Anyway, Dishwasher has been in the hands of merciless reviewers for almost a fortnight.

I’ve noticed a trend: everyone thinks that The Dishwasher is either an awesome game or a button masher.

This leads me to conclude that if you don’t play The Dishwasher like a button masher, you’ll think it’s an awesome game.  If you do play The Dishwasher like a button masher, well, eh… here’s what happens:

• You’ll get bored
• You’ll die
• You’ll get bored of dying
• You’ll write a review about how the game is boring and you die… and, seeing as it involves hand-drawn quirky art, must be compared to Alien Hominid

The Dishwasher is full of tricky, clever strategies that you must use if you want to make it on the higher difficulties.  Play the game like a button masher and you won’t really see what all the fuss is about.  Seems like the world of games journalism is divided into the “gamer” crowd and the “cooking mama” crowd.

So, here’s official word from the developer: Dishwasher is not a button masher!

Thank you.

I got a bunch of emails from indie gaming sites telling me they reviewed Dishwasher and loved it.  Here they are, after the jump:

Diehard GameFAN praised the “white knuckle difficulty combined with the non-stop action.”  They also won my undying love with this gem:

The challenge will put some people off of the game since if you try to button mash through it or do not get the hang of managing enemies and using combos, there is no way to progress.

Duh!

Dutch Gaming Society epically declared “Het is gelijktijdig een liefdesverklaring naar de brawlers van vroeger en een bewijs van vooruitgang binnen het genre. It is simultaneously a love declaration to the brawlers of the past and proof of progress within the genre.”  Google translate FTW!

FreezeCracker said “Overall, this game is for the gamers who label themselves hardcore and drink milk out of the carton. If you have the drive to learn and perfect the ways of the samurai in a video game, then hell yeah I will recommend you buy this the hell right now. The amount of replay value is insane, and I can promise you will be able to see yourself playing this game months from now, even years.”

And finally, a bunch of [CONTENT WARNING] Canadians did a video review:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FQfvKz6P0c]

Update: My Belgian friend Loïc was quick to point out that I’ve done it: I’ve pulled the “reviewers don’t understand me” trick!  I’ve gone emo!  Sorry about the whine!  I’m not sure if we had a bet going on this one, but I may end up having to ship more Hello Kitty merchandice to Belgium if we did .

What’d they give it?

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai – 8.0
+Feels good, controls well, looks lovely.
+ Substantial number of modes and options
-You’re too easily lost amid the onscreen chaos.
? Will there be a Dishwasher: Dead Again Samurai? Hope so!

Freaking awesome.

The being lost amid onscreen chaos point was a concern we looked at, ultimately deciding that the onscreen chaos was an integral bit of what makes The Dishwasher awesome.  It’s like Ninja Gaiden 2′s crappy camera: you hate it, but if we gave you God of War’s super-friendly, super-detached camera, the overall badassery of the game would be reduced to about 5-10% (I did the math).

Not to say I’m complaining.  Especially considering what I wanted to give the game…

Now if I can just fix this one last super obnoxious, cert crippling bug…

I have to wonder how “marketing” efforts from 100 years ago would have stood up to today’s. People made things they thought people would like, they marketed them in ways they thought would appeal, and everyone went on their merry way. Today, we have focus groups, market research, and all sorts of other data aimed squarely at allowing us to craft the most precise, effective marketing campaigns ever. Market research is an iterative process–each generation of marketing is more effective than the previous. But wait–this isn’t an anti-capitalist rant! It’s an anti-people rant. Bear with me…

Given the choice between instant and deferred gratification, people always lean toward the former. Broccoli will make you full and healthier in the long run, but deep fried chicken parts taste better, even if they will make you fat and disgusting. Guess what McDonald’s serves?

I often joke about creating the ultimate snack. I’d call it Buttersalt Cheesy Chips. There would be numerous flavors–you would never find Original Recipe Buttersalt Cheesy Chips. Store shelves would be stocked with Nacho Taco Buttersalt Cheesy Chips, Creamy Ranch Butter Salt Cheesy Chips, Blue Cheese Pizza Buttersalt Cheesy Chips, and so on. They would be the brightest, greasiest, most disgusting chips ever, and I think they’d sell like mad, because given the amount of time it will take to get the product to market, America will have graduated another generation of focus group-induced fattening, and be totally ready for my brand new heart attack in a bag.

I get frustrated by game reviews because I get the sense that reviewers are really just looking for more Buttersalt Cheesy Chips in videogame form. I kind of feel for the guys–you can’t really hope for any deferred gratification when you’ve got deadlines, a stack of games to review, and a fast fading attention span. Still, reviewers adore Buttersalt Cheesy Chips moments, so savvy developers are keen to deliver. Set pieces make great Buttersalt Cheesy Chips–great at first, but no lasting game play value.

This isn’t to say that big games have no game play–it’s usually quite the contrary. But when more focus is placed on the Buttersalt Cheesy Chips aspects of the game than the Broccoli and Rice aspects, you end up feeling empty inside with a bit of heartburn.

Going back to that Oblivion: it is, quite contrary to the title of this post, a Broccoli and Rice game.

The camera is absolutely paramount to setting the mood and feel of the game. When Devil May Cry first came out, a lot of reviewers didn’t like how the claustrophobic camera affected game play. They liked the mood and feel set by the camera, but didn’t like that you would sometimes get attacked by enemies out of screen. So Devil May Cry 2 was created, headed up by a former game reviewer, and guess what? The claustrophobic camera was gone, the claustrophobic sets were gone; the world was big, there were no more out-of-camera attacks, and people hated it. People missed the feel from the first one. They wanted tight corridors, crowded battles; they may even have been willing to turn a blind eye at the next out-of-camera attack, sacrificing that bit of unfair damage in the name of love of game design.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is a game that is meant to be beyond intense. When you pull the camera back, a la God of War/Heavenly Sword, you rob a bit of intensity from the feel of the game, and it leaves you with a choice: do you want to play a high-intensity game with an aggressive camera that sometimes leaves you feeling a little cheated, or do you want to play a medium-intensity game with a pulled back camera that shows you everything yet somehow lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

The camera is a design decision to evoke a certain mood. The game designer decides on the mood. To me, it’s almost as if game reviewers are looking at the game, saying “I didn’t like it because it’s not God of War,” and docking it 10-15 points for not being God of War. “I didn’t like Call of Duty 4 because it doesn’t have a cover system” is an equally valid complaint; I wonder why no one’s brought that up?

I think the core of the issue is that game reviewers have to really scramble to complete all of the new titles that land on their desk from week to week, preventing them from really soaking in the nuance and subtlety. Ninja Gaiden fanboys understand that the camera must add to the frenetic pace and, yes, be a little obnoxious at times, and that through time and patience it will become a necessary evil. Personally, I’m used to making mental notes as to where the out-of-camera baddies are and attacking what I cannot see–it makes me feel like a ninja. Reviewers, playing through the game at the easiest setting, simply jot down their first impressions: some dude from outside the camera killed me and now I’m pissed off.

I think the solution is a fanboy-only review site. Ninja Gaiden 2 reviewed by Ninja Gaiden fanboys, DMC4 reviewed by Devil May Cry fanboys, and so on.