Smash! Slice! Rip off enemy head and beat them to DEATH with it! These come together fluidly to make a badass game.
Graphically,
It's all in the booms and the finishes. Nothing is more orgasmic than beautiful particle effects in slow-mo of an explosion, while you're wrestling an enemy's gun out of his hands, shoving it into his mouth, and pulling the trigger, resulting in fountains of blood spraying EVERYWHERE. This game probably has the best effects of any XBLA that I've seen. The gray scale environments really focus the attention on what's going on in the game, as you need full attention and honed reflexes to conquer some enemies. Dish magic, really looks great. All the effects, such as the finishes, have a cool slow-motion time stop, intensive lines make a circle on the screen, zooming in slightly with a tilt showing the badass-ness of this game. In the heat of battle, containing many of the events such as booms and finishes, there is a slight screen tear in the bottom part of the screen. It's not that noticeable, but remember, this game isn't carried by its graphics. But they do help a lot. ;)
Gameplay,
This button masher actually discourages mashing, as the AI learn to block attacks that are spammed, forcing you to switch it up, resulting in the badass finishes, slow-mo slices, and dish magic. This game's controls are very flexible. Say you die because you haven't maximized the efficiency of your button pressing, the buttons have shortcuts. Examples are:
Left Stick (pressed down) = A,
LB = RT + X,
and more. While they may not seem like much, these minute options allow for hands to do things without having one thumb to go to the other side. Ignoring these shortcuts, the controls feel great, responsive, and just plain easy. The finishing moves are divided into two groups:
The Clean
The Messy
(Guess which one's my favorite :P)
Messy are the brutal bloody ones.
(Ripping a guy's head off with your bear hands and beating him to death with his own head)
Clean are the quick ones that do some splash damage. They don't make time slow, the camera tilt, etc. Just a slice of a guy in half.
There is a point at some levels where you grab a guitar and rock out. The solos sound great and give a well-deserved break and a chance for the sweat to dry off our tense bodies.
The game is rather difficult. This is where the control shortcuts come in. The game is difficult, never cheap. The shortcuts allow you to save valuable instants. This game is for the not easily frustrated. So if you lost a pet on Viva Pinata and cussed out the game, snapped the disk, and burned it, 1. you need help. 2. you shouldn't play this game. But if you're like me and can take a lot of deaths before playing something else, try this game, it's really great.
Story,
Ok. It's called the dishwasher. Does anybody need anything more!?
Value,
Multiplayer adds some fun to the action in arcade mode, and the game's huge single player story mode is HUGE already, so yeah, in my opinion it gives you more bang for your buck than most arcade games. In my opinion this game deserves all the hype it got.
Sound,
I love the guitar in the game. It electrifies the game, making IT EVEN MORE BADASS. The guitar solo sections sound great too.
I love this game. Awesome. I think it's the most badass arcade game out. it takes badassary to a whole new level.
BUY IT!
If you're into these games... like me, so if you think it's fun to be a sadistic sick blood covered cleaver wielding person, buy it, because you know you want to. At least try the trial, most people I know say it looks stupid before they play the trial, then they love it.