties and improved continue system eliminates most frustration
- Weapons are much better balanced and have a better variety
- Graphics are smoother, effects look better, and the sound design is improved
- Easily one of the best action games on XBLA

Cons
- Finding all the secrets can be a huge pain
- Still sometimes has too much blood/effects on the screen to know what is going on
- Once you beat it 100%, there's little reason to go back. But that could be said for a lot of games (it hurts more with this one because I LOVE IT)
- Story is better and has some unique presentation elements, but is still inane gibberish at its core

Back to some good, bloody 2D action. 

The Long

I really liked The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, probably more than it deserved (maybe not; game was pretty solid). I actually bought it because my wife was going to be away for a week and I was bored, so I needed something to do. It took the whole week of just going to work and playing Dead Samurai before I finally beat it, and once it was over I wanted more. Since James Silva is the only dude working on these games, it took a while for the sequel to show up. But when it did, it was a day one purchase. If it had just been the first game with a new coat of paint, I still would have enjoyed it. But Silva instead took the original, very polished framework of Dead Samurai and ramped it all up to eleven. I kid you not when I say this might be my favorite action game of this generation. 

Even if I can't see what is going on. 

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is pretty much the perfect sequel. It takes everything that was great about the first game - the smooth combat, the hard but fair difficulty, and the great risk/reward feeling of conquering a room - and makes it better. Combat is faster but you are given more tools at your disposal to deal with the new enemies (and the variety in this game is much better). Your movements feel much smoother and the controls feel tighter. This game's combat is polished to such a crazy shine I seriously think other game developers should look at it as an example. "See!" I want to shout. "If one dude can balance this insanely difficult, multi-weapon, multi-charactered 2D game, then why the crap do your games have such stupid, unbalanced difficulty?" 

Sorry. Got off track for a second there.

Anyway, the list of improvements is pretty big, so let's just do the first one: you now have two unique characters! Yay! You have Yuki, the Dishwasher's sister, who now has a chainsaw her arm. You can also play as original flavor Dishwasher if that piques your interest. Yuki plays similarly but is still different enough to make the decision hard: she tends to be faster and better with arial combos (from my experience, anyway), and is also a better dodger. The Dishwasher is a little slower but deals crazy damage, at the expense of losing some of his dodge. Both characters are balanced well enough that one isn't better than the other (I preferred Yuki because she's so fast, but that's just my playstyle). Each has their own story mode (they mirror each other, but there's a few minor changes) so you are encouraged to play through as both. They also share XP, which is nice, so you don't have to completely commit to one if you don't want to. 

Plus, a weapon is giant scissors. Getting a Clock Tower vibe. 

The new weapons are great, and each character's sets are unique. Highlights include a giant syringe needle and "Nimbus" sword (that looks like Cloud's sword from FFVII) for Yuki, and giant Scissors and the slow but deadly "Gore Hammer" for The Dishwasher. This game also does an incredibly good job balancing it's "faster but weaker" weapons with its "slower but higher damaging" ones. Usually in games I just ignore the slower, high damaging weapons because I am never willing to sacrifice agility to end a fight slightly faster; the risk is never worth it. Vampire Smile manages to somehow make even its most cumbersome weapon (the Gore Hammer, which prevents you from doing a vertical dodge) useful, if only because it's damage is totally nuts. It's a rarity that I'll ever switch from the starter weapons in a game (since I've grown accustomed to them by the time new ones show up), but I did so frequently in Vampire Smile. I still have my favorites, but I often cycle through anyway, which shows the balance was just right all around. 

There are loads more finishers this time around, some of which are stupidly over-the-top violent.  

There are lots of other little improvements. Continues are infinite and free, meaning if you fail a room you just restart it with no penalty (other than having to do it again). Upgrades are easier to get, and items tend to be cheaper (probably since I'm not spending money on continues). You can find "beads" throughout the world that will unlock certain abilities (like slowly restoring health when attacking, etc.) which can prove extremely helpful. You can also have multiple weapon "sets," meaning you can cycle through the four much more easily (though I really only used two). A wider range of difficulties allow even the suckiest player to start somewhere, and while the ultimate difficulty isn't nearly as hard as it was on Dead Samurai, it feels more like a challenge and less like pounding your face against a brick wall.

All these improvements are, of course, layered upon the already superb combat system, which again has a heavy focus on dodging at exactly the right moment and being able to single out individual enemies (preferably by getting them in the air, if you are playing on harder modes) and picking them off one by one. Your extreme mobility makes you feel empowered, which helps since these enemies are relentless bastards that only get harder as it goes along. 

Suffer not an agent beastie to live. 

Arcade mode is back, with support for two players (and the second player isn't permanently invincible anymore), and you can co-op the story as mode. Arcade is bigger and the challenges are...more challenging (while also adding new factors in). It's a blast to go around murdering dudes with a friend, with each scenario being both fun and (at times) frustrating. It's just another layer of content stacked alongside an already good-length story mode (which you beat twice, too), so content-wise you are certainly getting your cash value. 

I'm going to say it one more time: Playing Vampire Smile just feels really good. It's smoother than the first game, the combat is fast paced and visceral, you feel like you are in total control, and it still offers a very fair challenge. It is just an extremely solid game. 

Even robots bleed. 

Graphics have seen a massive improvement. First off, sprites are better animated and are a lot bigger, which helps since in the first game they kind of looked like tiny blurry figures. There's a wider range of enemies to look at, with the ones returning from the previous game redrawn to match the new style. But probably the best graphical improvement are the backgrounds. Now instead of being pre-rendered ugly things they fit the pencil-drawn style of its foreground characters, giving the whole thing a grim, uniform style. If you hate black and gray you'll probably not like the look of this game, but I honestly thought it looked fantastic, like sketches in a notebook come to life. With that dissonance between the foreground and background is gone, the whole game looks much better. 

Music and sounds are good, as usual, though none of the tunes were particularly memorable. Effects are slightly toned down (if you can call the screenshot above "toned down") but it still goes bananas at times, but having brighter, cleaner sprites means you don't get lost as frequently. It's still a bit much, but that's the style now so I guess I'll live with it.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention the "story."

There is a story. It is told from two viewpoints, depending on who you play as. The Dishwasher's is just a straight run through, but Yuki's adds some gameplay elements when she kind of goes insane and you have to direct her around. It's a cool concept wasted on a poorly written script, with the story essentially being the same as the first game: robot corporations are evil and messed you up, go kill them. I'm not saying this game needs deep drama or anything, but the fact it's almost exactly the same is kind of lame. Whatever, I'm not playing this game for the story. 

Another full game with no dishwashing gameplay mechanic. I feel cheated. 

As it stands, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is a superb 2D action game. Every misstep, however slight, from the first game has been remedied here. It's fast, brutal, exciting, and gives you a genuine sense of accomplishment when you finally conquer that impossible room. If you have any fondness for these types of games, you are really doing yourself a disservice by ignoring Vampire Smile. I highly suggest picking it up, or at least getting the demo if you own an Xbox 360. Really, really quality stuff.

Now bring on Dishwasher 3!

Five out of five stars. 

Just...tone the effects down a little next time, ok? 

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai


The Short


Pros
- Stylized 2D action game with an insane difficulty curve
- Plays like a 2D Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry game, and works surprisingly well
- 2D "sketchbook" style looks pretty good throughout, especially for the characters
- High difficulty, but extremely rewarding once you figure it out
- Large assortment of weapons with easy switching and crazy combos
- Includes a massive "Arcade" mode, with missions that have varying objectives
- Two player co-op (three with a guitar controller) for all modes
- Weapon unlocks, upgrades, and more
- Few games like it; gameplay shows a professionally degree of polish for an indie title
- Made by one dude. Seriously. That's insane.

Cons
- Seriously, this game is really, really hard. If you aren't into that, you should avoid it.
- Story is duuuuuuummmmbbbbb.
- Continue system is a bit too punishing and pushes things into the "frustrating" territory
- Blood is gratuitous and can become so overwhelming you can't see what you are doing
- While I like the style of the drawn sprites, the ugly 3D backdrops look straight bad
- Completely outclass by its sequel, Vampire Smile


Hint: This game isn't actually about doing dishes. 

The Long

It's no secret I really like indie games. Having been an indie designer/creator/developer/whatever myself for a brief stint of my high school and college careers, I have a massive amount of respect for people who keep with it, fight the odds, and produce something awesome after months or years of labor. It isn't easy, I can tell you from firsthand experience, so when something comes along that is so good it rivals big-budget titles, I have to stand up and give it props.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai comes very, very close to that lofty goal. 

Designed by one dude (James Silva), this game won an Xbox Live Indie content a few years back. The reward? $10,000 and the chance to put your game as a full XBLA release if you could get it made. James worked his butt off for quite some time before The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was ready to be released. And I can say that, with perhaps the exception of Super Meat Boy and Braid, I rarely see a team so small do something as incredible. 

Though this game has lots more blood than either of those games. 

The concept behind The Dishwasher is a simple one: take the extremely hard, combo-based, taxing gameplay of famous action games like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry and translate that into a 2D setting. With it comes genre staples like juggling enemies in the air with guns, heavy amounts of dodging and being completely precise with your strikes, knowing exactly which weapon to use at what time, etc. Considering I love the Devil May Cry games (even if Bayonetta pretty much trumped all of them), and I love me some 2D games, I figured this would be a match made in heaven.

And it is. It comes dangerously close to being perfect. 

The story here is...well, it's stupid. James should probably go to his local college and pick some guys from a creative writing class or something for his next game if he really wants the story to be taken seriously, because both this game and it's sequel have stupid stories. Basically you were a dishwasher, and you died, and then you came back to life, and robots are taking over people's bodies or something and you have to kill them...and their maker...and everybody...and the chef at your former restaurant is also a samurai...yeah, it's retarded. It's told through comic book pages which is a clever idea, but really you don't need a story here. Kill everything. There's the story. All the rest is just bloated stupid.

It can be hard to see what is going on. 

What matters is the core gameplay is tight. It's also extremely hard, but it's a fair hard. There's a difference between failing over and over because you felt the game didn't give you the tools to succeed, and failing over and over because it's your own fault and you need to not suck as hard (Super Meat Boy comes to mind). Many, many indie games fall into the former category when they make their games "hard," most times filling their games with janky error or lack of polish (heck, professional games do this all the time too, usually the lower-budget ones), but I never felt this way on The Dishwasher, and I've played a lot of action games. Even on easy this game is completely brutal; one mistake can knock your health to nearly gone in just a few seconds, and on the harder difficulties you have to be practically godlike in order to just beat specific rooms.  But again, it's all in your hands. If you suck, you suck. If you get good at dodging (you have a dodge you can always do that renders you completely invincible during its duration, so you have no excuse), picking enemies off one at a time, and mastering the handful of weapons you can totally beat the game. I did. I beat this game on the hardest difficulty. It's one of the achievements I'm proudest of in my entire history of playing Xbox 360 games, and I got every achievement in freaking Bayonetta.

Seriously, do we need this many effects on screen? What is even happening?
It isn't all perfect, though. The continue system (where you have to buy expensive continues and can only have a max of four per level) is frustrating, mostly because continuing restarts a room with all the enemies, meaning you could be a few seconds near the end and still have to pay to retry it. Items are also expensive and have a cap, which leads to the annoying decision of risking a continue for a better run or eating your last heal and hope you don't die (if you continue, you don't get items back).

The visual overload can also be a pain. Once stuff gets crazy (with magic and blood and missiles and lazers and explosions and...yeah) the insane amount of blood every enemy sprays everywhere becomes visually distracting. You do sort of get over it (if you lose where you are just dodge for a bit; you're invincible), but it really should have been addressed, or at least given the option to turn these effects down in favor of gameplay. It makes the otherwise razor-sharp gameplay a bit sloppy, which is exactly what this game didn't need.

Seriously, too much blood. No idea what is going on. 

Aside from the main story, which will take you a hefty chunk of time and skill to beat even on easy, the game has a huge number of arcade missions to beat. These all have various goals, like killing a set number of enemies in the air, fighting off waves with locked weapons, etc. They get progressively more and more difficult (and the difficulty is locked, so...good luck) and provide a hefty amount of bonus content for those who just want to hone their skills. It's a great addition, and for a $10 game it really adds to the value.

In addition, you can play both the main story and the arcade with a friend, who is an invincible ghost-dishwasher, who when he dies he just goes away for about a minute before coming back. This can really help on the harder levels, where its basically cheating to dodge as the main Dishwasher and have your friend (on the invincible one) just kill everything for you. You can also plug a guitar controller in and strum it to do damage with a floating guitar, and while this addition is nice it's pretty much useless. 

And there goes the head. 

Your take on the graphics depends on your tolerance. The characters are animated well enough to work for this type of split-second gameplay, and they all look like they were drawn in a notebook by that creepy goth kid in High School who wore the Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and shopped a lot at Hot Topic. I think the sprites look fine and fit the gritty style. The backgrounds, however, don't fit the style at all. They appear to be rendered, which doesn't match the sprites, and they also look...well, straight up bad to be honest. There are a few better ones (the final level in the machine HQ is cool), but overall they look like crap. No sugar coating it. But it doesn't really matter, since you'll never look at them anyway, because if you do you'll die instantly.

Music is also just kind of there; with the exception of the final boss song I wasn't particularly engrossed. There's only a handful of songs anyway, but they work as background noise I suppose. 

Killin zombies. Mandatory for any game now-a-days.

Should you get The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai? Well...maybe. The sequel, Vampire Smile, is basically the same game with more fluid gameplay, a better single player, improved graphics, multiple characters, and more weapons. It also just plays better as a whole (though it is easier). It's like Gears of War 2 vs Gears of War: you admire the first game for what it is, but it's clear the second is the one you'll go back to. I suggest picking up the free XBLA demo. If you dig it, it's only $10, and you'll be well trained for Vampire Smile after you beat it. If not, you can probably just jump straight to the second one, though I do not for a second regret buying both (and I'll buy a third one, Silva! Make it happen!). Again, for $10 you are getting a ton of content, and if you don't mind having your butt kicked over and over (or if you enjoy it), there's a lot to love here. Fans of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden should really give this game a look.

Despite its mistakes, it still is a great XBLA title, and an achievement for indie games. Four out of five stars.

Going down...

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Week in Review for 3/18/2012 - Indie Week

The bomb dot com

So for those not in the know, GiantBomb, my favorite gaming site, recently was purchased by CBS Interactive and is now a part of Gamespot. I was a little worried at first because, well, they kind of left Gamespot to make GiantBomb, and that sort of indie "we do whatever we want" mentality has been why the site has always been so great. That and Quick Looks. Quick Looks are eternally useful (and usually hilarious).

But it seems everything will end up alright, so I wish the very best to the Bombarders in their new offices. Keep the magic coming, guys. 

So this week I reviewed what I thought were overrated games and then did a Prince of Persia binge on Sunday because...why not? I didn't get all the overrated games I intended to, but I did hit the big three I really wanted to review, so we'll leave it at that.

It was 13 reviews this week, pushing us up to 115 grand total. Not as much as usual, but in personal life this week was pretty crap, so hopefully the next one will go better. 

I am uncertain what to do for next week's "theme." It was going to be "Underrated Games" (and still might be), but that theme can only go so far. So currently it's just going to be random slush that I review when I think of it (probably some JRPGs, retro PC games, and maybe some others). I am also considering booting up my windows and burning through my massive collection of PC Indie games and giving them reviews (as well as Xbox Live Indie Games), so we could have an Indie week. Maybe we'll do that this week anyway. Who knows.

Anyway, here's this week's batch. 


You all have a great week.

EDIT: We decided on indie week. So enjoy reviews of lots of indie games!