Saturday, February 11, 2012

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile = The BEST INDIE GAME EVER

    Straying away from mainstream releases, I have decided for today that I would review the independently developed, oddly named, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smiles. According to gamefaqs.com, Vampire Smiles is actually the sequel to The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. To put it simply, the games story makes no sense and while it tries its best to construct something coherent, it really is hard to follow. Again, the game is a direct sequel to Dead Samurai. You play one of two characters, bot siblings, attempting to stop the total robotization of the world. While, it's a trite premise, it provides the perfect excuse to slaughter anything and everything in your path.
    The first thing that catches your eyes in this game is definitely the visuals. The art style and graphics can be best described as being done by that creepy, kid in high school that drew all those "unique" images in their diary. All the saturated reds and and greens stand to great contrast with the black and white backgrounds. Every image in this game is hand-drawn, giving a sense of gritty realism that I have never felt in a game before. Each level is given context by a brief pre-comic sequence, which again, dose not do much to explain the games story, but nevertheless entertaining.
    You being the game by choosing one the two character's: The Dishwasher or his lunatic sister, The prisoner. Both characters have their own unique campaigns, which is a fine reason to play the story mode again. But it will most definitely be the action that keeps you coming back to the game. Regardless of which super powered warrior you choose, the 2D action is fast, frantic, and most importantly fun. The effortless controls makes it easy to slash away at an enemy, dive into one with a chainsaw, juggle an opponent in the air, then finish them off with one of the games many finishers. These grisly finishers are some of the best highlights of the game, as blood and limbs will be flying everywhere once the animation is over. Throughout your journey, you will acquire weapons and upgrades, unique to which character you will choose to play as. These tools of destruction range from the oversized cloud sword, to the humungous pair of scissors known as the guillotine, and even to the to a giant syringe known befittingly as the painkiller. You can easily switch between weapons via mid-combo to create some awe-inspiring, gratifying combos. Overall, the action feels much smoother compared to Dead Samurai due to the fluid animations and the much improved collision detection. The difficulty has also been scaled down immensely compared to its predecessor, but on normal, still provides an excellent challenge to the causal gamer. Aside from the single player, you can tackle arcade mode which provide many levels to test your prowess in the game. As a side note, all the majority of the game modes in this game can be played cooperatively, ensuring that a buddy of yours will never be left out of the fun.
    The flaws are numbered in the few with Vampire Smiles. Theres is an occasional Guitar Hero like mini game that you can attempt which breaks up the pace of the game. You also might feel a sense of aimlessness with the game as you wander from level to level waiting for the next fight. But these are all negligible issues, and should not deter you in any way from experiencing this game. At 800 Microsoft points ($10.00) The Dishwasher Vampire Smile is an game well worth playing and I guarantee you will enjoy every bloody second.




Links to images:
http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/04/06/vampire-smile-now-available/
http://www.vampiresmile.com/

Other links:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/990607-the-dishwasher-vampire-smile

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