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Zeit 2 and random zombie deals on Xbox Live next week
Ubisoft's time-traveling shmup, Zeit 2, is the lone game listed in Major Nelson's latest list of upcoming Xbox Live Arcade releases. If that doesn't quite sate your gaming appetite, Live is also throwing a random "Back from the Dead" promotion by cutting the price of Zombie Apocalypse and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai to 400 Points ($5) each. Plants vs. Zombies will continue the promotion the following week by going on sale for 800 Points ($10). Next week will also discount "more than 25 pieces" of DLC from Activision, including Call of Duty map packs, Guitar Hero songs and Arcade games. EA will get its chance starting January 18, with an equally vague promise of "one-time savings" on EA "content." For the full schedule of Xbox Live releases, check past the break.
XBL Deal of the Week: The Dishwasher Dead Samurai for $5
As Xbox Live Deals of the Week go, this week's is pretty darn good. This week only, Xbox Live Gold members can enjoy the violent, bloody fun of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai for only five bucks -- fully half off the title's standard price of $10. Not a bad deal for one of the better action games on XBLA, and the perfect excuse to get acquainted with the titular character before the (still undated) release of the game's sequel, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. Remember, you'll have to be signed into Xbox Live Gold to see the discount. Xbox.com: Add The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai to your Xbox 360 download queue ($5)
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile announced for XBLA; watch the trailer now
The Fervor Shine countdown has ended, and, as surmised, Ska Studios has announced a sequel to The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Entitled The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, the game features the return of everyone's favorite table-busing warrior. Ska released a trailer and screens for the title, confirming the accuracy of the images that were leaked last year -- including the giant scissors. Today's announcement reveals additional weapons, including a humongous syringe called the Painkiller and the Violence Hammer, "whose business end consists of a section of girder wrapped in barbed wire and random hardware." Vampire Smile is running on a new engine and contains a single-player campaign, a co-op campaign, 50 challenge levels, and an endless challenge mode. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile will be available "when it's done." If you can't wait that long, it will also be playable at the PAX East convention, along with Ska's upcoming Xbox Live Indie Game, Charlie Murder. %Gallery-86333%
Ska Studios teases new Dishwasher with ... dish soap
click for full size cleaning power! It makes sense, really, that Ska Studios would tease something to do with The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai using dish soap. After all, he is a dishwasher. The studio -- currently working on XBLA Indie Game Charlie Murder -- recently sent Joystiq a package containing the yellow liquid with a card claiming that it has partnered with a Japanese soap supplier to make the Dishwasher its mascot. The soap, incidentally, sports "nearly toxic cleaning power" and a "100% non-organic, overly chemical smelling lemon aroma". A quick jaunt over to the "supplier's" website reveals the same image seen on the soap bottle and a countdown set to expire Wednesday, February 24. It's worth pointing out that Microsoft hasn't announced the Xbox Live Arcade release for that week, so it's possible we might be seeing the all-but-confirmed Dishwasher sequel. While that seems just a tad unlikely given the promotion surrounding the first game, it certainly seems like we'll be hearing something about a new Dishwasher game. Well, either that or this whole spiel about a random Japanese soap firm sponsoring a random XBLA game is actually real, in which case we're assuming a new brand of soap will be revealed. We can only hope it's pomegranate scented.
Dishwasher dev announces Charlie Murder for Xbox Live Indie Games, coming 'March 2010'
Between Ska Studios' The Dishwasher last year, this year's I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1, and the recent announcement of Charlie Murder for Xbox Live Indie Games, the nascent developer has certainly been establishing a name for itself. The game's Facebook page offers us a first look at the characters and a bit of the gameplay (which seems to be an arcade beat-em' up with punk rockers/zombies), as well as a glimpse into the fictional band's history. The game's announcement tells us that Charlie Murder follows the eponymous punk rock band on a side-scrolling journey to find the lead singer's girlfriend, Skelekitten, murdering everything in its path along the way. Ska Studios will be heading to PAX East and we've been told there's a "good chance" the game will be there, though a release window of "March 2010" means we might even be playing from the comfort of our couches before that. %Gallery-83449%
Rumor: Screens of Dishwasher: Dead Samurai 2 leaked; Ska Studios responds
Or, if you prefer: "Tom Morello strikes again; joined by Rebecca Romijn and Zach Braff." Screenshots of what may be a sequel to the XBLA game The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai have landed on 1UP, allegedly supplied by the same saboteur that leaked those supposed Halo: Reach images. The shots certainly jive with the original game's art style and do feature some new enemies, backgrounds and objects. There are a number of new weapons shown, including a minigun, some kind of halberd, something that appears to be a giant syringe and -- our favorite -- a humongous pair of scissors. When reached for comment, Dishwasher creator James Silva said, "Ska Studios does not comment on rumor and speculation," and then added, "I'm never inviting Tom Morello, Rebecca Romijn and Zach Braff over again."
Days of Arcade promotion coming to XBLA March 18; Lode Runner, six other titles coming soon
Xbox Live figurehead Major Nelson recently updated his blog with the titillating announcement of a six-week long promotion titled the "Days of Arcade." Similar to last year's "Summer of Arcade" event, the promotion will kick off March 18 with the release of Hasbro Family Game Night, with the following five weeks bringing a number of highly anticipated titles to the Marketplace, including The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, Flock, Outrun Online Arcade, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, UNO Rush and Tozai Games' remake of Lode Runner. Aside from Game Night, we won't know which games are coming which weeks until Major Nelson announces them on the Mondays preceeding their Wednesday releases. However, as the keen-eyed mathmaticians among you have already noticed, with seven titles dropping in six weeks, one XBLA Wednesday will bring us a double dose of downloadable distractions. We've already canceled our Spring Break excursion to Cabo San Lucas in a fit of breathless anticipation.
Dishwasher: Dead Samurai features Joystiq-inspired 'Peter Moore Achievement'
When upcoming XBLA title The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai releases later this year, it'll come packaged with the sweet gaming aroma of X3F Joystiq. That's because one of The Dishwasher's Achievements, "The Peter Moore Achievement", was actually inspired by team Joystiq.As the story goes, back during episode 044 of the Xbox 360 Fancast, we got the opportunity to interview Dishwasher (and recently released ZP2K9) developer James Silva. During our conversation, we recommended adding a Peter Moore Achievement based on Dishwasher's guitar riff gameplay, an idea that paid respect to Mr. Moore's notoriously botched E307 Rock Band performance (when he accidentally pressed the 360's guide button while rocking out). Well, it looks like Silva took us up on our achievement idea, which means we have another award to add to our "Achievements Named by Joystiq - Trophy Case of Success."Fancy Achievement artwork, name and description can be viewed after the break.%Gallery-46223%
Trend watch: Following Molyneux, Dishwasher dev reviews own game
Taking a cue from Peter Molyneux's Fable II review, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai's developer, James Silva, took the opportunity to review his own game before its release. Silva declares that it's inexcusable for his game to have 2D graphics. 2D is "by definition" not HD and is "completely inadequate at capturing our imaginations." He also notes there are glaring omissions from the game like Blades of Chaos, a reasonably sized manskirt, nudity and a boss the "size of a large building." Silva's final verdict on his own game: 1/10.OUCH! Well, we'll have to do a metareview on The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai when it eventually releases to see if the critics agree with the developer's harsh treatment of the title. We can only expect Silva will now put some actual work into his game after giving it such a harsh review.**We pity the fool who doesn't see the tongues firmly planted in cheeks regarding all this.[Via X3F]
Silva reviews Dishwasher, falls short of expectations
We're being told that there's this a new shift in our industry for how video game reviews are being done. With old iron side, Peter Molyneux leading the movement, gone are the days where game reviews are done by those who haven't worked on the game, and in are game reviews actually done by the developers themselves. And following in Molyneux's footsteps is James Silva, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai creator who figured he'd do his own review of his own game. But before you scream "bias!", understand that most every developer is an honest soul (it's true). This developer honesty can be seen in Silva's review of The Dishwasher, where he gives his own game 1 out of 10, calling it "a mess" admitting that "not only are 2D graphics completely inadequate at capturing our imaginations, but 2D–by definition–is not HD." No truer words have been spoken. Make the jump to read creator James Silva's review of his own game and learn how truly bad it is. Any game that doesn't have a reasonably sized manskirt or nudity is "basically broken."
Deadly fresh Dishwasher: Dead Samurai screens
Mr. James Silva, wearer of all the development hats for upcoming XBLA game The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, just sent us ten, you heard right, ten fresh screenshots from The Dishwasher. And again, we have to admit, we're extremely impressed! The art style sells us instantly and the not so subtle touches of gory violence makes us get a tingly feeling in our stomachs. Yup, it's Dishwasher and it better release soon before our patience wears thin and we're forced to partake in our own real life samurai-style killing spree. Admittedly though, new screenshots like these do take the edge off those urges.%Gallery-15513%
All of Dishwasher's crazy modes and 3 player co-op
Mr. James Silva updated his The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai developer blog a bit ago (yeah, it has been a week, sue us!) and has revealed all the game modes that are going to be included in the game. Confirmed for inclusion in Dishwasher are game modes Dish Challenge (a wave after wave, kill, kill, kill type mode), Story Mode and Arcade. And Arcade is rather interesting, featuring various challenges comprised of different modes including Insta Kill, Vampire and the slow motion Bullet Time. Make your way over to the dev blog to read all the game mode details.Also, for whatever reason, we didn't actually acknowledge the fact that The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is confirmed to sport three player online story mode co-op! Huzzah! That's like, one more player than we expected. Thanks for that Silva.
The Dishwasher is still samurai killings its bugs
In a "Status Update!" over at Ska Studios' little corner of webspace, Mr. James Silva finally posted update news regarding the development of XBLA title The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. In his update, Silva tells us that Dishwasher has a "million, billion bugs" that are in the process of being squashed and that he has locked in Dishwasher to a super solid 60 frames per second. That isn't all, Dishwasher will be native 1280x720 resolution, will include a new (and hellza difficult) ranked story mode and showcase some newly prettified blood staining effects. Jump over to the Ska Studios blog to get your "dishwasheriffic" The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai game update.
GDC08: The man behind The Dishwasher
From what we can tell post XNA demo release, the buzz surrounding James Silva's The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai has been overwhelmingly positive. And rightfully so.After our Fancast chat with James a few months back, we knew he was onto something and were confident that trusty Silva wouldn't let us down. During that same Fancast we learned a little bit about The Dishwasher's history, where the idea came from and how he got involved with XNA development. Though, sadly, we felt that we never got a chance to know the real James Silva. But now we feel we have a better understanding of the man behind The Dishwasher thanks to a "James Silva - A Life" documentary video that was shown during Microsoft's GDC keynote. And after giving it a watch, we're much more spiritually connected to James and The Dishwasher, so much that we're thinking about leaving our cushy blogging job just to become dishwashers ourselves. Go ahead, give Silva's story a watch but be warned that it's a very touching tale. So touching that it may make you (or at least Major Nelson) shed a tear.
Fanswag Weekly: Dishwashin' Samurai tees [update]
Update: This giveaway is now closed and the winners have been notified. Check your inbox and your junk email inbox to see if you've won! Good luck ...The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai's creator James Silva was just a special guest host on this week's Fancast and what a fine job he did. And to commemorate Silva's A+ rated Fancast appearance he sent us a few black and sexy The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai T-shirts to giveaway. So, that's what we're doing, giving them away to you, our fellow fanboys. To win, just make a comment on this post (once a day through Friday) telling us about some of your worst job experiences. We know washing dishes isn't the most glamorous job and is pretty horrible in its own right, but we know you can one-up our samurai friend with your own job horror stories. Contest specifics are below.
