Twin-stick shooters are nothing new to the XBLIG Marketplace, but they generally get caught in the endless shuffle of titles that flood the platform unless they really stand out or showcase an exceptional level of polish. Fortunately Compromised delivers on both of these elements and proves to be well worth your time and money. Naturally, a game’s visuals are the first thing that grabs most of our attention, and there was no disappointment here. The aesthetic is a careful blend … →
Last Thursday at GDC, James Silva, lead dishwasher at Ska Studios, gave a postmortem for last year’s XBLA hit The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. He opened with the story of how the first game in the series, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai came to be. As a hobbyist developer in 2007, Silva submitted Dead Samurai as a Dream.Build.Play contestant just months before graduating college in upstate New York. Writing it off as something he didn’t believe would actually win, he soon forgot … →
If I were evaluating Invasion based on how much I wanted to like it, I would give it fifteen out of ten smoking laser rifles. A heavily Contra-inspired shooter that demolishes the fourth wall so thoroughly that it practically serves as a demo for another game? What could go wrong? Sadly, quite a bit, but not nearly enough to completely sour the experience. It might be a bit awkward at times, but damn do I love shooting aliens, and Invasion … →
How much would you pay for those sweet tunes from The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!1? A quarter? A dollar? A million dollars? Regardless of your answer, Ska Studios has some good news for you. They’ve released a nice chunk of their catalog on Bandcamp, which means you can name your own price to download the soundtracks. Now you can drift to sleep to that ridiculous I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!1 … →
Heavy news week! We have studios duking it out, another set of great releases and reviews to go along with it. Be sure to check out the site to win a free copy of Antipole as well. You do realize that you can leave us some love on iTunes as well right? Yeah, I know, that you know how to do that. You can also vote the others down and promote us rig-……too soon? ITunes: Subscribe to the podcast on … →
Things I learned from playing The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile a) Living organisms are really just sacs of blood and guts waiting to erupt b) Ninjas may be cool, but cybernetic ninjas are way cooler c) Cinder blocks wrapped in barbed wire are the best way to dispatch swarms of zombies d) Sometimes, the second time is the charm The original Dishwasher was one of those games I really wanted to love, but just didn’t enjoy nearly … →
Want to be the cool kid on the block playing the hottest XBLA jam before it’s even released? Ska Studios is celebrating next Wednesday’s launch of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile by giving away free codes for the game every other hour starting Tuesday at 5 AM Eastern. Head on over to their official website for all the ways to win, and check back Monday morning for our review of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. Bonus points for anyone who raps about their … →
As our ED-209-esque cybernetic foe crumbled to the ground, we stormed into the adjacent room, dashed up to the dapperly dressed man, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and brutally bashed his face into the floor, bathing his enormous self-portrait in his own crimson blood. The ironic part of this whole bloody mess? The dude was just about to pull the trigger of the gun rested against his temple to blow his own brains out. It was excessive, … →
