The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai
While it never quite hit the same level of notoriety as Castle Crashers or Super Meat Boy, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was one of the first games to help establish Xbox Live Arcade as a lively space for indie experimentation in console gaming. The scratchy, hand-drawn 2D brawler was gruesome and personal, with finishing moves and a guitar minigame that rounded out its morbid interpretation of industrial kitchen work life. It’s the only game in Ska Studios’ brawler trilogy to never get ported to PC, in addition to some of developer James Silva’s other early projects. — Ethan
Status: Free demo available. $10 to buy.
